Lighter Lyrics
Lament for Stucco
On! for the eighteen twenties, When stucco most did shine, When taste was compos menus,. And streets were planned in- line ;-
Ere Ruskin's Gothic cure-all- - - Swept over hill and dale, When villages were rural, And cities still urbane.
• • • .
For what a nightmare followed !
Our architects, with pain, The Middle Ages swallowed, And spewed them up again ; Then drew their inspiration From Finns, and Lapps, and .Letts, And clothed a railway station , With spires and minarets.
Elizabethan gables Were wedded to a dome
Inspired by Persian fables Or nightmare dreams of Rome. Our architectural fountains Flowed from each distant land, From Greenland's icy mountains; And India's coral strand.
• • _ And tho' the fury's Waning That made our ghastly towns, Not yet is wisdom reigning— It still has ups and downs. For stucco there's no kindness ; My voice laments alone.
The heathen, inhis blindness, Bows down to Portland stone.
Ye, who rebuild our city !
Rinse, and reflect awhile, And, at the least, for pity, Evolve an urban style I Be taller; stroiager, ruder, But do not merely go' From imitation Tudor -- To •pseudo-Esquirnaux.1- JA:siE$ 'LAIVEln
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