How does one understand and account for the miracle that is Trumbull Stickney's poem, In Ampezzo? At first I thought he had done something new and strange with the rhythm. But, no -- it's iambic/trochaic pentameter with a trimeter (trochee-iamb-iamb) ending each stanza and a few anapaests (or quick iambs) here and there. The syntax? At first it leads on from stanza to stanza matching the long panoramic views described by the speaker of the poem. Images and figures? Yes, they are good; some of them quite wonderful.
But the impact of poem is far greater than the sum of its components, that is, until we multiply each component by an indispensible factor: Genius!
To enjoy 'In Ampezzo,' all one needs to know is that Ampezzo is a resort valley in the Dolomite range of the Italian Alps, and that Tofana, Cristallo, Lavinores, Sorapis and Mezzodi are neighboring peaks and massifs. If you want to go there, it's on the map about 75 miles due north of Venice. If you want to see something of what it looks like, check out
THIS WEBSITE.
Here's the poem:
IN AMPEZZO
Only once more and not again--the larches
Shake to the wind their echo, "Not again,"--
We see, below the sky that over-arches
Heavy and blue, the plain
Between Tofana lying and Cristallo
In meadowy earths above the ringing stream:
Whence interchangeably desire may follow,
Hesitant as in dream,
At sunset, south, by lilac promontories
Under green skies to Italy, or forth
By calms of morning beyond Lavinores
Tyrolward and to north:
As now, this last of latter days, when over
The brownish fields by peasants are undone
Some widths of grass, some plots of mountain clover
Under the autumn sun,
With honey-warm perfume that risen lingers
In mazes of low heat, or takes the air,
Passing delicious as a woman's fingers
Passing amid the hair;
When scythes are swishing and the mower's muscle
Spans a repeated crescent to and fro,
Or in dry stalks of corn the sickles rustle,
Tangle, detach and go,
Far thro' the wide blue day and greening meadow
Whose blots of amber beaded are with sheaves,
Whereover pallidly a cloud-shadow
Deadens the earth and leaves:
Whilst high around and near, their heads of iron
Sunken in sky whose azure overlights
Ravine and edges, stand the grey and maron
Desolate Dolomites,--
And older than decay from the small summit
Unfolds a stream of pebbly wreckage down
Under the suns of midday, like some comet
Struck into gravel stone.
Faintly across this gold and amethystine
September, images of summer fade;
And gentle dreams now freshen on the pristine
Viols, awhile unplayed,
Of many a place where lovingly we wander,
More dearly held that quickly we forsake,--
A pine by sullen coasts, an oleander
Reddening on the lake.
And there, each year with more familiar motion,
From many a bird and windy forestries,
Or along shaking fringes of the ocean
Vapours of music rise.
From many easts the morning gives her splendour;
The shadows fill with colours we forget;
Remembered tints at evening grow tender,
Tarnished with violet.
Let us away! soon sheets of winter metal
On this discoloured mountain-land will close,
While elsewhere Spring-time weaves a crimson petal,
Builds and perfumes a rose.
Away! for here the mountain sinks in gravel.
Let us forget the unhappy site with change,
And go, if only happiness be travel
After the new and strange:--
Unless 't were better to be very single,
To follow some diviner monotone.
And in all beauties, where ourselves commingle,
Love but a love, but one,
Across this shadowy minute of our living,
What time our hearts so magically sing,
To meditate our fever, simply giving
All in a little thing?
Just as here, past yon dumb and melancholy
Sameness of ruin, while the mountains ail,
Summer and sunset-coloured autumn slowly
Dissipate down the vale;
And all these lines along the sky that measure,
Sorapis and the rocks of Mezzodi
Crumble by foamy miles into the azure
Mediterranean sea:
Whereas to-day at sunrise, under brambles,
A league above the moss and dying pines
I picked this little--in my hand that trembles--
Parcel of columbines.
G.
[This message has been edited by Golias (edited December 21, 2001).]
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