Storm and Stone, by Nigel Stuart

View of Toledo, by El Greco (Greece), 1596-1600.

Storm and Stone

Beneath the lightning's storm where nothing stirs,
Your beauty, like Toledo's bridge, remains:
Four centuries of night span now shares,
Yet Greco's arch, like you, my heart sustains.

As silver leaps from green 'cross Tagus' tide,
You sweep me past all threatening chasms' cares
And set me free to choose ways to your side,
That I might rest where my true love prefers.

There, stayed within the pillared ranks of men,
Insensate stone and cloistering beauty's pride,
I am but helpless till you choose, and then
Our souls are matched, mere marble's mask denied.

No stone, storm lit, in exile's fairest image shines
As fair as bounds my heart,
                                        where my fair's heart opines.

Nigel Stuart

Nigel Stuart is a retired history professor with a secondary professional interest in renaissance Europe, artistic practice, and in film. Toledo is one of his favourite places, and it appears in the painting by El Greco, in the film Tristana, and in this poem.

Stills from the film Tristana (Spain, 1970), by Luis Bunuel.