Dedication

                                                   You were also there: I can’t                                                   Detach the place from what you meant.                                                   Beneath my hands the earth is felt,                                                   Within my mind the landscape built.                                                   Something is missing. Add it. You                                                   Were something essential there, a true                                                   Gauge of my feeling, an event.

 

I. INTRODUCTION TO A LANDSCAPE

Difficult not to see significanceIn any landscape we are charged to watch,Impossible not to set all seasons thereFading like movements in a music oneTo other, slow spring into the fast rageOf summer that takes possession of a placeLeaving the residue of time to autumnRather than just a used and ravished landscape.

And never long able to see the placeAs it must be somewhere itself beyondAny regard of the ecstatic gazerOr any human attitude of mind,We blame all human happiness or griefUpon a place, make figures of our feelingAnd move them, as a story-teller mightMove modern heroes into ancient legends,Into the solid and acceptable land.

For who can keep a grief as pure griefOr hold a happiness against the heart?Noble indeed to impute our worthiest thoughtsTo a serene and splendid countrysideAnd therefore logical to let our loathingSee a storm looming in the summer light,The hills about to learn of landslides andThe entire landscape be quite swallowed upIn a surrender—a type of our death.