THIS is the house where once Ucello lived, | |
| Through this same doorway passed his trembling feet, | |
| Beyond the gates of Florence took their way,— | |
| A quaint, sad figure in the busy street. | |
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| Upon these walls, now dark and dim with age | 5 |
| (Yet to all time some touches may endure), | |
| Live the dumb creatures that he loved so well, | |
| Each with its own poetic portraiture. | |
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| A meek, most fanciful, and timid soul, | |
| Daily to loving birds he talked and read, | 10 |
| While they, with tender warblings soft and low, | |
| Fluttered forever round his patient head. | |
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| And often did these feathered songsters bring | |
| (As to St. Francis in the days of yore), | |
| When all the world looked dark and drear to him, | 15 |
| Most heavenly solace from their bounteous store. | |
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| With the celestial melody there grew | |
| Strange computations working in his brain; | |
| Dimensions visible of airy lines, | |
| Dreamed of, and thought, and dreamed of o’er again. | 20 |
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| He took from heaven immeasurable gifts, | |
| And gave them to the world, before untaught; | |
| He held his soul harmonious with the spheres, | |
| And problems solved, unknown to mortal thought. | |
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| Yet for all this, gay Florence loved him not, | 25 |
| Victorious, bright with laughter and with song; | |
| In him she only saw a meek, sad soul, | |
| Of little worth amid her brilliant throng. | |
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| Yet now she crowns him proudly as her son, | |
| And gives to him at last immortal fame, | 30 |
| And all can read who pass the crowded way | |
| Engraved upon this door Ucello’s name. | |
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