Explore "Keramos" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Turn, turn, my wheel? Turn round and round / Without a pause, without a sound: / So spins the flying world away! / This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, / Follows the motion of my hand; / Far some must follow, and some command, / Though all are made of clay!
Thus sang the Potter at his task / Beneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree, / While o'er his features, like a mask, / The quilted sunshine and leaf-shade / Moved, as the boughs above him swayed, / And clothed him, till he seemed to be / A figure woven in tapestry, / So sumptuously was he arrayed / In that magnificent attire / Of sable tissue flaked with fire. / Like a magician he appeared, / A conjurer without book or beard; / And while he plied his magic art -- / For it was magical to me -- / I stood in silence and apart, / And wondered more and more to see / That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay / Rise up to meet the master's hand, / And now contract and now expand, / And even his slightest touch obey; / While ever in a thoughtful mood / He sang his ditty, and at times / Whistled a tune between the rhymes, / As a melodious interlude.