To what extent Does this implicate him in a kind of collective guilt? Do those memories make him a better or worse Observer and judge of his times? But in “encountering the gardener,” the act of remembrance is more personal and deliberate, Jolted by sudden encounters and utterances at the right moment. By the wayside I encountered a gardener, He asked from whence I came. Such comparisons are not inappropriate: They render the strange familiar and comprehensible. in the 20th century the dream faded. a knock-about south of the river, I carried ale as I went. The poem, however, is not part of his “official” collection. Never let your heart open with the spring flowers: One inch of Love is an inch of Ashes. fickle means changeable. in the city of good health, I am aging. Once I felt the moon and chanted poems of wind, but now I am old and have done nothing.