2004-2005 Season: Enchanted April
Poestic Musings on Enchanted April
Still falls the Rain –
Dark as the world of man, black as
Our loss –
Blind as the nineteen hundred and
Forty nails
Upon the cross.
- EDITH SITWELL, “STILL FALLS THE RAIN”
It’s easy to understand why the most beautiful poems about England in the spring were written by poets living in Italy at the time.
- PHILIP DUNNE & JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ, “THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR”
I did not know, when I went to Italy, the nature of my undertaking, nor did I anticipate the meaning of my journey. I lived every day as I found it…I discovered everything I feared and everything I loved.
- BARBARA GRIZZUTTI HARRISON, “ITALIAN DAYS”
Italians are born knowing the way. It would seem that the whole earth lay before them, not as a map, but as a chess-board, whereon they continually behold the changing pieces as well as the squares. Anyone can find places, but the finding of people is a gift from God.
- E.M. FORSTER, “A ROOM WITH A VIEW”
It is impossible to live in a country which is continually under hatches…Rain! Rain! Rain!
- JOHN KEATS
I believe we should all behave quite differently if we lived in a warm, sunny climate all the time.
- NOEL COWARD, “BRIEF ENCOUNTER”
Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.
- ANNA AKMATOVA
…[the] air was not only breathable, but intoxicating. The sun, treading the earth like a vintager, drew from its heady fragrances, crushed out of it new colors…no one had seen Italy thus prostrate beneath the sun knew what secret treasures she could yield.
- EDITH WHARTON, “THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY”
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