A Moment in Florence
A LADEN cart goes creaking down
The storied street of the fair town
Of Florence, where like jewel set
With subtlest tracery and fret
Of fair-wrought window, carven door,
Or San Michele evermore
Speaks, through the saints’ most holy band,
Of toil and beauty, hand in hand.
The storied street of the fair town
Of Florence, where like jewel set
With subtlest tracery and fret
Of fair-wrought window, carven door,
Or San Michele evermore
Speaks, through the saints’ most holy band,
Of toil and beauty, hand in hand.
They trafficked here in corn and wheat;
Here thousands came, with praying feet,
For healing of the gracious face
Of her who blessed the market place.
They fashioned this immortal shrine
To keep the week-day task divine;
Makers of doublets and of shoes
Claimed the high speech that artists use;
Then mason, smith, and carpenter
Bade sculptors fashion forth for her
Enshrined within, — as still is shown, —
Orcagna’s miracle of stone,
Saints haloed, living now as then,
The holy ones who walk with men:
So carven lips should speak their praise
For nights of peace and busy days,
Making for them unceasing prayer —
Encompassed round by those aware —
That gracious hands might still assoil
The stains of traffic and of toil.
Of faith and art the golden days
When merchandise was prayer and praise,
And merchant princes vied to dower
With training, young of gift and power,
Making the lilied city shine.
Glory of shapen curve and line
Spoke inmost truth, and art was whole —
Beauty of body and of soul.
Here thousands came, with praying feet,
For healing of the gracious face
Of her who blessed the market place.
They fashioned this immortal shrine
To keep the week-day task divine;
Makers of doublets and of shoes
Claimed the high speech that artists use;
Then mason, smith, and carpenter
Bade sculptors fashion forth for her
Enshrined within, — as still is shown, —
Orcagna’s miracle of stone,
Saints haloed, living now as then,
The holy ones who walk with men:
So carven lips should speak their praise
For nights of peace and busy days,
Making for them unceasing prayer —
Encompassed round by those aware —
That gracious hands might still assoil
The stains of traffic and of toil.
Of faith and art the golden days
When merchandise was prayer and praise,
And merchant princes vied to dower
With training, young of gift and power,
Making the lilied city shine.
Glory of shapen curve and line
Spoke inmost truth, and art was whole —
Beauty of body and of soul.
The gold dust of November days
Gleams down the street in shining rays;
The mules’ bells tinkle through the beat
Of immemorial hasting feet.
The carter’s boy looks out upon
Saint Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John,
Saint Stephen, in whose youthful face,
Dawns, in gray stone, the martyr’s grace;
Saint George, in all his armor drest,
Saint James, Saint Philip, and the rest —
Saint after saint, in glory met,
Saint after saint, forever set
Above the city’s toil and stir,
Wrought by the artist-worshiper,
Niche after niche, the marble still
With youthful heart and mind a-thrill
Of those who had — perchance has he —
Genius of Tuscan Italy.
Gleams down the street in shining rays;
The mules’ bells tinkle through the beat
Of immemorial hasting feet.
The carter’s boy looks out upon
Saint Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John,
Saint Stephen, in whose youthful face,
Dawns, in gray stone, the martyr’s grace;
Saint George, in all his armor drest,
Saint James, Saint Philip, and the rest —
Saint after saint, in glory met,
Saint after saint, forever set
Above the city’s toil and stir,
Wrought by the artist-worshiper,
Niche after niche, the marble still
With youthful heart and mind a-thrill
Of those who had — perchance has he —
Genius of Tuscan Italy.
The carter’s boy looks out and sees
The tourists stand by twos and threes, Reading how statue number one
In fourteen hundred odd was done
By young Ghiberti; statue four
In fourteen hundred ten and more
By Donatello; point to show
Saint Thomas by Verrocchio,
Striving with busy mind to grasp
That beauty, safe within his clasp,
Woven within of subtlest mesh,
Bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh,
Aquiver in his heart, alive —
The tourist turns to statue five.
The tourists stand by twos and threes, Reading how statue number one
In fourteen hundred odd was done
By young Ghiberti; statue four
In fourteen hundred ten and more
By Donatello; point to show
Saint Thomas by Verrocchio,
Striving with busy mind to grasp
That beauty, safe within his clasp,
Woven within of subtlest mesh,
Bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh,
Aquiver in his heart, alive —
The tourist turns to statue five.
Stretched out upon the load of sand,
Shading his eyes with lifted hand,
Along the Stocking Makers’ Street,
Which, as of old, goes on to meet
Facade and campanile, dome,
Where loveliness has lasting home,
The carter’s boy goes dreaming on
Of Christ, Saint Thomas, and Saint John.
Shading his eyes with lifted hand,
Along the Stocking Makers’ Street,
Which, as of old, goes on to meet
Facade and campanile, dome,
Where loveliness has lasting home,
The carter’s boy goes dreaming on
Of Christ, Saint Thomas, and Saint John.
Had he his chance, what might he do
To set his kind a-praising too?
To set his kind a-praising too?