Beauty foreign, my heart
empty. Love signaling
from her face.

In a grassy clearing, the woods
crying Waste. Why
bother?

In the shade of a beech, I
come to myself,
empty, turn back. It
is almost noon.

. . .

And while in this wise I
meditate, the tables are laid, nigh
on to noon. She holds my
head between her hands, as if
thunderstruck.

.

As for the front steps, they must always
be an odd number, so that the right
foot—with which one mounts
the first step—will be first to
reach the temple.

.

Beauty cries out, crying
with a foreign accent. Before
the head, within the body, with-
out pitch.

.

Between fall and rise, without
pitch. Consider well
the enormity of
what we must brook.

.

Bold knights, who've not their
hearts in their boots, and a thousand
foot, in a grassy clearing, foot-
loose. Why? Full
speed, says the king on the third
day of battle. Unaccented
syllables, rapid, my
heart empty.

.

Building, so far from shore, these
shadows of the high sea waves.

.

The distress which these notes cause, the
central part swollen and un-
graceful, open to the sky,
without a roof When tiles are
broken or thrown down by
wind, we may yet be
preserved intact.

.

The doors are latticework. Ex-
traordinary cadenzas, ornaments
serving to connect the notes,
enliven them, em-
phasize, elucidate. Without them the best
melody might appear meaningless and
empty.

.

A good retreat. Love
faces signals, would destroy
the gardens round the town. Tell
how great a madness: machines for
war, armor, salted
meat, a heap of the whole, the whole
set on fire, blasted,
dishonored, written down, greatly
dissatisfied. Now, faced with
noon, come awe-inspiring pronouncements in
love's unmistakable mispronunciation.

.

Heavenly houses should be
arranged so that passersby
can glimpse the gods.

.

If solid ground can
not be found, nothing but loose or
marshy earth to the bottom, then
it must be dug up, set with pilings
of charred alder, olive, oak. A dim
scale indeed, ascending hole
by hole, admitted only as passing notes.

.

If they touch, they
begin to rot.

.

Inky darkness discovered in
the doorway. In
such cases, love
signals: did you
see her yesterday? did you see
how pale she looked? does
she like dogs? have you
put the kettle on? My
heart in my boots.

.

In unison on the right, on
the left in counterpoint.

.

Low, broad, clumsy-roofed: let the
width of the front be
divided into eleven
parts and a half.

.

Many processions re-
joice the heart, conduct us
safely to the earth.

.

My harangue scarcely
pitched, I'm
troubled. No music from these
times remains. Why
bother? In spring
all the trees become
pregnant, lap up water, return
to their natural strength.

.

One must not build temples
to the same rules to
all gods alike. While
Valentine Snow plays, we
dispense with space, with absolute
pitch, with a steady scale.

.

On the lowest tier, up the
curving slope, at the top of the hill,
right in the center, there is
a mistaken idea,
colossal, out of
place, of remarkable clarity.

.

Players behave differently. But
still the temple is
empty with an emptiness
like the sun at noon. Exactly the
pitch of my own voice. Void, I
marvel in this marvelous
waste.

.

Rise or fall.

.

Speed, says the shade. Such
syllables within the body.

.

Spring infects us on the extreme
left, an evolution
of temperament.

.

Such delight in foreign
music—a taste for
exotic timbres. Between
the entire body and its separate
members, we have nothing but
respect, so vital
the delicate vacillations.

.

This arrangement involves
dangers: continuous
glide, columns cracked by
reason of the great
width of the intervals. Too
sensitive to permit any
answers, roaming across
Mitteleuropa, having no
rules for pain. . .

.

Toward noon, I turn
to this tremendous beech and
move into its shade.

.

We counteract ocular
deception by an adjustment
of proportions, the air seeming to
eat away and diminish the shaft.

.

We have no example of this.

.

What's there to
follow? Will you
come? At the sound of the
horn, perfect
peace restored.

.

With due regard to
diminution, let a line
be drawn. The higher the eye has
to climb, observing more anxious
values of symmetry, the less
easily can it make its way
through the thicker and
thicker mass of air, long
reiterations of single notes, con-
structed out of old roofing tiles.

. . .

Sun nearly to
noon, I turn
aside, seek shade.

Why follow
nothing? Why
waste the woods' green cry?

Love signals, but my heart
is empty, beauty
foreign.