Somewhere are places where we have really been

Somewhere are places where we have really been, dear spaces
Of our deeds and faces, scenes we remember
As unchanging because there we changed, where shops have names,
Dogs bark in the dark at a stranger’s footfall
And crops grow ripe and cattle fatten under the kind
Protection of a godling or godessling
Whose affection has been assigned them, to heed their needs and
Plead in heaven the special case of their place.

From W. H. Auden, “In Transit.”