I’m the scholar in a dark armchair. Branches and rain fling themselves at my library windows.

I’m the traveller on the high road through the knarled wood: the roar of the ocean drowns out my steps.

I watch the melancholy golden wash of the sunset for as long as it lasts.

I might well be the child left on a jetty that drifts out to open sea, the little farm-boy following the lane which reaches the sky.

The paths are rough. The little hills are covered in spring. The motionless air! How far away the birds and the fountains are!

Ahead must be the end of the world.