once pristine

'like words, ... images in a poem tend to fall into overtone themes united by either their denotations or connotations.' — Ciardi : 'All metaphor is basically a way of speaking of the unkown in terms of the known. The metaphoric formula may thus be stated: X (unkown) = Y (known) ... [The poet's] contract is simple: if the reader will bring a fluent and supple mind to play upon the Y of the metaphor, the poet will engage to give him an experience of the X. But he will also undertake to give him an experience of the pleasurable interplay of X upon Y'