Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and roundWithout a pause, without a sound: So spins the flying world away!This clay, well mixed with marl and sand,Follows the motion of my hand;Far some must follow, and some command, Though all are made of clay! Thus sang the Potter at his taskBeneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree,While o’er his features, like a mask,The quilted sunshine and leaf-shadeMoved, as the boughs above him swayed,And clothed him, till he seemed to beA figure woven in tapestry,So sumptuously was he arrayedIn that magnificent attireOf sable tissue flaked with fire.Like a magician he appeared,A conjurer without book or beard;And while he plied his magic art—For it was magical to me—I stood in silence and apart,And wondered more and more to seeThat shapeless, lifeless mass of clayRise up to meet the master’s hand,And now contract and now expand,And even his slightest touch obey;While ever in a thoughtful moodHe sang his ditty, and at timesWhistled a tune between the rhymes,As a melodious interlude. Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must changeTo something new, to something strange; Nothing that is can pause or stay;The moon will wax, the moon will wane,The mist and cloud will turn to rain,The rain to mist and cloud again, To-morrow be to-day. Thus still the Potter sang, and still,By some unconscious act of will,The melody and even the wordsWere intermingled with my thoughtAs bits of colored thread are caughtAnd woven into nests of birds.And thus to regions far remote,Beyond the ocean’s vast expanse,This wizard in the motley coatTransported me on wings of song,And by the northern shores of FranceBore me with restless speed along. What land is this that seems to beA mingling of the land and sea?This land of sluices, dikes, and dunes?This water-net, that tessellatesThe landscape? this unending mazeOf gardens, through whose latticed gatesThe imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze;Where in long summer afternoonsThe sunshine, softened by the haze,Comes streaming down as through a screen;Where over fields and pastures greenThe painted ships float high in air,And over all and everywhereThe sails of windmills sink and soarLike wings of sea-gulls on the shore? What land is this? Yon pretty townIs Delft, with all its wares displayed;The pride, the market-place, the crownAnd centre of the Potter’s trade.See! every house and room is brightWith glimmers of reflected lightFrom plates that on the dresser shine;Flagons to foam with Flemish beer,Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine,And pilgrim flasks with fleurs-de-lis,And ships upon a rolling sea,And tankards pewter topped, and queerWith comic mask and musketeer!Each hospitable chimney smilesA welcome from its painted tiles;The parlor walls, the chamber floors,The stairways and the corridors,The borders of the garden walks,Are beautiful with fadeless flowers,That never droop in winds or showers,And never wither on their stalks. Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief;What now is bud will soon be leaf, What now is leaf will soon decay;The wind blows east, the wind blows west;The blue eggs in the robin’s nestWill soon have wings and beak and breast, And flutter and fly away. Now southward through the air I glide,The song my only pursuivant,And see across the landscape wideThe blue Charente, upon whose tideThe belfries and the spires of SaintesRipple and rock from side to side,As, when an earthquake rends its walls,A crumbling city reels and falls. Who is it in the suburbs here,This Potter, working with such cheer,In this mean house, this mean attire,His manly features bronzed with fire,Whose figulines and rustic waresScarce find him bread from day to day?This madman, as the people say,Who breaks his tables and his chairsTo feed his furnace fires, nor caresWho goes unfed if they are fed,Nor who may live if they are dead?This alchemist with hollow cheeksAnd sunken, searching eyes, who seeks,By mingled earths and ores combinedWith potency of fire, to findSome new enamel, hard and bright,His dream, his passion, his delight? O Palissy! within thy breastBurned the hot fever of unrest;Thine was the prophets vision, thineThe exultation, the divineInsanity of noble minds,That never falters nor abates,But labors and endures and waits,Till all that it foresees it finds,Or what it cannot find creates! Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jarA touch can make, a touch can mar; And shall it to the Potter say,What makest thou? Thou hast no hand?As men who think to understandA world by their Creator planned, Who wiser is than they. Still guided by the dreamy song,As in a trance I float alongAbove the Pyrenean chain,Above the fields and farms of Spain,Above the bright Majorcan isle,That lends its softened name to art,—A spot, a dot upon the chart,Whose little towns, red-roofed with tile,Are ruby-lustred with the lightOf blazing furnaces by night,And crowned by day with wreaths of smoke.Then eastward, wafted in my flightOn my enchanter’s magic cloak,I sail across the Tyrrhene SeaInto the land of Italy,And o’er the windy Apennines,Mantled and musical with pines. The palaces, the princely halls,The doors of houses and the wallsOf churches and of belfry towers,Cloister and castle, street and mart,Are garlanded and gay with flowersThat blossom in the fields of art.Here Gubbio’s workshops gleam and glowWith brilliant, iridescent dyes,The dazzling whiteness of the snow,The cobalt blue of summer skies;And vase and scutcheon, cup and plate,In perfect finish emulateFaenza, Florence, Pesaro. Forth from Urbino’s gate there cameA youth with the angelic nameOf Raphael, in form and faceHimself angelic, and divineIn arts of color and design.From him Francesco Xanto caughtSomething of his transcendent grace,And into fictile fabrics wroughtSuggestions of the master’s thought.Nor less Maestro Giorgio shinesWith madre-perl and golden linesOf arabesques, and interweavesHis birds and fruits and flowers and leavesAbout some landscape, shaded brown,With olive tints on rock and town. Behold this cup within whose bowl,Upon a ground of deepest blueWith yellow-lustred stars o’erlaid,Colors of every tint and hueMingle in one harmonious whole!With large blue eyes and steadfast gaze,Her yellow hair in net and braid,Necklace and ear-rings all ablazeWith golden lustre o’er the glaze,A woman’s portrait; on the scroll,Cana, the Beautiful! A nameForgotten save for such brief fameAs this memorial can bestow,—A gift some lover long agoGave with his heart to this fair dame. A nobler title to renownIs thine, O pleasant Tuscan town,Seated beside the Arno’s stream;For Lucca della Robbia thereCreated forms so wondrous fair,They made thy sovereignty supreme.These choristers with lips of stone,Whose music is not heard, but seen,Still chant, as from their organ-screen,Their Maker’s praise; nor these alone,But the more fragile forms of clay,Hardly less beautiful than they,These saints and angels that adornThe walls of hospitals, and tellThe story of good deeds so wellThat poverty seems less forlorn,And life more like a holiday. Here in this old neglected church,That long eludes the traveller’s search,Lies the dead bishop on his tomb;Earth upon earth he slumbering lies,Life-like and death-like in the gloom;Garlands of fruit and flowers in bloomAnd foliage deck his resting place;A shadow in the sightless eyes,A pallor on the patient face,Made perfect by the furnace heat;All earthly passions and desiresBurnt out by purgatorial fires;Seeming to say, “Our years are fleet,And to the weary death is sweet.” But the most wonderful of allThe ornaments on tomb or wallThat grace the fair Ausonian shoresAre those the faithful earth restores,Near some Apulian town concealed,In vineyard…