Tuscany, long endeared to English hearts –
Vine, olive, maize, glories of song and stone –
We mourned your dead when chaos broke upon
That ordered life of husbandry and arts.
And we lament your treasures so defaced.
All beauty which the vandal floods have blurred,
All wrecked originals of brush and wood
Are pages torn for ever out of our living past.
The muddied inundations fall away
From cities and man’s heart. He’ll count the score,
Then put his house to rights and turn once more
To face the mountainous challenges. Nature may
Still overwhelm us: but from nature’s hand
Issues the clay we shape to an immortal end.
1 This poem was written for Laurence Olivier to read at a gala performance in aid of the Florentine Flood appeal.