Old Town and a New, An
I. FIESOLE, HOME OF FRA ANGELICO
The little towns of Tuscany —
How long they haunt the eye
When many a city's pageantry
In picture has passed by! —
The sunny piazzetta
Where joy and sorrow meet;
The mellow and friendly voices
Along the narrow street;
The toneful campanile,
The church's broad façade,
The trattoria's pergola
In festive verdure clad;
And somewhere — pride of the village —
A bronze with a world-known name
That gave to Art new beauty
And gave the town to Fame.
Angelico's aureoled angels
Their silent trumpets play:
Without that heavenly vision
What were Fiesole!
But the town is proud of the limner —
The monk of San Marco's cell —
And cherishes every footprint
Where he did dream and dwell.
Oh, land forever golden,
Oh, song forever young,
Where color is music painted
And music is color sung.
POUGHKEEPSIE, HOME OF TIMOTHY COLE
Great Engraver of the Old Masters
Beside a New World river
That slowly meets the main,
There stands a happy city
Beset by the noise of gain.
Drowned in its rushing traffic
A modest name is mute
That far into the future
Shall thrill like a sylvan flute.
The crowd his simple threshold
Goes by and knows him not;
With all its dull forgetting
By him it is forgot.
He is of God's anointed —
The pure of mind and heart
Who plant in every desert
An oasis of Art.
He is not of his country,
This truant from his Age,
Else could he not have wrought us
So rich a heritage.
The soul has its own nostalgia,
And cannot be content
With the groping world that swerves it
From its divinest bent.
He finds in his lights and shadows
The secrets of Italy
When Art enthroned the Holy Child
Asleep on its mother's knee.
Not less devout than the Frate
Is he of this doubting land;
As he bends at his block of beauty
He is praying with eye and hand.
The Tuscan rivers and mountains
Give ease to his graceful lines,
The Hudson is his Arno,
The Catskills his Appennines.
Fair though you be, Poughkeepsie,
And proud of your Learning's fane,
I give you a thought: Are you worthy
Of Cole of Ferris Lane?
The little towns of Tuscany —
How long they haunt the eye
When many a city's pageantry
In picture has passed by! —
The sunny piazzetta
Where joy and sorrow meet;
The mellow and friendly voices
Along the narrow street;
The toneful campanile,
The church's broad façade,
The trattoria's pergola
In festive verdure clad;
And somewhere — pride of the village —
A bronze with a world-known name
That gave to Art new beauty
And gave the town to Fame.
Angelico's aureoled angels
Their silent trumpets play:
Without that heavenly vision
What were Fiesole!
But the town is proud of the limner —
The monk of San Marco's cell —
And cherishes every footprint
Where he did dream and dwell.
Oh, land forever golden,
Oh, song forever young,
Where color is music painted
And music is color sung.
POUGHKEEPSIE, HOME OF TIMOTHY COLE
Great Engraver of the Old Masters
Beside a New World river
That slowly meets the main,
There stands a happy city
Beset by the noise of gain.
Drowned in its rushing traffic
A modest name is mute
That far into the future
Shall thrill like a sylvan flute.
The crowd his simple threshold
Goes by and knows him not;
With all its dull forgetting
By him it is forgot.
He is of God's anointed —
The pure of mind and heart
Who plant in every desert
An oasis of Art.
He is not of his country,
This truant from his Age,
Else could he not have wrought us
So rich a heritage.
The soul has its own nostalgia,
And cannot be content
With the groping world that swerves it
From its divinest bent.
He finds in his lights and shadows
The secrets of Italy
When Art enthroned the Holy Child
Asleep on its mother's knee.
Not less devout than the Frate
Is he of this doubting land;
As he bends at his block of beauty
He is praying with eye and hand.
The Tuscan rivers and mountains
Give ease to his graceful lines,
The Hudson is his Arno,
The Catskills his Appennines.
Fair though you be, Poughkeepsie,
And proud of your Learning's fane,
I give you a thought: Are you worthy
Of Cole of Ferris Lane?
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