Letters to a Young Poet

My dear sir,

I received your letter of August 29th in Florence and not until now, after two months, am I letting you know it.  Please excuse this belatedness.  I do dislike writing letters when traveling because I need more than the basic writing implements:  I need quiet and solitude and at least one friendly hour.

We arrived in Rome about six weeks ago, at a time when it was still empty, hot, and notoriously feverish.  This condition, along with other mundane difficulties with accommodations, contributed to the unrest around us that seemed not to want to end, and to the strangeness of our surroundings and our temporary homelessmess.  Rome, if one does not know the city, can be depressingly sad for the first few days.  It affected me so, because it exudes a death-like, dreary atmosphere, typical of museums.   The over-abundandt relics of the past have been resurrected and their revival maintained with tremendous effort.  From them a very small segment presently makes its living.  All of these distorted and stale things are basically nothing more than coincidental remnants of another era and another kind of life, which is not ours and should not be considered as our own.  They have been indiscriminately overrated by many, including scholars and philologists and tourists, who habitually travel to Italy.

Finally, after weeks of daily resistance, one finds himself somewhat composed again, even if still a bit confused.  One says to himself: No, there is not more beauty here than elsewhere.  All these things have been restored and improved my the work of craftsmen.  They hae been and are admired and revered by generations past and present, and that will continue into the future.  All these things mean nothing, are nothing, and have no heart, no worth.  Yet there is much beauty here.

There is much beauty here because there is much beauty everywhere.   Unending streams of lively water flow over the old aqueducts in the large city.   They dance in the city squares over white stone bowls and spread themselves out in wide roomy basins.  They rustle by day and raise their voice to the night.   Night here is grand, expansive, soft from the winds, and full of stars.  And gardens are here, unforgettable avenues lined with trees.  And staircases are here, steps conceived by Michelangelo, steps that were modeled after downward gliding waters, broad in their descent, one step giving beith to another, as wave from wave.  Through such impressions one composes himself and wins himself back from the demands of the multiplicities that speak and chatter.  (How very talkative they are!) One gradually learns to recognize the very few things in which eternity dwells, which one can love, and solituds, of which one can softly partake.

I still reside in the city, at the Capitol, not far from the most beautiful sculpture of horse and rider that has been preserved for us from Roman art --- that of Marcus Aurelius.  However, in a few weeks I shall move to a quiet, modest room, and old summerhouse that lies lost deep in a large park, hidden from the noise and applause of the city.  There I shall live the whole winter and shall enjoy the great silence.  I expect it will give me the gift of pleasant times and hours of accomplishment...

From there, where I shall feel more at home, I shall write you a longer letter and shall include the subject of your writing.  Today I must tell you only this (perhaps it is not right that I did not do it sooner), that the book mentioned in your letter, which was to have contained work of yours, has not arrived here.  Has it perhaps been returned to you, perhaps from Worpswede?  For packages sent to a foreign country are not forwarded.  This possibility is the most likely and I would appreciate a confirmation.  I hope it does not mean a loss to you.  I regret to say that in Italy this kind of situation is not unusual.

I would gladly have received this book, as is true of everything that pertains to you.  Verses that you have meanwhile composed --- if you entrust them to me -- I shall always read, reread, and experience as well and as sincerely as I can.