O Palissy! within thy breast Burned the hot fever of unrest; Thine was the prophets 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 Creator 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! 'T is 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, Belted with jars and dripping weeds, Send forth their melancholy moans, As if, in their gray mantles hid, Dead anchorites of the Thebaid Knelt on the shore and told their beads, Beating their breasts with loud appeals And penitential tears and groans.