 | The Baroness of New York |  |
XIX.
There stands a sort of Chinese box,
A pied-house, topt with ginger-bread,
And speckled, as if from a pox.
An imitation, it is said,
Of the Venetian. That may be,
For it looks awfully at sea.
O, pity for the decent blocks,
Of square, and, doubtless, honest rocks,
That make this mixed and mottled pox.
A pied-house, topt with ginger-bread,
And speckled, as if from a pox.
An imitation, it is said,
Of the Venetian. That may be,
For it looks awfully at sea.
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Of square, and, doubtless, honest rocks,
That make this mixed and mottled pox.
O, shade of Michael Angelo,
Whom only death set in the shade!
Forgive my countrymen, and O,
Forget their large contempt of thee;
Forgive their crime's enormity,
In all these piles of bricks displayed.
Whom only death set in the shade!
Forgive my countrymen, and O,
Forget their large contempt of thee;
Forgive their crime's enormity,
In all these piles of bricks displayed.
What shame, what shame, to treat earth so!
My honest builders, do you know
That every bit of brother clay
That builds a wall or paves a way,
Is ever struggling to express
Some gentler form of loveliness?
My honest builders, do you know
That every bit of brother clay
That builds a wall or paves a way,
Is ever struggling to express
Some gentler form of loveliness?
Behold the beauty of a tree,
A leaf, a bud; and hearken, ye—
The vilest bit of stuff that falls,
Takes form and blossoms, if it can,
Along the lonesome path of man,
And makes earth beautiful to see.
But O, those melancholy walls!
'Tis hardly treating with respect
Your brother earth, it seems to me,
To give it such deformity.
A leaf, a bud; and hearken, ye—
The vilest bit of stuff that falls,
Takes form and blossoms, if it can,
Along the lonesome path of man,
And makes earth beautiful to see.
But O, those melancholy walls!
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Your brother earth, it seems to me,
To give it such deformity.
I beg your pardon. We return
To our mutton, sheep, or lambs—
The gentle lambs, whom both, I learn,
Are going to the crowded jams
In that pied-house, where men have sent
A thousand pictures to a Fair,
I speak with license, understand;
Perhaps a hundred had been lent,
But then a thousand sounds, in verse,
Or doggerel, or something worse,
More rounded, and a deal more grand.
To our mutton, sheep, or lambs—
The gentle lambs, whom both, I learn,
Are going to the crowded jams
In that pied-house, where men have sent
A thousand pictures to a Fair,
I speak with license, understand;
Perhaps a hundred had been lent,
But then a thousand sounds, in verse,
Or doggerel, or something worse,
More rounded, and a deal more grand.
| The Baroness of New York | |