Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE PICTURE OF AN ANGEL BY FRA ANGELICO, by DIGBY MACKWORTH DOLBEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE PICTURE OF AN ANGEL BY FRA ANGELICO, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Press each on each, sweet wings, and roof me in
Last Line: To rest me in a fairer italy.
Alternate Author Name(s): Dolben, Digby Augustus Stewart Mackworth
Subject(s): Angelico, Fra (1400-1455); Angels; Italy; Paintings & Painters; Guido Di Pietro; Italians


PRESS each on each, sweet wings, and roof me in
Some closed cell to hold my weariness,
Desired -- as from unshadowed plains to win
The palmy gloaming of the oases:

Glad wings, that floated ere the suns arose
Down pillared lines of ever-fruited trees,
Where thro' the many-gladed leafage flows
The uncreated noon of Paradise:

Soft wings, in contemplation oftentime
Stretched on the ocean-depths that drown desire,
Where lightening tides in never-falling chime
Ring round the angel isles in glass and fire:

From meadow-lands that sleep beyond the stars,
From lilied woods and waves the blessed see,
Pass, bird of God, ah pass the golden bars,
And in thy fair compassion pity me.

O for the garden city of the Flower,
Of jewelled Italy the chosen gem,
Where angels and Giotto dreamed a tower
In beauty as of New Jerusalem:

For there, when roseate as a winged cloud
Upon the saffron of the paling east --
A glowing pillar in the House of God --
That tower was born, the Very Loveliest,

Then shaking wings, and voices then that sang,
Passed up and down the chased jasper wall,
And through the crystal traceries outrang,
As when from deep to deep the seraphs call.

O for the valley slopes which Arno cleaves
With arrowy heads of gold unceasingly,
Parting the twilight of the grey-green leaves
As shafted sungleam on a rain-cloud sky:

For there, more white than mists of bloom above
When sunset kindles Luni's vineyard height,
Strange Presences have paced the olive grove,
And dazed the cypress cloister into light.

But not for me the angel-haunted South:
I spread my hands across the unlovely plain,
I faint for beauty in the daily drouth
Of beauty, as the fields for August rain.

Yet hope is mine against some Eastern dawn,
Not in a vision but reality,
To see thy wings, and in thine arms upborne,
To rest me in a fairer Italy.





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