How does Eugenio Montale use imagery in On the Threshold?

Taking some of its imagery from the Ligurian landscape of Montale's youth, "On the Threshold" is a poem about the need to live more fully and with greater freedom in the present, rather than be trapped in the stifling influence of the past.

The speaker describes what is beyond the steep or sheer wall of the orchard as a "fury." He does not elaborate, but the word fury means a violent anger or wild rage. It likely refers to the tempestuous nature of life itself, with its potential for great destruction. The speaker goes on to say that if the person within the garden manages to "move forward," out of the deadening web of sterile memories and, presumably, into the fury, he or she may be "save[d]" by an encounter with a "phantom."