Explore "Old Pictures in Florence" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The morn when first it thunders in March, / The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say: / As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch / Of the villa-gate this warm March day, / No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled / In the valley beneath where, white and wide / And washed by the morning water-gold, / Florence lay out on the mountain-side.
River and bridge and street and square / Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, / Through the live translucent bath of air, / As the sights in a magic crystal ball. / And of all I saw and of all I praised, / The most to praise and the best to see, / Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised: / But why did it more than startle me?