Nuremberg
So quiet it was in that high, sun-steeped room,
So warm and still, that sometimes with the light
Through the great windows, bright with bottle-panes,
There’d float a chime from clock-jacks out of sight,
Clapping iron mallets on green copper gongs.
But only in blown music from the town’s
Quaint horologe could Time intrude . . . you’d say
Clocks had been bolted out, the flux of years
Defied, and that high chamber sealed away
From earthly change by some old alchemist.
And, oh, those thousand towers of Nuremberg
Flowering like leaden trees outside the panes:
Those gabled roofs with smoking cowls, and those
Encrusted spires of stone, those golden vanes
On shining housetops paved with scarlet tiles!
And all day nine wrought-pewter manticores
Blinked from their spouting faucets, not five steps
Across the cobbled street, or, peering through
The rounds of glass, espied that sun-flushed room
With Dürer graving at intaglios.
O happy nine, spouting your dew all day
In green-scaled rows of metal, whilst the town
Moves peacefully below in quiet joy . . .
O happy gargoyles to be gazing down
On Albrecht Dürer and his plates of iron!
poem by Kenneth Slessor
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Green Home
Green Home
By Lori Triggs
Copyrighted 2009
I wish to have a green home to look like
A sinter block stucco 4 or 5 bedroom Italian villa home
With one floor even two master bedrooms and master baths.
I wish to have a green home made of
Reclaimed light woods with marbles,
Glass tiles even gradients the look of new.
I wish for many long with wide windows even
Long with wide double windows to see from,
And with fancy French doors in the bedrooms even den.
I want reclaimed blue jeans for installation for the home
With solar panels even water wells are off the grid with
Energy saving appliances and furnace that is very green to me.
I want a green home with polished brass faucets even fancy knobs
With towel racks of the same to look sleek and shiny even new,
Sinter block stucco wall 10 to 20 feet high with iron gates opens as sliders.
I want allot of lush gardens with
Butterfly bushes, all butterfly plants, even
Hummingbird plants even dragonfly planets with palm trees too
So I can sit and write in the lay Nile or by the pool even in the gardens.
poem by Lori Triggs
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Nuremberg
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient,
stands.
Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and
song,
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them
throng:
Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth
rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every
clime.
In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron hand,
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;
On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.
Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common
mart;
And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.
In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their
trust;
In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted
air.
Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
Lived and labored Albrecht Durer, the Evangelist of Art;
Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.
Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;
Dead he is not, but departed,--for the artist never dies.
Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,
That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its
air!
Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and
dismal lanes,
Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains.
From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows
build.
As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;
Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy
bloom
In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.
Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and
laughed.
But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;
Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,
As the old man gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and
long.
And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankard; in the master's antique chair.
Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye
Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.
Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's
regard;
But thy painter, Albrecht Durer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.
Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,
As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his
careless lay:
Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,
The nobility of labor,--the long pedigree of toil.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I saw you walking around
I saw you walking around
in Tuscan streets
between yellow painted villas
on roads of cobbled stone.
The sky was light blue
the Mediterranean a darker hue
and all the places
had red tiled roofs
and some balconies
cordoned off by black iron rails.
Somehow your soul
was lost in Italy
while you walked
through fields of purple lavender
smiling lovely and being high
on the sweet perfume.
At dusk the light shone bright yellow
from windows all over
and a little later
we drank sweet red wine
at a café
and borrowing a guitar
you singed along
with the performers in the street
and I know it’s great to dream
about life in romantic places everywhere
but I am here and drink my tea
and write these lines down.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Burgomeister's Well
A peaceful spot, a little street,
So still between the double roar
Of sea and city that it seemed
A rest in music, set before
Some clashing chords--vibrating yet
With hurried measures fast and sweet;
For so the harsh chords of the town,
And so the ocean's rythmic beat.
A little street with linden trees
So thickly set, the belfry's face
Was leaf-veiled, while above them pierced,
Four slender spires flamboyant grace.
Old porches carven when the trees,
Were seedlings yellow in the sun
Five hundred years ago that bright
Upon the quaint old city shone.
A fountain prim, and richly cut
In ruddy granite, carved to tell
How a good burgomeister rear'd
The stone above the people's well.
A sea-horse from his nostrils blew
Two silver threads; a dragon's lip
Dropp'd di'monds, and a giant hand
Held high an urn on finger tip.
'Twas there I met my little maid,
There saw her flaxen tresses first;
She filled the cup for one who lean'd
(A soldier, crippl'd and athirst)
Against the basin's carven rim;
Her dear small hand's white loveliness
Was pinkly flush'd, the gay bright drops
Plash'd on her brow and silken dress.
I took the flagon from her hand,
Too small, dear hand, for such a weight.
From cobweb weft and woof is spun
The tapestry of Life and Fate!
The linden trees had gilded buds,
The dove wheeled high on joyous wing,
When on that darling hand of hers
I slipped the glimmer of a ring.
Ah, golden heart, and golden locks
Ye wove so sweet, so sure a spell!
That quiet day I saw her first
Beside the Burgomeister's Well!
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Durer: Innsbruck, 1495
I had often, cowled in the slumbrous heavy air,
Closed my inanimate lids to find it real,
As I knew it would be, the colourful spires
And painted roofs, the high snows glimpsed at the back
All reversed in the quiet reflecting waters –
Not knowing than that Durer perceived it too.
Now I find that once more I have shrunk
To an interloper, robber of dead men’s dreams,
I had read in books that art is not easy
But no one warned that the mind repeats
In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still
The black swan of trespass on alien waters.
poem by James Phillip McAuley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Ancestral Dwelling
Dear to my heart are the ancestral dwellings of America,
Dearer than if they were haunted by ghosts of royal splendour;
These are the homes that were built by the brave beginners of a nation,
They are simple enough to be great, and full of a friendly dignity.
I love the old white farmhouses nestled in New England valleys,
Ample and long and low, with elm-trees feathering over them:
Borders of box in the yard, and lilacs, and old-fashioned Howers,
A fan-light above the door, and little square panes in the windows,
The wood-shed piled with maple and birch and hickory ready for winter,
The gambrel-roof with its garret crowded with household relics, --
All the tokens of prudent thrift and the spirit of self-reliance.
I love the look of the shingled houses that front the ocean;
Their backs are bowed, and their lichened sides are weather-beaten;
Soft in their colour as grey pearls, they are full of patience and courage.
They seem to grow out of the rocks, there is something indomitable about them:
Facing the briny wind in a lonely land they stand undaunted,
While the thin blue line of smoke from the square-built chimney rises,
Telling of shelter for man, with room for a hearth and a cradle.
I love the stately southern mansions with their tall white columns,
They look through avenues of trees, over fields where the cotton is growing;
I can see the flutter of white frocks along their shady porches,
Music and laughter float from the windows, the yards are full of hounds and horses.
They have all ridden away, yet the houses have not forgotten,
They are proud of their name and place, and their doors are always open,
For the thing they remember best is the pride of their ancient hospitality.
In the towns I love the discreet and tranquil Quaker dwellings,
With their demure brick faces and immaculate white-stone doorsteps;
And the gabled houses of the Dutch, with their high stoops and iron railings,
(I can see their little brass knobs shining in the morning sunlight);
And the solid houses of the descendants of the Puritans,
Fronting the street with their narrow doors and dormer-windows;
And the triple-galleried, many-pillared mansions of Charleston,
Standing sideways in their gardens full of roses and magnolias.
Yes, they are all dear to my heart, and in my eyes they are beautiful;
For under their roofs were nourished the thoughts that have made the nation;
The glory and strength of America came from her ancestral dwellings.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower
One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.
One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks its towers are like a dream.
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,
Pale roofs begin to gleam.
Looking down from a window high in a wall
He sees us all;
Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain,
Searching the sky, and going our ways again,
Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . .
There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees
What we are blind to,—we who mass and crowd
From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.
The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers,
Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly;
Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain.
The yellow lamps wink one by one again.
The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Tower
One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.
One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks its towers are like a dream.
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,
Pale roofs begin to gleam.
Looking down from a window high in a wall
He sees us all;
Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain,
Searching the sky, and going our ways again,
Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . .
There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees
What we are blind to,-we who mass and crowd
From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.
The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers,
Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly;
Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain.
The yellow lamps wink one by one again.
The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
As I my steps
As I my steps
Along the grated streets
Of sweet Valletta I retraced
I passed from street to street
And I me thought that I could find
The dwelling where you lived.
For me those streets familiar quite
Became as dearer and dearer
As I from city street to street
My steps retraced their bearer
Aye! Aye! The streets became as dearer
And beautiful more than I had seen
For years and years before:
The pregnant windows frowning black
Unmoving ghosts in city pent
I wandered quite what did they hide
Behind their closed doors:
The small quaint front doors in the street
A few light inches the cobble stones above
With memories faint and dim
And with fast-fretting hither and thither
The hazy residents of those small abodes
Hid from my anxious questioning sight.
And as I passed along the street
A chimney high I saw smiling with glee
As it played child-like with white passing clouds
Above the warm sun shone on the old stones
That dreamt and dreamt and dreamt of years untold.
Aye! Aye! The city old
Above the harbor glideth
In my warm dreams:
The sailing clouds
Above the trees
In the small garden passing:
The green leaves
In their high towers
With each to each
In their wild love-making
To each and each are rustling:
The citizens in city streets
With hurried steps are passing.
And whither do they pass
And thither do they go?
The silent steps
In the small sullen street
I start descending
As if some thief to catch
That in some city nook
From me is hiding:
A lazy cat
Watches with half-open’d eye:
Little beyond
The stench of its urine
Drown’d by the sweet sense
Of roses pent in mortar cask
And hanging from the city wall.
Yes! Time is passing
In this sweet silent city of my dreams:
Let me allow it pass
Into the ocean sea-blue
That in midst of it
Like as in lover’s arms
My senses and myself will sink.
And I will not speak
And I will not sing
If not my lyre speaks
If not my lyre sings.
poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Why has God given me such magnificent talent? It is a curse as well as a great blessing.
quote by Albrecht Durer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Nobody Gets Off In This Town
Nobody gets off in this town
Trains dont even slow down
My high school sweethearts married and gone
They met on a bus to san antone
The greyhound stops! somebody gets on
But nobody gets off in this town
Nobody gets off in this town
Old folks round here wear a frown
Now let me see if I can set the scene
Its a one-dog town and hes old and mean
Theres one stop light but its always green
Nobody gets off in this town
Nobody gets off in this town
High school colors are brown
They cant drag main because it kicks up dust
Their cars and their dreams are all starting to rust
The high school dances are always a bust
Nobody gets off in this town
Nobody gets off in this town
They oughta just tear it down
Cause in the winter you freeze and in the summer you fry
Utility bills the only thing that gets high
Id go for a drink but this county is dry
Nobody gets off
Nobody gets off
Nobody gets off in this square old merry-go-round
No, nobody gets off in this town
song performed by by Garth Brooks
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Perpetual Winter Never Known
When the light falls on winter evenings
And the river makes no sound in its passing
Behind the house, is silent but for its cold
Flowing, its reeds frozen stiffer than glass
How can one anticipate the dawn, a sudden
Blazing of sunlight thawing the harshest sky?
How can one not remember summer evenings?
Must not the tired heart sink and must not fear
Bite, like an acid, wrinkles in its stone?
Behind drawn curtains, gazing at the fire,
Think how the earth spins dumb and bound
By iron chains of frost through death-still air;
And how in every street the sealed windows
And orange cubes of firelight, how in houses
Cuckoo-clocks imitate the spring, candles are
Suns. Perpetual winter never known,
Families warm their hands and wait, nor
Ever doubt the season's transience.
poem by David Gascoyne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Better Part
THERE'S a grey old church on a wind-swept hill
Where three bent yew trees cower,
The gipsy roses grow there still,
And the thyme and Saint John's gold flower,
The pale blue violets that love the chalk
Cling light round the lichened stone,
And starlings chatter and grey owls talk
In the belfry o' nights alone.
It's a thousand leagues and a thousand years
From the brick-built, gas-lit town
To the little church where the wild thyme hears
The bees and the breeze of the down.
The town is crowded and hard and rough;
Let those fight in its press who will--
But the little churchyard is quiet enough,
And there's room in the churchyard still.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Rags & Old Iron
Norman curtis, oscar brown jr
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
I heard that old rag man now making his rounds
He came right to my alley lord with sorrowful sounds
Crying rags old iron and pulling his cart
Ask him how much hed give me for my broken heart
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
So I asked that old rag man how much he would pay
For a heart that was broken baby when you went away
For a burnt out old love light that no longer beams
And a couple of slightly used second hand dreams
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
For those big empty promises you used to make
For those memories of you that are no longer sweet
I wish he could haul them off down the street
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
When love doesnt last tell me what is it worth
It was once mamas most precious possession on earth
When I asked that old rag man if hed like to buy
He just shook his head and continued to cry
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
Rags old iron rags old iron
Rags old iron rags old iron rags old iron
song performed by by Nina Simone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Stranger On A Quiet Street
When all the thrills have been forgotten
The chill of night can call them home
And all the dreams that you left stranded
Will slowly start to come along
I felt it as she slipped away, slipped away
I didnt have the words to say
When I saw the stranger
A stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
You can go straight as an arrow
You can go straight as you dare
Walkin the old straight and narrow
Dont always get you there
The sun was shining when I saw it all
She was moving to a different beat
When I met a stranger
A stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
It came to me out of the blue, out of the blue
There came the moment that I really knew
When I met a stranger
A stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street, on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
Stranger on a quiet street
song performed by by Electric Light Orchestra
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
What beauty is, I know not, though it adheres to many things.
quote by Albrecht Durer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Cleaning Windows
Oh, the smell of the bakery from across the street
Got in my nose
As we carried our ladders down the street
With the wrought-iron gate rows
I went home and listened to jimmie rodgers in my lunch-break
Bought five woodbines at the shop on the corner
And went straight back to work.
Oh, sam was up on top
And I was on the bottom with the v
We went for lemonade and paris buns
At the shop and broke for tea
I collected from the lady
And I cleaned the fanlight inside-out
I was blowing saxophone on the weekend
In that down joint.
Whats my line?
Im happy cleaning windows
Take my time
Ill see you when my love grows
Baby dont let it slide
Im a working man in my prime
Cleaning windows (number a hundred and thirty-six)
I heard leadbelly and blind lemon
On the street where I was born
Sonny terry, brownie mcghee,
Muddy waters singin Im a rolling stone
I went home and read my christmas humphreys book on zen
Curiosity killed the cat
Kerouacs dharma bums and on the road
Whats my line?
Im happy cleaning windows
Take my time
Ill see you when my love grows
Baby dont let it slide
Im a working man in my prime
Cleaning windows...
song performed by by Van Morrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if one is idle.
quote by Albrecht Durer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Happy Town
in happy town(where
the flowers are laughing
&
the birds are singing)
love swims through the air
(we're all
happily soaked)
joy breathes from the trees
(: umbrage of
smiles(:
happiness floats in the pond
(((ripples) carry) laughter)
everyone
is welcome in
happy town
(strange
rs
&
new
comers)
happy town
is a secret paradise
(everyone
knows where it is)
there's a map in your heart
(i found my way there)
&
now
i live in happy town
(im happy)
comejoinme
Happy Town
in happy town(where
the flowers are laughing
&
the birds are singing)
love swims through the air
(we're all
happily soaked)
joy breathes from the trees
(: umbrage of
smiles :)
happiness floats in the pond
(((ripples) carry) laughter)
everyone
is welcome in
happy town
(strange
rs
&
new
comers)
happy town
is a secret paradise
(everyone
knows where it is)
there's a map in your heart
(i found my way there)
&
now
i live in happy town
(im happy)
comejoinme
poem by Kellen Davis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!