personal pessimism evolves into the peculiar philosophical pessimism of Leopardi. Le Rimembranze and L'appressamento della morte also belong to this early period of the art of Leopardi. The Idilli (1819–1821) The six Idilli ("Idylls"), namely Il sogno ("The dream"), L'Infinito ("The Infinite"), La sera del dì di festa ("The evening of the feast day"), Alla Luna ("To the Moon"), La vita solitaria ("The solitary life") and Lo spavento notturno ("Night-time terror"), followed hard upon the first canti. Il sogno is still Petrarchesque, while the others which followed are the fruit of a more mature and independent art. Leopardi establishes with nature a sort of accord which attenuates the pain and discomfort. In all of the idylls, the initial sparks, offered by memory or by the sweetness of nature, transmute their colors into the intuition of universal pain, of the transience of things, of the oppressive weight of eternity, of the inexorable passing of time, of the blind power of nature. L'Infinito The highest expression of poetry is reached in Leopardi in L'Infinito, which is at once philosophy and art, since in the brief harmony of the verses are concentrated the conclusions of long philosophical meditations. The theme is a concept, which mind can only with extreme difficulty conceive. The poet narrates an experience he often has when he sits in a secluded place on a hill. His eyes cannot reach the horizon, because of a hedge surrounding the site; his thought, instead, is able to imagine spaces without limits: "Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle, E questa siepe, che da tanta parte Dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude." Another interpretation suggests that this hill represents the heights human thought achieves, but at the top there is a hedge that prevents one from seeing the ultimate horizon, beyond death and existence. Thus this hedge can be interpreted as signifying the limits of human understanding regarding human existence in the Universe. This is why the poem begins with "Sempre caro mi fu" which can be translated as "It was always precious for me". The silence is deep; when a breath of wind comes, this voice sounds like the voice of present time, and by contrast it evokes all times past, and eternity. Thus, the poet's thought is overwhelmed by new and unknown suggestions, but "il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare" ("shipwreck / seems sweet to me in this sea." English translation by