[@3Certain letters written by Lorenzo de' Medici are sold at auction.@1] They shall come in and chat, their purses hid, The men who hold rare things and gently smile, They shall disturb frail, musty sheets and bid A fortune for this letter or gray file Of parchment, nobly written by the hand That loved to gleam in gems and curious rings, Point out a man for death -- give castles, land, Or rest on ermined shoulders of tall kings And through the room, as from an unsealed urn, Shadows will drift, faint shapes of Florence -- dead, Born of these records men shall lift and turn, Knowing as he, who gave the artists bread For white madonnas, saints, God's cloudy throne, A man may buy what he can never own! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ARGONAUTS (ARGONATUICA): MEDEA'S HESITATION by APOLLONIUS RHODIUS ON THE ART OF WRITING by PHILIP AYRES MY GARDEN by KATHARINE CANBY BALDERSTON THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL (VERSION 2) by WILLIAM BLAKE MARCH'S DAUGHTER by MAUDE PHILIPS BOARD HINC LACHRIMAE; OR THE AUTHOR TO AURORA: 47 by WILLIAM BOSWORTH |