Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863–1938) was an Italian poet, playwright, journalist, and politician, and served in the Royal Italian Army during World War I. 

The Chilean poetess Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945, adopted the first part of her pseudonym, Gabriela Mistral, as a tribute. Luchino Visconti's film, The Innocent, is adapted from D'Annunzio's novel. 

Alcyon is the title of a collection of his 88 poems. It was intended to be the third volume in a seven-part series called Laudi del cielo, del mare, della terra e degli eroi (Odes to the sky, the sea, the earth, and the heroes), but only four volumes were published: Maia, Elettra, Halcyon, and Merope. The seven books of the Laudi were named after the stars in the Pleiades cluster. 

In the historical biographical TV series Mussolini: Son of the Century, D'Annunzio is played by Paolo Pierobon. Available on Prime TV, the series is directed by Joe Wright and is based on the 2018 novel M: Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati. The series follows Benito Mussolini's early career from the founding of the Fasci Italiani in 1919 to his speech in Parliament on January 3, 1925. 

His best-known poem is La pioggia nel pineto (Rain in the Pinewood), which showcases the finest moments of D’Annunzio’s poetic craftsmanship and sensitivity. In it, summer takes center stage, symbolizing the vitality of life, while the poet is fully immersed in this life, blending with the natural elements and embodying all the senses.

The poet, along with his lover, explored the spirit of a damp Abruzzo Forest, listening to the rain fall on various trees and plants. Its lack of rigid form reflects early 20th-century trends to dissolve classical constraints, though it avoids the fragmentation seen in later avant-garde works. 

Read the English translation, but the friend who provided it did not mention the translator's name.

Be silent. At the edge

of the wood, I do not hear

the human words you say;

I hear newer words

spoken by droplets and leaves

far away. 

Listen. It rains 

from the scattered clouds.

It rains on the briny, burned

tamarisk,

it rains on the pine trees

scaly and rough,

it rains on the divine

myrtle,

on the bright genista flowers

gathered together,

on the junipers full of

fragrant berries,

it rains on our sylvan faces,

it rains on our bare hands

on our light clothes,

on the fresh thoughts

that our soul, renewed,

liberates,

on the beautiful fable

that beguiled you yesterday, 

that beguiles me today,

oh Hermione.

Can you hear? 

The rain falls

on the solitary vegetation

with a crackling noise that lasts

and varies in the air

according to the thicker,

less thick foliage. 

Listen. 

With their singing, the cicadas

are answering this weeping,

this southern wind weeping

that does not frighten them,

and nor does the grey sky.

And the pine tree

has a sound, the myrtle

another one, the juniper

yet another, different

instruments

under countless fingers. 

And we are immersed

in the sylvan spirit,

living the same

sylvan life;

and your inebriated face

is soft from the rain,

like a leaf,

and your hair

is fragrant like the light

genista flowers,

oh terrestrial creature

called Hermione.

Listen, listen! 

The song of the flying cicadas

becomes fainter and fainter

as the weeping grows stronger;

but a rougher song

rises from afar,

and flows in

from the humid remote shadow.

Softer and softer

gets weaker, fades away.

One lonely note

still trembles, fades away.

No one can hear the voice of the sea.

Now you can hear the silver rain

pouring in

on the foliage,

rain that purifies,

its roar that varies

according to the thicker,

less thick foliage.

Listen.

The child of the air is silent;

but the child

of the miry swamp, the frog,

far away,

sings in the deepest of shadows

who knows where, who knows where!

And it rains on your lashes,

Hermione.

It rains on your black lashes

as if you were weeping,

weeping from joy; not white

but almost green,

you seem to come out of the bark.

And life is in us fresh

and fragrant,

the heart in our chests is like a peach

untouched

under the eyelids our eyes

are like springs in the grass

and the teeth in our mouths

green almonds.

And we go from thicket to thicket,

at a time together, at a time apart

(the vegetation, thick and vigorous,

entwines our ankles

entangles our knees)

who knows where, who knows where!

And it rains on our sylvan faces,

it rains on our bare hands

on our light clothes,

on the fresh thoughts

that our soul, renewed, liberates,

on the beautiful fable

that beguiled me yesterday, 

that beguiles you today,

oh Hermione.