But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowèd roof,
With antick pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced Quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstacies,
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.
Milton.
XIII
RANCONEZZO
The Cloisters of Santa Prassede
THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB IN SANTA PRASSEDE
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 Gandolph with his paltry onion-stone
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and faultless: ...
. . . . . . . . . .
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 you 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!
Robert Browning.