II.
Ah, well! ah, well!
"Confess"—you tell me—"and be forgiven."
Is there no easier path to heaven?
Santa Maria! how can I tell
What, now for a score of years and more,
I've buried away in my heart so deep
That, howso tired I've been, I've kept
Eyes waking when near me another slept,
Lest I might mutter it in my sleep?
And now at the last to blab it clear!
How the women will shrink from my pictures! And worse
Will the men do—spit on my name, and curse;
But then up in heaven I shall not hear.
I faint! I faint!
Quick, Fra Bernardo! The figure stands
There in the niche—my patron saint:
Put it within my trembling hands
Till they are steadier. So!
My brain
Whirled and grew dizzy with sudden pain,
Trying to p that gulf of years,
Fronting again those long laid fears.
Confess? Why, yes, if I must, I must.
Now good Sant' Andrea be my trust!
But fill me first, from that crystal flask,
Strong wine to strengthen me for my task.
(That thing is a gem of craftsmanship:
Just mark how its curvings fit the lip.)
Ah, you, in your dreamy, tranquil life,
How can you fathom the rage and strife,
The blinding envy, the burning smart,
That, worm-like, gnaws the Maestro's heart
When he sees another snatch the prize
Out from under his very eyes,
For which he would barter his soul? You see
I taught him his art from first to last:
Whatever he was he owed to me.
And then to be browbeat, overpassed,
Stealthily jeered behind the hand!
Why that was more than a saint could stand;
And I was no saint. And if my soul,
With a pride like Lucifer's, mocked control,
And goaded me on to madness, till
I lost all measure of good or ill,
Whose gift was it, pray? Oh, many a day
I've cursed it, yet whose is the blame, I say?
His name? How strange that you question so,
When I'm sure I have told it o'er and o'er,
And why should you care to hear it more?