We go home now x

The frost is gone from the meadow grass in the early mornings.

      Maybe, somewhere, the nymphs and graces are dancing ..

Undoubtedly, it is just as well

that the experience of the nat-

ural world has suggested to so

many people a sense of seeing

something a genius has position-

ed; it is just as well, because

some marvelously opened minds

have bent themselves to sharing

this impression, in works which

seem to me to show undying life

of their own. For me, a greater

pleasure for the senses in the

natural world is the impression

that someone else has seen this,

too, tasted it or felt it; and

then to go indoors, which is

to say, into this understanding, 
is to know the nymphs and graces
where they live.

David Ferry

Of No Country I Know

  New and Selected Poems

  and Translations

  Horace

  Odes I, iv

  [fragment]

op. cit.