Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SINGERS OF DELLA ROBBIA, by ALFRED BARRETT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SINGERS OF DELLA ROBBIA, by                    
First Line: Three florentines in stone, three singing boys
Last Line: Like angel altos listening for their key!
Subject(s): Sculpture & Sculptors; Singing & Singers; Songs


Three Florentines in stone, three singing boys
Inhabit all my dreams, their heads apoise,
Lips shaped to a song that never leaves their throats.
Pity the sculptor, dying, with the notes
Of their Adeste yet unheard! Who are
These voiceless singers? Angels? when the Star
Like a rose-window shines and plain-chant swells
From the rounded mouths of a million Gabriels?
The youngest angels at the Crib, who saw
Beauty Incarnate lying in the straw
And fell to dreaming and forgot to sing?
Through Gothic centuries the minsters ring
With antiphons of Bethlehem. Alone
Three singing boys, three Florentines in stone,
Spreading a sculptured scroll, wait breathlessly
Like angel altos listening for their key!





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