Panoramas are not what they used to be.
Claude has been dead a long time
And apostrophes are forbidden on the funicular.
Marx has ruined Nature,
For the moment.
For myself, I live by leaves,
So that corridors of clouds,
Corridors of cloudy thoughts,
Seem pretty much one:
I don't know what.
But in Claude how near one was
(In a world that is resting on pillars,
That was seen through arches)
Each stanza ends with a line that is vague, short, and rhythmically flat. This structural choice seems to mimic the act (and perhaps disappointment) of changing one’s focus from a sweeping panorama to a particular detail of the landscape’s flora. A botanist must make this choice and stick to it.
Botanist on Alp No. 1