Triuna Island (verse)

...But as the dial Moves to the zenith, the heavens flash the sheen Of swords and shields hung with the passing noon Where El Dorado lifts its western wall...

...Louis Sullivan, Mr...

...The exposition at Paris leaves me with no doubt about the jewels...

...We will not bury our fine bare forms beneath a load of foreign ornament...

...The modern two-family house, with a solarium that opens on the street and exposes itself to every passerby, is the last word in imbecility—the point is that one must be as naked for a sun-bath as for a water-bath, and a method of achieving this is vital to a well-executed design...

...Edgar Lee Masters...

...There from this resting armor the glories fall Like fame of battle, and the rhythmic rune Of the lake awakes, till the riotous carnival Ends with the broken wine cup of the moon...

...What will save us from foolish profusion is the fact that original handicraft costs money...

...Now even the waters from their struggles cease Charmed by the spirit of the mountains' peace...

...What does all this come to ? It comes, I think, to a clearer appreciation of the way in which we lead, and the way in which we lag...

...Claude Bragdon, our architects have stultified themselves, inside and out, with obsolete and palpably dead systems of decoration...

...When one sets these interiors against the fanatically barren house exhibited by l'esprit nouveau group, or some of the pathetic machinations in steel that the great Soviet Russian exhibit shows, one is left with no doubt as to which is dead and which is alive...

...they have not been willing to undertake a fresh effort as creative artists, and, what is worse, they have pretty generously scoffed at and vilified those who made the attempt...

...Golden Day Flames fallen from the sun lie on the green Between the rocks and cedars of the isle, And fire the waters burning mile on mile...

...and it will tend to have the same relation to the broad frame of building, as the trees and flowers do among the walks, balustrades, fountains, and terraces of a formal garden...

...The Puritans of the machine would dehumanize even the dwelling house...

...but in countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, and even England, handicraft is palpably not dead...

...The lilies even amid the turmaline Lights of the shallows from the dawning glean A golden meditation, like the smile Upon the sleep of innocence...

...its great weakness is that it has no grasp of the decorative problem, and so falls again and again into a tepid imitation...

...The strength of our best American architecture is that it has begun to break away from stylicism and to face these new needs...

...and most of us will have to use it sparingly, jealously...

...nor will we accumulate mercenary knick-knacks, like our fathers before us...

...nor can we be content with the decorative fossils which are produced by the machine...

...Summer silence Balanced amid deep greens and astral blues, Where clouds and mountains are as magic islands Above the moving waters, as we lose Our separate life, and drift with the enchanted stream Of universal flowing...

...There must be a place in our architecture for what is precious, individual, human...

...The truth is that human idiosyncrasy, which is so irritating in the larger aspects of public building, and so ruinous to architecture, cannot be abolished—in the long run, aesthetic repression leads only to riot...

...for we, when we build well, build barely...

...We will live barely...

...Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mr...

...Except for a bare handful of architects, principally the late Mr...

...Triuna Island Day Peace of the mountains...

...Lalique's marvelous glass, particularly his glass fountain, the furniture of the Dutch, French, and English cabinet-makers, the dazzle of textiles from almost every old community— these efforts remind us that there is still a living tradition in handicraft...

...and so sense, Who move as dreams along this moving dream, A vastness and the haunting immanence Of the Secret which reveals itself and shrouds Itself in mountains and in summer clouds...

...But in the east the eye of Jupiter Roams to a drift of lavender, and on high The tapers of eternity pierce the blur Of infinite distance in the darkening sky...

...but one turns with relief to the main effort of the exposition, which gives one a little hope that perhaps we may humanize even the factory...

...Above the granite shoulders dark with pines A cloud of frosted crystal takes the light Flamed like a fan, where for an instant shines The twinkling Venus, vanishing from sight...

...And through the lingering day The waters beat their wings to find release, Like gulls that yearn but never fly away, Lured by the rocks forever...

...Nigkt Wounded upon the mountains the dying sun Empties his veins of scarlet and of gilt Upon the waters where the splendors run In slashes shadow cloven to the hilt...

...but here and there in our cool, restricted background, there will gleam a jewel...

...and that place, although we no longer live in a handicraft civilization, is occupied by the handicrafts, and by the creative arts that have grown out of them...

...Handicraft, original art, must again enter our architecture...

...We are always crying that handicraft is dead...

...This means that in America we cannot permanently turn our backs upon the decorative problem...

...Consider now the great advantage of Europe—the decorative arts lie very deep in the European soil, and though they have been nipped by industrialism, the root is sound, and is continually giving signs of new life...

...And the far-borne peace Of the summer cloud...