WHEN IN ROME, 1788

Often a new procession increases the general crush.  A dozen Pulcinelle, for example, assemble, elect a king, crown him, put a sceptre in his hand, seat him in a decorated carriage, and accompany him along the Corso, with music and loud cheers.  Now one perceives that each of them is wearing his own individual variation of this commonest kind of fancy dress.  One wears a wig; another a bonnet, and another a birdcage on his head instead of a cap, in which a pair of birds, dressed up as an abbate and as a lady, are hopping about on their perches. 
  
  

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey (1786-1788), translated by W.H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer, New York, Pantheon Press, 1962.

THE PATIENT NAVIGATORS

Even though a clouds's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed

And the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting

Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones

Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting

Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail

For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale

And for each unharmful gentle soul misplaced inside a jail

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

The Byrds -- Chimes of Freedom (Link)

Gerhard Richter – Clouds, 1968

Giandomenico Tiepolo, Pulcinella and Acrobats, 1797