S. N. AFRIAT on the River Non Il quadrifoglio

stripped of accidental contours, bared of extraneous
matter. For instance in the poem—
Where is the end to sadness?
There is no end.
It blows through the world
Like a cold wind,
Set in motion
On the friendless frontiers
Of existence,
Where death and life
Confront each other
Out of their solitudes.
each line sets in with a native rhythm of its own,
with the cadence which must run through a selfcontained
sentence no less than in a lonely word. We
might say this is the rhythm of the thought itself.
Brief as they are, these poems have a wide
range. They seem to branch into a whole life
experience. The dates and factual occasions in which
they were written are forgotten but the moments
stand out and rebound in time.
In these poems, sharp sadness goes with the
vision of beauty. What is that vision since no theory
explains its striking vivifying power? Especially
from time to time it is gathered in lines of poetry;
Keats tells us about it in the opening of Endymion
and Shelley in his Spirit of Delight Wallace
Stevens in Susan and the Elders. Those feel it best
who also have the tragic sense. Afriat, in his own
way, tells us why.
Austin, Texas P. Vivante
1963
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