Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ASSISI, by ALFRED NOYES


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ASSISI, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I know a city on a hill, a mountain's castled crown
Last Line: Assisi grew into the light, as flowers and children grow.
Subject(s): Italy; Italians


I know a city on a hill, a mountain's castled crown,
Where, like the stairs the angels tread, the streets go up and down,
A city very small and kind and full of strange renown.

It stands upon an eastern height and looks towards the West.
Far off, it sees Perugia, its ancient foe, at rest;
And all the birds of Italy are gathered to its breast.

So small, so kind, but smaller far in the dim gulf below,
The world of men and all the tides that toss them to and fro,
While on its crag that city stands, crowned with the sunset glow.

Still, like a leen dark cypress there, against the clouds on high,
Brother of sun and moon and star, he towers into the sky,
As long ago, with arms up-stretched, while all things else went by.

Stone of his own immortal hill has made those ramparts bright,
The warm white stone that glows at dusk with a soft unearthly light,
And delicate tones of heaven's own rose while the plains are lost in night.

They told me of the lamp-lit tomb where dust in dust was laid,
Of painted wings from Paradise that on their walls decayed;
But not of this, this flower of light, that fades, and cannot fade.

They did not tell me how it chanced that the small bright streets were bare,
And hushed for love, as love went up, by cloister and winding stair,
Till a little lamp-lit window shone like an altar lit for prayer.

Oh bravely, bravely flash the swords beneath St. Peter's dome.
Proudly the silver trumpets ring across the world from Rome;
But this was on a higher hill, and a little nearer home.

A little nearer home that night, when skies had ceased to glow;
And the great plain of Umbria was dark as death below,
Assisi grew into the light, as flowers and children grow.





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