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.
This city, walled and thickly set With glittering mosque and minaret, Is Cairo, in whose gay bazaars The dreaming traveller first inhales The perfume of Arabian gales, And sees the fabulous earthen jars, Huge as were those wherein the maid Morgiana found the Forty Thieves Concealed in midnight ambuscade;And seeing, more than half believes The fascinating tales that run Through all the Thousand Nights and One, Told by the fair Scheherezade.
More strange and wonderful than these Are the Egyptian deities, Ammonn, and Emeth, and the grand Osiris, holding in his hand The lotus; Isis, crowned and veiled;The sacred Ibis, and the Sphinx;
Bracelets with blue enamelled links;
The Scarabee in emerald mailed, Or spreading wide his funeral wings;Lamps that perchance their night-watch kept O'er Cleopatra while she slept,--All plundered from the tombs of kings.
Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race, Of every tongue, of every place, Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay, All that inhabit this great earth, Whatever be their rank or worth, Are kindred and allied by birth, And made of the same clay.
O'er desert sands, o'er gulf and bay, O'er Ganges and o'er Himalay, Bird-like I fly, and flying sing, To flowery kingdoms of Cathay, And bird-like poise on balanced wing Above the town of King-te-tching, A burning town, or seeming so,--Three thousand furnaces that glow Incessantly, and fill the air With smoke uprising, gyre on gyre And painted by the lurid glare, Of jets and flashes of red fire.
As leaves that in the autumn fall, Spotted and veined with various hues, Are swept along the avenues, And lie in heaps by hedge and wall, So from this grove of chimneys whirled To all the markets of the world, These porcelain leaves are wafted on,--Light yellow leaves with spots and stains Of violet and of crimson dye, Or tender azure of a sky Just washed by gentle April rains, And beautiful with celadon.
Nor less the coarser household wares,--
The willow pattern, that we knew In childhood, with its bridge of blue Leading to unknown thoroughfares;The solitary man who stares At the white river flowing through Its arches, the fantastic trees And wild perspective of the view;And intermingled among these The tiles that in our nurseries Filled us with wonder and delight, Or haunted us in dreams at night.
And yonder by Nankin, behold!
The Tower of Porcelain, strange and old, Uplifting to the astonished skies Its ninefold painted balconies, With balustrades of twining leaves, And roofs of tile, beneath whose eaves Hang porcelain bells that all the time Ring with a soft, melodious chime;While the whole fabric is ablaze With varied tints, all fused in one Great mass of color, like a maze Of flowers illumined by the sun.
Turn, turn, my wheel! What is begun At daybreak must at dark be done, To-morrow will be another day;To-morrow the hot furnace flame Will search the heart and try the frame, And stamp with honor or with shame These vessels made of clay.
Cradled and rocked in Eastern seas, The islands of the Japanese Beneath me lie; o'er lake and plain The stork, the heron, and the crane Through the clear realms of azure drift, And on the hillside I can see The villages of Imari, Whose thronged and flaming workshops lift Their twisted columns of smoke on high, Cloud cloisters that in ruins lie, With sunshine streaming through each rift, And broken arches of blue sky.