Alstonefield: first 8 stanzas of Part VI
Peter Riley
Il valore delle comune attenzioni concerning
il passare del tempo. The counting of joys,
ed i modi dell'amore, la triste persistenza dei giorni
dragging our hearts out of us more than the world,
molto più che il silenzio of work these things
uniscono le nostre forze . Pain and promise move
the hand to sign the contract and we are again
engaged, reader, by a factor of the earth bowling
between us. Quickly on a warm day I walk up
through the smell of moist leaves to a sheltered summit
And all the people in the land, as the clouds clear,
without priority, the fruit of work, all pain and
sorrows over. These are the ghosts in the white stone,
written in the strata: Go down, you blood red roses.
And all the work in the land, as the stars fade, doesn't
bear more result than a leaf reaching the ground, all
its joys a history. Such are the songs that surround us,
near and far to comforting me, shadows on the sea.
So with some sense of purpose on a thick morning I
pass by empty fields to a tree-crowned pinnacle.
