"Cisterns and stones; the fig-tree in the wall

Casts down her shadow, ashen as her boughs,

Across the road, across the thick white dust,

Down from the hill..."

The white-hot screech of brakes.

"Who could so stand, and see this evening fall,

This calm of husbandry, this redolent tilth,

This terracing of hills, this vintage wealth,

Without the pagan sanity of blood... ?" 

- Excerpts from Tuscany by Victoria Sackville-West