FRA LIPPO LIPPI

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!

You need not clap your torches to my face.

Zooks, what 's to blame? you think you see a monk!

What, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds,

And here you catch me at an alley's end

Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?

The Carmine 's my cloister: hunt it up,

Do,—harry out, if you must show your zeal,

Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,

And nip each softling of a wee white mouse,

Weke, weke, that 's crept to keep him company!

Aha, you know your betters! Then, you 'll take

Your hand away that 's fiddling on my throat,

And please to know me likewise. Who am I?

Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend

Three streets off—he 's a certain ... how d 'ye call?

Master—a ... Cosimo of the Medici,

I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best!

Remember and tell me, the day you 're hanged,

How you affected such a gullet's-gripe!

But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves

Pick up a manner nor discredit you:

Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets

And count fair prize what comes into their net?

He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is!

Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends.

Lord, I 'm not angry! Bid your hangdogs go

Drink out this quarter-florin to the health

Of the munificent House that harbors me

(And many more beside, lads! more beside!)

And all 's come square again. I 'd like his face—

His, elbowing on his comrade in the door

With the pike and lantern,—for the slave that holds

John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair

With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say)

And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!

It 's not your chance to have a bit of chalk,

A wood-coal or the like? or you should see!

Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so.

What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down,

You know them and they take you? like enough!

I saw the proper twinkle in your eye—

'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first.

Let 's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch.

Here 's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands

To roam the town and sing out carnival,

And I 've been three weeks shut within my mow,

A-painting for the great man, saints and saints

And saints again. I could not paint all night—

Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air.

There came a hurry of feet and little feet,

A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song,—

Flower o' the broom,

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!

Flower o' the Quince,

I let Lisa go, and what good in life since?

Flower o' the thyme—and so on. Round they went.

Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter

Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,—three slim shapes,

And a face that looked up ... zooks, sir, flesh and blood,

That 's all I 'm made of! Into shreds it went,

Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,

All the bed-furniture—a dozen knots,

There was a ladder! Down I let myself,

Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped,

And after them. I came up with the fun

Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met,—

Flower o' the rose,

If I've been merry, what matter who knows?

And so as I was stealing back again

To get to bed and have a bit of sleep

Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work

On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast

With his great round stone to subdue the flesh,

You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see!

Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head—

Mine's shaved—a monk, you say—the sting's in that!

If Master Cosimo announced himself,

Mum's the word naturally; but a monk!

Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now!

I was a baby when my mother died

And father died and left me in the street.

I starved there, God knows how, a year or two

On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,

Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,

My stomach being empty as your hat,

The wind doubled me up and down I went.

Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand,

(Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)

And so along the wall, over the bridge,

By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,

While I stood munching my first bread that month:

"So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father,

Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time,—

"To quit this very miserable world?

Will you renounce" ... "the mouthful of bread?" thought I;

By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me;

I did renounce the world, its pride and greed,

Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house,

Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici

Have given their hearts to—all at eight years old.

Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure,

'Twas not for nothing—the good bellyful,

The warm serge and the rope that goes all round,

And day-long blessed idleness beside!

"Let's see what the urchin's fit for"—that came next.

Not overmuch their way, I must confess.

Such a to-do! They tried me with their books;

Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste!

Flower o' the clove,

All the Latin I construe is "amo," I love!

But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets

Eight years together, as my fortune was,

Watching folk's faces to know who will fling

The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires,

And who will curse or kick him for his pains,—

Which gentleman processional and fine,

Holding a candle to the Sacrament,

Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch

The droppings of the wax to sell again,

Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped,—

How say I?—nay, which dog bites, which lets drop

His bone from the heap of offal in the street,—

Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike,

He learns the look of things, and none the less

For admonition from the hunger-pinch.

I had a store of such remarks, be sure,

Which, after I found leisure, turned to use.

I drew men's faces on my copy-books,

Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge,

Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes,

Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's,

And made a string of pictures of the world

Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun,

On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black.

"Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d'ye say?

In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark.

What if at last we get our man of parts,

We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese

And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine

And put the front on it that ought to be!"

And hereupon he bade me daub away.

Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank,

Never was such prompt disemburdening.

First, every sort of monk, the black and white,

I drew them, fat and lean: then, folk at church,

From good old gossips waiting to confess

Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,—

To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot,

Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there

With the little children round him in a row

Of admiration, half for his beard and half

For that white anger of his victim's son

Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm,

Signing himself with the other because of Christ

(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this

After the passion of a thousand years)

Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head,

(Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve

On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf,

Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers

(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone.

I painted all, then cried "'Tis ask and have;

Choose, for more's ready!"—laid the ladder flat,

And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall.

The monks closed in a circle and praised loud

Till checked, taught what to see and not to see.

Being simple bodies,—"That's the very man!

Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog!

That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes

To care about his asthma: it's the life!"

But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked;

Their betters took their turn to see and say:

The Prior and the learned pulled a face

And stopped all that in no time. "How? what's here?

Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all!

Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true

As much as pea and pea! it's devil's-game!

Your business is not to catch men with show,

With homage to the perishable clay,

But lift them over it, ignore it all,

Make them forget there 's such a thing as flesh.

Your business is to paint the souls of men—

Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke ... no, it's not ...

It's vapor done up like a new-born babe—

(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)

It's ... well, what matters talking, it's the soul!

Give us no more of body than shows soul!

Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God,

That sets us praising,—why not stop with him?

Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head

With wonder at lines, colors, and what not?

Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms!

Rub all out, try at it a second time.

Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts,

She's just my niece ... Herodias, I would say,—

Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off!

Have it all out!" Now, is this sense, I ask?

A fine way to paint soul, by painting body

So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further

And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white

When what you put for yellow's simply black,

And any sort of meaning looks intense

When all beside itself means and looks naught.

Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn,

Left foot and right foot, go a double step,

Make his flesh liker and his soul more like,

Both in their order? Take the prettiest face,

The Prior's niece ... patron-saint—is it so pretty

You can't discover if it means hope, fear,

Sorrow or joy? won't beauty go with these?

Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue,

Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash,

And then add soul and heighten them threefold?

Or say there's beauty with no soul at all—

(I never saw it?—put the case the same—)

If you get simple beauty and naught else,

You get about the best thing God invents:

That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed,

Within yourself, when you return him thanks.

"Rub all out!" Well, well, there's my life, in short;

And so the thing has gone on ever since.

I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds:

You should not take a fellow eight years old

And make him swear to never kiss the girls.

I'm my own master, paint now as I please—

Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house!

Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front—

Those great rings serve more purposes than just

To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse!

And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes

Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work,

The heads shake still—"It's art's decline, my son!

You 're not of the true painters, great and old;

Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find;

Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer:

Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!"

Flower o' the pine,

You keep your mistr ... manners, and I'll stick to mine!

I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know!

Don't you think they're the likeliest to know,

They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage,

Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint

To please them—sometimes do and sometimes don't;

For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come

A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints—

A laugh, a cry, the business of the world—

(Flower o' the peach,

Death for us all, and his own life for each!)

And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over,

The world and life's too big to pass for a dream,

And I do these wild things in sheer despite,

And play the fooleries you catch me at,

In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass

After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so,

Although the miller does not preach to him

The only good of grass is to make chaff.

What would men have? Do they like grass or no—

May they or mayn't they? all I want's the thing

Settled forever one way. As it is,

You tell too many lies and hurt yourself:

You don't like what you only like too much,

You do like what, if given you at your word,

You find abundantly detestable.

For me, I think I speak as I was taught;

I always see the garden and God there

A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned,

The value and significance of flesh,

I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards.

You understand me: I'm a beast, I know.

But see, now—why, I see as certainly

As that the morning-star's about to shine,

What will hap some day. We've a youngster here

Comes to our convent, studies what I do,

Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop:

His name is Guidi—he'll not mind the monks—

They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk—

He picks my practice up—he'll paint apace,

I hope so—though I never live so long,

I know what's sure to follow. You be judge!

You speak no Latin more than I, belike;

However, you're my man, you've seen the world

—The beauty and the wonder and the power,

The shapes of things, their colors, lights and shades,

Changes, surprises,—and God made it all!

—For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no,

For this fair town's face, yonder river's line,

The mountain round it and the sky above,

Much more the figures of man, woman, child,

These are the frame to? What's it all about?

To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon,

Wondered at? oh, this last of course!—you say.

But why not do as well as say,—paint these

Just as they are, careless what comes of it?

God's works—paint anyone, and count it crime

To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works

Are here already; nature is complete:

Suppose you reproduce her—(which you can't)

There's no advantage! you must beat her, then."

For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love

First when we see them painted, things we have passed

Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;

And so they are better, painted—better to us,

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;

God uses us to help each other so,

Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now,

Your cullion's hanging face? A bit of chalk,

And trust me but you should, though! How much more,

If I drew higher things with the same truth!

That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place,

Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh,

It makes me mad to see what men shall do

And we in our graves! This world's no blot for us,

Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:

To find its meaning is my meat and drink.

"Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer!"

Strikes in the Prior: "when your meaning's plain

It does not say to folk—remember matins,

Or, mind you fast next Friday!" Why, for this

What need of art at all? A skull and bones,

Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what's best,

A bell to chime the hour with, does as well.

I painted a Saint Laurence six months since

At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style:

"How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?"

I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns—

"Already not one phiz of your three slaves

Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side,

But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content,

The pious people have so eased their own

With coming to say prayers there in a rage:

We get on fast to see the bricks beneath.

Expect another job this time next year,

For pity and religion grow i' the crowd—

Your painting serves its purpose!" Hang the fools!

—That is—you'll not mistake an idle word

Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot,

Tasting the air this spicy night which turns

The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine!

Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now!

It's natural a poor monk out of bounds

Should have his apt word to excuse himself:

And hearken how I plot to make amends.

I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece

... There's for you! Give me six months, then go, see

Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns!

They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint

God in the midst, Madonna and her babe,

Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood,

Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet

As puff on puff of grated orris-root

When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer.

And then i' the front, of course a saint or two—

Saint John, because he saves the Florentines,

Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white

The convent's friends and gives them a long day,

And Job, I must have him there past mistake,

The man of Uz (and Us without the z,

Painters who need his patience). Well, all these

Secured at their devotion, up shall come

Out of a corner when you least expect,

As one by a dark stair into a great light,

Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!—

Mazed, motionless, and moonstruck—I'm the man!

Back I shrink—what is this I see and hear?

I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake,

My old serge gown and rope that goes all round,

I, in this presence, this pure company!

Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape?

Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing

Forward, puts out a soft palm—"Not so fast!"

—Addresses the celestial presence, "nay—

He made you and devised you, after all,

Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there draw—

His camel-hair make up a painting-brush?

We come to brother Lippo for all that,

Iste perfecit opus!" So, all smile—

I shuffle sideways with my blushing face

Under the cover of a hundred wings

Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay

And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut,

Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops

The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off

To some safe bench behind, not letting go

The palm of her, the little lily thing

That spoke the good word for me in the nick,

Like the Prior's niece ... Saint Lucy, I would say.

And so all's saved for me, and for the church

A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence!

Your hand, sir, and good-by: no lights, no lights!

The street's hushed, and I know my own way back,

Don't fear me! There's the gray beginning, Zooks!

ANDREA DEL SARTO
CALLED "THE FAULTLESS PAINTER"

But do not let us quarrel any more,

No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:

Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.

You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?

I 'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,

Treat his own subject after his own way,

Fix his own time, accept too his own price,

And shut the money into this small hand

When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?

Oh, I 'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love!

I often am much wearier than you think,

This evening more than usual, and it seems

As if—forgive now—should you let me sit

Here by the window with your hand in mine

And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,

Both of one mind, as married people use,

Quietly, quietly the evening through,

I might get up to-morrow to my work

Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.

To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!

Your soft hand is a woman of itself,

And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.

Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve

For each of the five pictures we require:

It saves a model. So! keep looking so—

My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!

—How could you ever prick those perfect ears,

Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet—

My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,

Which everybody looks on and calls his,

And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,

While she looks—no one's: very dear, no less.

You smile? why, there 's my picture ready made,

There 's what we painters call our harmony!

A common grayness silvers everything,—

All in a twilight, you and I alike

—You, at the point of your first pride in me

(That 's gone you know),—but I, at every point;

My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down

To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.

There 's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;

That length of convent-wall across the way

Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;

The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,

And autumn grows, autumn in everything.

Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape

As if I saw alike my work and self

And all that I was born to be and do,

A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.

How strange now looks the life he makes us lead;

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!

I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!

This chamber for example—turn your head—

All that 's behind us! You don't understand

Nor care to understand about my art,

But you can hear at least when people speak:

And that cartoon, the second from the door

—It is the thing, Love! so such thing should be—

Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say.

I can do with my pencil what I know,

What I see, what at bottom of my heart

I wish for, if I ever wish so deep—

Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly,

I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,

Who listened to the Legate's talk last week,

And just as much they used to say in France.

At any rate 't is easy, all of it!

No sketches first, no studies, that 's long past:

I do what many dream of all their lives,

—Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,

And fail in doing. I could count twenty such

On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,

Who strive—you don't know how the others strive

To paint a little thing like that you smeared

Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,—

Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,

(I know his name, no matter)—so much less!

Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.

There burns a truer light of God in them,

In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,

Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt

This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.

Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,

Reach many a time a heaven that 's shut to me,

Enter and take their place there sure enough,

Though they come back and cannot tell the world.

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.

The sudden blood of these men! at a word—

Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.

I, painting from myself and to myself,

Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame

Or their praise either. Somebody remarks

Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,

His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,

Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?

Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what 's a heaven for? All is silver-gray

Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!

I know both what I want and what might gain,

And yet how profitless to know, to sigh

"Had I been two, another and myself,

Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.

Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth

The Urbinate who died five years ago.

('T is copied, George Vasari sent it me.)

Well, I can fancy how he did it all,

Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,

Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,

Above and through his art—for it gives way;

That arm is wrongly put—and there again—

A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,

Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,

He means right—that, a child may understand.

Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:

But all the play, the insight and the stretch—

Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?

Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,

We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think—

More than I merit, yes, by many times.

But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow,

And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,

And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird

The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare—

Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged

"God and the glory! never care for gain.

The present by the future, what is that?

Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!

Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!"

I might have done it for you. So it seems:

Perhaps not. All is as God overrules.

Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;

The rest avail not. Why do I need you?

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?

In this world, who can do a thing, will not;

And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:

Yet the will 's somewhat—somewhat, too, the power—

And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,

God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.

'T is safer for me, if the award be strict,

That I am something underrated here,

Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.

I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,

For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.

The best is when they pass and look aside;

But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.

Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,

And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!

I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,

Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,

In that humane great monarch's golden look,—

One finger in his beard or twisted curl

Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile,

One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,

The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,

I painting proudly with his breath on me,

All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,

Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls

Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,—

And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,

This in the background, waiting on my work,

To crown the issue with a last reward!

A good time, was it not, my kingly days?

And had you not grown restless ... but I know—

'T is done and past; 't was right, my instinct said;

Too live the life grew, golden and not gray,

And I 'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt

Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.

How could it end in any other way?

You called me, and I came home to your heart.

The triumph was—to reach and stay there; since

I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?

Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,

You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!

"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;

The Roman's is the better when you pray.

But still the other's Virgin was his wife"—

Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge

Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows

My better fortune, I resolve to think.

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,

Said one day Agnolo, his very self,

To Rafael ... I have known it all these years ...

(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts

Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,

Too lifted up in heart because of it)

"Friend, there 's a certain sorry little scrub

Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,

Who, were he set to plan and execute

As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,

Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"

To Rafael's!—And indeed the arm is wrong.

I hardly dare ... yet, only you to see,

Give the chalk here—quick, thus the line should go!

Ay, but the soul! he 's Rafael! rub it out!

Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,

(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?

Do you forget already words like those?)

If really there was such a chance, so lost,—

Is, whether you 're—not grateful—but more pleased.

Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!

This hour has been an hour! Another smile?

If you would sit thus by me every night

I should work better, do you comprehend?

I mean that I should earn more, give you more.

See, it is settled dusk now; there 's a star;

Morello 's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,

The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.

Come from the window, love,—come in, at last,

Inside the melancholy little house

We built to be so gay with. God is just.

King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights

When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,

The walls become illumined, brick from brick

Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,

That gold of his I did cement them with!

Let us but love each other. Must you go?

That Cousin here again? he waits outside?

Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans?

More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?

Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?

While hand and eye and something of a heart

Are left me, work 's my ware, and what 's it worth?

I 'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit

The gray remainder of the evening out,

Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly

How I could paint, were I but back in France,

One picture, just one more—the Virgin's face.

Not yours this time! I want you at my side

To hear them—that is, Michel Agnolo—

Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.

Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.

I take the subjects for his corridor,

Finish the portrait out of hand—there, there,

And throw him in another thing or two

If he demurs; the whole should prove enough

To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,

What 's better and what 's all I care about,

Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!

Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,

The Cousin! what does he to please you more?

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.

I regret little, I would change still less.

Since there my past life lies, why alter it?

The very wrong to Francis!—it is true

I took his coin, was tempted and complied,

And built this house and sinned, and all is said.

My father and my mother died of want.

Well, had I riches of my own? you see

How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.

They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:

And I have labored somewhat in my time

And not been paid profusely. Some good son

Paint my two hundred pictures—let him try!

No doubt, there 's something strikes a balance. Yes,

You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.

This must suffice me here. What would one have?

In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance—

Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,

Meted on each side by the angel's reed,

For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me

To cover—the three first without a wife,

While I have mine! So—still they overcome

Because there 's still Lucrezia,—as I choose.

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH
ROME, 15—

This poem was first published in Hood's Magazine, March, 1845, with the title The Tomb at Saint Praxed's (Rome, 15—).

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?

Nephews—sons mine ... ah God, I know not! Well—

She, men would have to be your mother once,

Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!

What 's done is done, and she is dead beside,

Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,

And as she died so must we die ourselves,

And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.

Life, how and what is it? As here I lie

In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,

Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask

"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.

Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;

And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought

With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:

—Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;

Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South

He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!

Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence

One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,

And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,

And up into the aery dome where live

The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:

And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,

And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,

With those nine columns round me, two and two,

The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:

Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe

As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.

—Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,

Put me where I may look at him! True peach,

Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!

Draw close: that conflagration of my church

—What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!

My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig

The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,

Drop water gently till the surface sink,

And if ye find ... Ah God, I know not, I! ...

Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,

And corded up in a tight olive-frail,

Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,

Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,

Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast ...

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,

That brave Frascati villa with its bath,

So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,

Like God the Father's globe on both his hands

Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,

For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!

Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:

Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—

'T was ever antique-black I meant! How else

Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,

Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance

Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,

The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,

Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan

Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,

And Moses with the tables ... but I know

Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,

Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope

To revel down my villas while I gasp

Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine

Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!

Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!

'T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve

My bath must needs be left behind, alas!

One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,

There 's plenty jasper somewhere in the world—

And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray

Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,

And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?

—That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,

Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,

No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—

Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!

And then how I shall lie through centuries,

And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,

And see God made and eaten all day long,

And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste

Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,

Dying: in state and by such slow degrees,

I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,

And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,

And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop

Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:

And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts

Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,

About the life before I lived this life,

And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,

Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,

Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,

And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,

And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,

—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?

No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!

Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.

All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope

My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?

Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,

They glitter like your mother's for my soul,

Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,

Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase

With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,

And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx

That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,

To comfort me on my entablature

Whereon I am to lie till I must ask

"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!

For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude

To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—

Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat

As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—

And no more lapis to delight the world!

Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,

But in a row: and, going, turn your backs

—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,

And leave me in my church, the church for peace,

That I may watch at leisure if he leers—

Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone,

As still he envied me, so fair she was!