'The Days of a Man 



Beyond our Santa Clara's dales 

 I see your Arno's winding vales, 

 Gorged with the laurel-green and pine, 

 Slip from the "wind-grieved Apennine." 

 While still upon my garden wall 

 Thick leaves of Vallombrosa fall. 



II 



O regal city of the flowers! 



What glory thine! What fortune ours! 



Thou wert the home of deeds divine, 



The chosen of the ages thine. 



Thine, austere poets who could tell 



The inmost truths of Heaven and Hell. 



Thy grim old sophist pulled the strings 



That shift the destinies of kings. 



Thine, artists who on canvas wrought 



The fairest forms that men have sought. 



Thine, Cimabue's first approach, 



Thine, Raphael with the silken touch, 



Thine, sweet girl-faces that we know 



The loves of Fra Angelico. 



Thine, Vinci, humanest of men, 



His like no world shall see again. 



Sculptors and painters come and go, 



And still supreme thine Angelo! 



Thine those who, mastering lands and times, 



Wrote deathless themes in jagged rhymes. 



Here in thy Duomo unafraid 



Thy great evangelist has prayed. 



There is no gift time can bestow 



That thou, O Florence, dost not know! 



in 



Lorenzo's city, can it be 

 Thou livest but in history? 

 Are all the glories of thy race 

 Dissolved in sordid commonplace? 

 Seek'st thou on an unfriendly shore 

 The petty pillage of the Moor? 



c 252 : 



