runs the path—Not "a" path, but the narrow, inconspicuous trail which remains near to the sharp bank along which it runs, and because of its nearness follows along with the flowing of the spirit of the river. As the trail of men, the path has a connection to the poet's spirit, for human dwelling in the fertile soil of the earth must be a poetic one.
and into the river I Deep falls the brook—A shallow stream, whose bottom often appears when it glides over stones, must descend from the mountains and hasten toward the hidden depths of the wide river, and be borne by it to its destination in the sea, over which the voyage will lead the mariners to the "colony."
but above / Gaze out—Above the river and the gardens, above the town and the path and the brook, and nevertheless everywhere determined by the river and its bank, is a gaze, a glance which opens out into the distance, gathering into one everything that opens up. Those who glance and keep everything open are a noble pair / Of oaks and white poplars; they are not alike; the one is hard, broadly outstretched, and dark; the other is a slender tree, towering, trembling and light. Yet they belong together in the single openness of their nobility, which knows what dignity is, and therefore solely by virtue of its open glance is capable of bestowing dignity upon the river and upon everything that dwells within its beauty. The open gaze of this noble pair shelters the being and the vocation of the spirit of the river. In the silence of this greeting, which greets the "noble pair" of trees along the high bank of the river, the poet thinks of the departure that he took, which is unforgotten because it became the beginning of his poetic vocation.
Still I remember this well
The greeting has kept the greeted one well in mind and in memory. The greeted one was never forgotten. Nor can it ever be forgotten. For the greeted one has conveyed itself in thought to the one who greets. Thus the greeting is not simply the work of the one who greets. Is it not that the one who greets can greet only if he himself is greeted? Only if he is addressed