Nativity, 1470-75

Piero della Francesca (Italy, 1415/20 - 1492)

oil on board 124 cm x 122 cm

The National Gallery in London

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NATIVITY
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Piero della Francesca
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O cruel cloudless space,
And pale bare ground where the poor infant lies!
Why do we feel restored
As in a sacramental place?
Here Mystery is artifice,
And here a vision of such peace is stored,
Healing flows from it through our eyes.
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Comfort and joy are near,
Not as we know them in the usual ways,
Personal and expected,
But utterly distilled and spare
Like a cool breath upon the air.
Emotion, it would seem, has been rejected
For clear geometric praise.
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Even the angel's stance
Is architectural in form:
They tell no story.
We see each grave countenance,
Withheld as in a formal dance,
The awful joy, the serene glory:
It is the inscape keeps us warm.
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Poised as a monument,
Thought rests, and in these balanced spaces
Images meditate;
Whatever Piero meant,
The strange impersonal does not relent:
Here is love, naked, lying in great state
On the bare ground, as in all human faces.
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May Sarton (American 1912-1995)
Selected Poems of May Sarton
W.W. Norton, New York, 1978
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