THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE. | IL PONTE VECCHIO DI FIRENZE
TURN, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round
Without a pause, without a sound:
So spins the flying world away! This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, Follows the motion of my hand; For some must follow, and some command,
Though all are made of clay!
Thus sang the Potter at his task Beneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree, While o'er his features, like a mask, The quilted sunshine and leaf-shade Moved, as the boughs above him swayed, And clothed him, till he seemed to be A figure woven in tapestry, So sumptuously was he arrayed In that magnificent attire Of sable tissue flaked with fire. Like a magician he appeared, A conjurer without book or beard ; And while he plied his magic art For it was magical to me - I stood in silence and apart, And wondered more and more to see That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay
| Rise up to meet the master's hand, And now contract and now expand, And even his slightest touch obey; While ever in a thoughtful mood He sang his ditty, and at times Whistled a tune between the rhymes, As a melodious interlude.
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
To something new, to something strange, Nothing that is can pause or stay; The moon will wax, the moon will wane. The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again,
To-morrow be to-day.
Thus still the Potter sang, and still, By some unconscious act of will, The melody and even the words Were intermingled with my thought, As bits of colored thread are caught And woven into nests of birds. And thus to regions far remote, Beyond the ocean's vast expanse, This wizard in the motley coat Transported me on wings of song,
And by the northern shores of France Bore me with restless speed along. What land is this that seems to be A mingling of the land and sea? This land of sluices, dikes, and dunes? This water-net, that tessellates The landscape? this unending maze Of gardens, through whose latticed gates The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze; Where in long summer afternoons The sunshine, softened by the haze, Comes streaming down as through screen;
Where over fields and pastures green The painted ships float high in air, And over all and everywhere The sails of windmills sink and soar Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore ?
Who is it in the suburbs here, This Potter, working with such cheer, In this mean house, this mean attire, His manly features bronzed with fire, Whose figulines and rustic wares Scarce find him bread from day to day I This madman, as the people say, Who breaks his tables and his chairs To feed his furnace fires, nor cares Who goes unfed if they are fed, Nor who may live if they are dead? a This alchemist with hollow cheeks And sunken, searching eyes, who seeks, By mingled earths and ores combined With potency of fire, to find Some new enamel, hard and bright, His dream, his passion, his delight?
What land is this? Yon pretty town Is Delft, with all its wares displayed; The pride, the market-place, the crown And centre of the Potter's trade. See! every house and room is bright With glimmers of reflected light From plates that on the dresser shine; Flagons to foam with Flemish beer, Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine, And pilgrim flasks with fleurs-de-lis, And ships upon a rolling sea, And tankards pewter topped, and queer With comic mask and musketeer! Each hospitable chimney smiles A welcome from its painted tiles; The parlor walls, the chamber floors, The stairways and the corridors, The borders of the garden walks, Are beautiful with fadeless flowers, That never droop in winds or showers, And never wither on their stalks.
Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief; What now is bud will soon be leaf,
What now is leaf will soon decay; The wind blows east, the wind blows west; The blue eggs in the robin's nest Will soon have wings and beak and breast, And flutter and fly away.
Now southward through the air I glide, The song my only pursuivant, And see across the landscape wide The blue Charente, upon whose tide The belfries and the spires of Saintes Ripple and rock from side to side, As, when an earthquake rends its walls, A crumbling city reels and falls.
O Palissy! within thy breast Burned the hot fever of unrest; Thine was the prophet's vision, thine The exultation, the divine Insanity of noble minds,
That never falters nor abates, But labors and endures and waits, Till all that it foresees it finds, Or what it cannot find creates !
Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar A touch can make, a touch can mar; And shall it to the Potter say, What makest thou? Thou hast no hand? As men who think to understand A world by their Creater planned, Who wiser is than they.
Still guided by the dreamy song, As in a trance I float along Above the Pyrenean chain, Above the fields and farms of Spain, Above the bright Majorcan isle, That lends its softened name to art, - A spot, a dot upon the chart, Whose little towns, red-roofed with tile, Are ruby-lustred with the light Of blazing furnaces by night, And crowned by day with wreaths of smoke.
Then eastward, wafted in my flight On my enchanter's magic cloak, I sail across the Tyrrhene Sea Into the land of Italy, And o'er the windy Apennines, Mantled and musical with pines.
The palaces, the princely halls, The doors of houses and the walls
Of churches and of belfry towers, Cloister and castle, street and mart, Are garlanded and gay with flowers That blossom in the fields of art. Here Gubbio's workshops gleam and glow With brilliant, iridescent dyes, The dazzling whiteness of the snow, The cobalt blue of summer skies; And vase and scutcheon, cup and plate, In perfect finish emulate Faenza, Florence, Pesaro.
Forth from Urbino's gate there came A youth with the angelic name Of Raphael, in form and face Himself angelic, and divine In arts of color and design. From him Francesco Xanto caught Something of his transcendent grace, And into fictile fabrics wrought Suggestions of the master's thought. Nor less Maestro Giorgio shines With madre-perl and golden lines Of arabesques, and interweaves His birds and fruits and flowers and leaves About some landscape, shaded brown, With olive tints on rock and town. Behold this cup within whose bowl, Upon a ground of deepest blue With yellow-lustred stars o'erlaid, Colors of every tint and hue Mingle in one harmonious whole ! With large blue eyes and steadfast gaze, Her yellow hair in net and braid, Necklace and ear-rings all ablaze With golden lustre o'er the glaze, A woman's portrait; on the scroll, Cana, the Beautiful! A name Forgotten save for such brief fame As this memorial can bestow, A gift some lover long ago Gave with his heart to this fair dame.
A nobler title to renown Is thine, O pleasant Tuscan town, Seated beside the Arno's stream; For Lucca della Robbia there Created forms so wondrous fair, They made thy sovereignty supreme. These choristers with lips of stone, Whose music is not heard, but seen, Still chant, as from their organ-screen, Their Maker's praise; nor these alone, But the more fragile forms of clay, Hardly less beautiful than they, These saints and angels that adorn The walls of hospitals, and tell
The story of good deeds so well That poverty seems less forlorn, And life more like a holiday.
Here in this old neglected church, That long eludes the traveller's search, Lies the dead bishop on his tomb; Earth upon earth he slumbering lies, Life-like and death-like in the gloom; Garlands of fruit and flowers in bloom And foliage deck his resting place; A shadow in the sightless eyes, A pallor on the patient face, Made perfect by the furnace heat; All earthly passions and desires Burnt out by purgatorial fires; Seeming to say, "Our years are fleet, And to the weary death is sweet."
But the most wonderful of all The ornaments on tomb or wall That grace the fair Ausonian shores Are those the faithful earth restores, Near some Apulian town concealed, In vineyard or in harvest field, Vases and urns and bas-reliefs, Memorials of forgotten griefs, Or records of heroic deeds
Of demigods and mighty chiefs: Figures that almost move and speak, And, buried amid mould and weeds, Still in their attitudes attest The presence of the graceful Greek, Achilles in his armor dressed, Alcides with the Cretan bull, And Aphrodite with her boy, Or lovely Helena of Troy, Still living and still beautiful.
Turn, turn, my wheel! 'Tis nature's plan The child should grow into the man,
The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray; In youth the heart exults and sings, The pulses leap, the feet have wings; In age the cricket chirps, and brings The harvest home of day.
And now the winds that southward blow, And cool the hot Sicilian isle, Bear me away. I see below The long line of the Libyan Nile, Flooding and feeding the parched land With annual ebb and overflow, A fallen palm whose branches lie Beneath the Abyssinian sky, Whose roots are in Egyptian sands. On either bank huge water-wheels,
Cloud cloisters that in ruins lie, With sunshine streaming through each | As artist or as artisan,
Who follows Nature. Never man,
And broken arches of blue sky.
All the bright flowers that fill the land, Ripple of waves on rock or sand, The snow on Fusiyama's cone, The midnight heaven so thickly sown With constellations of bright stars, The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make A whisper by each stream and lake, The saffron dawn, the sunset red, Are painted on these lovely jars ; Again the skylark sings, again The stork, the heron, and the crane Float through the azure overhead, The counterfeit and counterpart Of Nature reproduced in Art.
Art is the child of Nature; yes, Her darling child, in whom we trace The features of the mother's face, Her aspect and her attitude, All her majestic loveliness
Chastened and softened and subdued Into a more attractive grace, And with a human sense imbued. He is the greatest artist, then, Whether of pencil or of pen,
WARM and still is the summer night, As here by the river's brink I wander; White overhead are the stars, and white
Sing him the song of the green morass, And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.
The glimmering lamps on the hillside Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,
And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;
For only a sound of lament we discern, And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.
Sing of the air, and the wild delight Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you, The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you:
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