 | Poems by William D. Howells |  |
II.
Long ago the monks from their snug self-devotion were driven,Wistful and fat and slow: looking backward, I fancied them going
Out through the sculptured doorway, and down the Ponte de' Frati,
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And in my day their cells were barracks for Austrian soldiers,
Who in their turn have followed the Augustinian Friars.
As to the frescos, little remained of work once so perfect.
Summer and winter weather of some three cycles had wasted;
Plaster had fallen, and left unsightly blotches of ruin;
Wanton and stupid neglect had done its worst to the pictures:
Yet to the sympathetic and reverent eye was apparent—
Where the careless glance but found, in expanses of plaster,
Touches of incoherent color and lines interrupted—
Somewhat still of the life of surpassing splendor and glory
Filling the frescos once; and here and there was a figure,
Standing apart, and out from the common decay and confusion,
Flushed with immortal youth and ineffaceable beauty,
Such as that figure of Eve in pathetic expulsion from Eden.
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As is her well-known custom in thousands of acres of canvas.
| Poems by William D. Howells | |