MEN AND WOMEN. 184-, 185--. ----------------- " TRANSCENDENTALISM.- A POEM IN TWELVE BOOKS." STOP playing, poet! May a brother speak? 'T is you speak, that's your error. Song's our art: Whereas you please to speak these naked thoughts Instead of draping them in sights and sounds. --True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up! But why such long prolusion and display, Such turning and adjustment of the harp, And taking it upon your breast, at length, Only to speak dry words across its strings? Stark-naked thought is in request enough: Speak prose and hollo it till Europe hears! The six-foot Swiss tube, braced about with bark, Which helps the hunter's voice from Alp to Alp-- Exchange our harp for that,--who hinders you? 174 MEN AND WOMEN But here's your fault; grown men want thought, you think; Thought's what they mean by verse, and seek in verse Boys seek for images and melody, Men must have reason---so, you aim at men. Quite otherwise! Objects throng our youth,'t is true; We see and hear and do not wonder much: If you could tell us what they mean, indeed! As German Boehme never cared for plants Until it happed, a-walking in the fields, He noticed all at once that plants could speak, Nay, turned with loosened tongue to talk with him. That day the daisy had an eye indeed-- Colloquized with the cowslip on such themes! We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose. But by the time youth slips a stage or two While reading prose in that tough book he wrote (Collating and emendating the same And settling on the sense most to our mind), We shut the clasps and find life's summer past. Then, who helps more, pray, to repair our loss--- Another Boehme with a tougher book And subtler meanings of what roses say,-- Or some stout Mage like him of Halberstadt, John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about ? He with a "look you!" vents a brace of rhymes, TRANSCENDENTALISM 175 And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, Over us, under, round us every side, Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all,-- Buries us with a glory, young once more, Pouring heaven into this shut house of life. So come, the harp back to your heart again! You are a poem, though your poem's naught. The best of all you showed before, believe, Was your own boy-face o'er the finer chords Bent, following the cherub at the top That points to God with his paired half-moon wings. 176 MEN AND WOMEN HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY I ONLY knew one poet in my life: And this, or something like it, was his way. You saw go up and down Valladolid, A man of mark, to know next time you saw. His very serviceable suit of black Was courtly once and conscientious still, And many might have worn it, though none did: The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, Had purpose, and the ruff significance. He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, Scenting the world, looking it full in face, An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels. They turned up, now, the alley by the church, That leads nowhither; now, they breathed themselves On the main promenade just at the wrong time: You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat, Making a peaked shade blacker than itself Against the single window spared some house HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY 177 Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work,-- Or else surprise the ferrel of his stick Trying the mortar's temper'tween the chinks Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, The man who slices lemons into drink, The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys That volunteer to help him turn its winch. He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye, And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string, And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall. He took such cognizance of men and things, If any beat a horse, you felt he saw; If any curse a woman, he took note; Yet stared at nobody,---you stared at him, And found, less to your pleasure than surprise, He seemed to know you and expect as much. So, next time that a neighbour's tongue was loosed, It marked the shameful and notorious fact, We had among us, not so much a spy, As a recording chief-inquisitor, The town's true master if the town but knew ! We merely kept a governor for form, While this man walked about and took account Of all thought, said and acted, then went home, And wrote it fully to our Lord the King IV. N 178 MEN AND WOMEN Who has an itch to know things, he knows why, And reads them in his bedroom of a night. Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch, A tang of . .. well, it was not wholly ease As back into your mind the man's look came. Stricken in years a little,---such a brow His eyes had to live under!--clear as flint On either side the formidable nose Curved, cut and coloured like an eagle's claw. Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate? When altogether old B. disappeared And young C. got his mistress,--was't our friend, His letter to the King, that did it all? What paid the bloodless man for so much pains? Our Lord the king has favourites manifold, And shifts his ministry some once a month; Our city gets new governors at whiles,--- But never word or sign, that I could hear, Notified to this man about the streets The King's approval of those letters conned The last thing duly at the dead of night. Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord, Exhorting when none heard---" Beseech me not! " Too far above my people,---beneath me! " I set the watch,---how should the people know? " Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!' HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY 179 Was some such understanding 'twixt the two? I found no truth in one report at least--- That if you traced him to his home, down lanes Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, You found he ate his supper in a room Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall, And twenty naked girls to change his plate! Poor man, he lived another kind of life In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge, Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise! The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat, Leg crossing lrg, one foot on the dog's back, Playing a decent cribbage with his maid (Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheese And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears, Or treat of radishes in April. Nine, Ten, struck thc church clock, straight to bed went he. My father, like the man of sense he was, Would point him out to me a dozen times; " 'St---'St," he'd whisper, " the Corregidor! " I had been used to think that personage Was one with lacquered breeches, lustrous belt, And feathers like a forest in his hat, Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news, N2 180 MEN AND WOMEN Announced the bull-fights, gave each church its turn, And memorized the miracle in vogue! He had a great observance from us boys; We were in error; that was not the man. I'd like now, yet had haply been afraid, To have just looked, when this man came to die, And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sides And stood about the neat low truckle-bed, With the heavenly manner of relieving guard. Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief, Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death, Doing the King's work all the dim day long, In his old coat and up to knees in mud, Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust,--- And, now the day was won, relieved at once! No further show or need for that old coat, You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I ! A second, and the angels alter that. Well, I could never write a verse,---could you? Let's to the Prado and make the most of time. 181 ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES. I AM a goddess of the ambrosial courts, And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed By none whose temples whiten this the world. Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along; I shed in hell o'er my pale people peace; On earth I, caring for the creatures, guard Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek, And every feathered mother's callow brood, And all that love green haunts and loneliness. Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem, Upon my image at Athenai here; And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above, Was dearest to me. He, my buskined step To follow through the wild-wood leafy ways, And chase the painting stag or swift with darts Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopold low, Neglected homage to another god: Whence Aphrodite by no midnight smoke 182 MEH AND WOMEN Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched A noisome lust that, as the gadbee sti Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself The son of Theseus her great absent spouse. Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage Against the fury of the Queen, she judged Life insupportable; and, pricked at heart An Amazonian stranger's race should dare er, perished by the murderous cord: Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll The fame of him her swerving made not swerve. And Theseus, read, returning, and believed, And exiled, in the blindness of his wrath, The man without a crime who, last as first, Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth. Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained That of his wishes should be granted three, And one he imprecated straight---" Alive " May ne'er Hippolutos reach other lands!'' Poseidon heard, ai ai! And scarce the prince Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car That give the feet a stay against the strength Of the Henetian horses, and around His body flung the rein, and urged their speed Along the rocks and shingles of the shore, When from the gaping wave a monster flung ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES 183 His obscene body in the coursers' path. These, mad with terror, as the sea-bull sprawled Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed, Hippolutos, whose feet were trammelled fast, Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein Which either hand directed; nor they quenched The frenzy of their flight before each trace, Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woeful car, Each boulder-stone, sharp stub and spiny shell, Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands On that detested beach, was bright with blood And morsels of his flesh: then fell the steeds Head-foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts, Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed. His people, who had witnessed all afar, Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos. But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced (Indomitable as a man foredoomed) That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer, I, in a flood of glory visible, Stood o'er my dying votary and, deed By deed, revealed, as all took place, the truth. When Theseus lay the woefullest of men, And worthily; but ere the death-veils hid 184 MEN AND WOMEN His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails. So I, who ne'er forsake my votaries, Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake Should tender, nor pour out the dog's hot life; Lest at my fane the priests disconsolate Should dress my image with some faded poor Few crowns, made favours of, nor dare object Such slackness to my worshippers who turn Elsewhere the trusting heart and loaded hand, As they had climbed Olumpos to report Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne--- I interposed: and, this eventful night,--- (While round the funeral pyre the populace Stood with fierce light on their black robes which bound Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped O'er the dead body of their withered prince, And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab 'T was bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief--- As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed Sending a crowd of sparkles through the night, And the gay fire, elate with mastery, Towered like a serpent o'er the clotted jars Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense, ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES 185 And splendid gums like gold),---my potency Conveyed the perished man to my retreat In the thrice-venerable forest here. And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now The berried plant, is Phoibos' son of fame, Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught The doctrine of each herb and flower and root, To know their secret'st virtue and express The saving soul of all: who so has soothed With lavers the torn brow and murdered cheeks, Composed the hair and brought its gloss again, And called the red bloom to the pale skin back, And laid the strips and jagged ends of flesh Even once more, and slacked the sinew's knot Of every tortured limb--that now he lies As if mere sleep possessed him underneath These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer, Divine presenter of the healing rod, Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye, Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer! Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies! And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs, Ply, as the sage directs, these buds and leaves That strew the turf around the twain! While I Await, in fitting silence, the event. 186 MEN AND WOMEN AN EPISTLE CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSMISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN. KARSHISH, the picker-up of learnings crumbs, The not-incurious in God's handiwork (This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, To coop up and keep down on earth a space That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) ---To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term,--- And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such:-- The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) AN EPISTLE 187 Three samples of true snakestone--rarer still, One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs) And writeth now the twenty-second time. My journeyings were brought to Jericho : Thus I resume. Who studious in our art Shall count a little labour unrepaid? I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone On many a flinty furlong of this land. Also, the country-side is all on fire With rumours of a marching hitherward: Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son. A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear; Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, And once a town declared me for a spy; But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, Since this poor covert where I pass the night, This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence A man with plague-sores at the third degree Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here ! 'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. 188 MEN AND WOMEN A viscid choler is observable In tertians, I was nearly bold to say; And falling-sickness hath a happier cure Than our school wots of: there's a spider here Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-grey back; Take five and drop them.. but who knows his mind, The Syrian runagate I trust this to? His service payeth me a sublimate Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye. Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn, There set in order my experiences, Gather what most deserves, and give thee all--- Or I might add, Jud|aea's gum-tragacanth Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, Cracks'twixt the pestle and the porphyry, In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy-- Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar--- But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end. Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully, Protesteth his devotion is my price-- Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal? I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, What set me off a-writing first of all. AN EPISTLE 189 An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang! For, be it this town's barrenness---or else The Man had something in the look of him--- His case has struck me far more than't is worth. So, pardon if--(lest presently I lose In the great press of novelty at hand The care and pains this somehow stole from me) I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind, Almost in sight--for, wilt thou have the truth? The very man is gone from me but now, Whose ailment is the subject of discourse. Thus then, and let thy better wit help all! 'T is but a ease of mania---subinduced By epilepsy, at the turning-point Of trance prolonged unduly some three days: When, by the exhibition of some drug Or spell, exorcization, stroke of art Unknown to me and which't were well to know, The evil thing out-breaking all at once Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,--- But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide Making a clear house of it too suddenly, The first conceit that entered might inscribe Whatever it was minded on the wall So plainly at that vantage, as it were 190 MEN AND WOMEN (First come, first served) that nothing subsequent Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls The just-returned and new-established soul Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart That henceforth she will read or these or none. And first---the man's own firm conviction rests That he was dead (in fact they buried him) ---That he was dead and then restored to life By a Nazarene physician of his tribe: ---'Sayeth, the same bade " Rise," and he did rise. " Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry. Not so this figment!---not, that such a fume, Instead of giving way to time and health, Should eat itself into the life of life, As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones and all! For see, how he takes up the after-life. The man--it is one Lazarus a Jew, Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age, The body's habit wholly laudable, As much, indeed, beyond the common health As he were made and put aside to show. Think could we penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. AN EPISTLE 191 Some elders of his tribe I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inqusition. While they spoke, Now sharply, now with sorrow,---told the case,-- He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. And that's a sample how his years must go. Look, if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, Should find a treasure,--can he use the same With straitened habits and with tastes starved small, And take at once to his impoverished brain The sudden element that changes things, That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? Is he not such an one as moves to mirth-- Warily parsimonious, when no need, Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? All prudent councel as to what befits The golden mean, is lost on such an one: The man's fantastic will is the man's law. So here-- we treasure knowledge, say, Increased beyond the fleshly faculty--- Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven: The man is witless of the size, the sum, 192 MEN AND WOMEN The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much. Discourse to him of prodigious armaments Assembled to besiege his city now, And of the passing of a mule wIth gourds--- 'T is one! Then take it on the other side, Speak of some trifling fact,--he will gaze rapt With stupor at its very littleness, (Far as I see) as if in that indeed He caught prodigious import, whole results; And so will turn to us the bystanders In ever the same stupor (note this point) That we too see not with his opened eyes. Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, Preposterously, at cross purposes. Should his child sicken unto death,---why, look For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, Or pretermission of the daily craft! While a word, gesture, glance from that same child At play or in the school or laid asleep, Will startle him to an agony of fear, Exasperation, just as like. Demand The reason why--"'t is but a word," object--- " A gesture"---he regards thee as our lord Who lived there in the pyramid alone, Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young, AN EPISTLE 193 We both would unadvisedly recite Some charm's beginning from that book of his, Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst All into stars,as suns grown old are wont. Thou and the child have each a veil alike Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know ! He holds on firmly to some thread of life-- (It is the life to lead perforcedly) Which runs across some vast distracting orb Of glory on either side that meagre thread, Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet-- The spiritual life around the earthly life: The law of that is known to him as this, His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. So is the man perplext with impulses Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, Proclaiming what is right and wrong across, And not along, this black thread through the blaze--- "It should be" baulked by " here it cannot be." And oft the man's soul springs into his face As if he saw again and heard again His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise. Something,a word, a tick o' the blood within Admonishes: then back he sinks at once 194 MEN AND WOMEN To ashes, who was very fire before, In sedulous recurrence to his trade Whereby he earneth him the daily bread; And studiously the humbler for that pride, Professedly the faultier that he knows God's secret, while he holds the thread of life. Indeed the especial marking of the man Is prone submission to the heavenly will--- Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. 'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last For that same death which must restore his being To equilibrium, body loosening soul Divorced even now by premature full growth: He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live So long as God please, and just how God please. He even seeketh not to please God more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do: How can he give his neigbbour the real ground, His own conviction? Ardent as he is-- Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old "Be it as God please" reassureth him- I probed the sore as thy disciple should: " How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness AN EPISTLE 195 "Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march "To stamp out like a little spark thy town, "Thy tribe,thy crazy tale and thee at once?" He merely looked with his large eyes on me. The man is apathetic, you deduce? Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, Able and weak, affects the very brutes And birds--how say I? flowers of the field--- As a wise workman recognizes tools In a master's workshop, loving what they make. Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin-- An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design, And happened to hear the land's practitioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure--and I must hold my piece! Thou wilt object-- Why have I not ere this Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, Conferring with the frankness it befits? 196 MEN AND WOMEN Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech Perished in a tumult many years ago, Accused,---our learning's fate,---of wizardry, Rebellion, to the setting up a rule And creed prodigious as described to me. His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone) Was wrought by the mad people---that's their wont! On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, To his tried virtue, for miraculous help--- How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! The other imputations must be lies: But take one, though I loathe to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame. (And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says? Perhaps not: though in writing to a leech 'T is well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As---God forgive me! who but God himself, Creator and sustainer of the world, That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile! --Sayeth that such an one was born and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, AN EPISTLE 197 Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was. .. what I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lararus Who saith---but why all this of what he saith? Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange! Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth! Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with. Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unaware, The man and I. I send thee what is writ. 198 MEN AND WOMEN Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian---he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. Jerusalem's repose shall make amends For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine; Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell! The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too--- So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, " O heart I made, a heart beats here! " Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! " Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, " But love I gave thee, with myself to love " And thou must love me who have died for thee!" The madman saith He said so: it is strange. 199 JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION. THERE's heaven above, and night by night I look right through its gorgeous roof; No suns and moons though e'er so bright Avail to stop me; splendour-proof I keep the broods of stars aloof: For I intend to get to God, For't is to God I speed so fast, For in God's breast, my own abode, Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed, I lay my spirit down at last. I lie where I have always lain, God smiles as he has always smiled; Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled The heavens, God thought on me his child; Ordained a life for me, arrayed Its circumstances every one To the minutest; ay, God said 200 MEN AND WOMEN This head this hand should rest upon Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun. And having thus created me, Thus rooted me, he bade me grow, Guiltless for ever, like a tree That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know The law by which it prospers so: But sure that thought and word and deed All go to swell his love for me, Me, made because that love had need Of something irreversibly Pledged solely its content to be. Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend, No poison-gourd foredoomed to stoop: I have God's warrant, could I blend All hideous sins, as in a cup, To drink the mingled venoms up; Secure my nature will convert The draught to blossoming gladness fast: While sweet dews turn to the gourd's hurt, And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, As from the first its lot was cast. For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed By unexhausted power to bless, I gaze below on hell's fierce bed, JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION 201 And those its waves of flame oppress, Swarming in ghastly wretchedness; Whose life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!--to win, If not love like God's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin. Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, The martyr, the wan acolyte, The incense-swinging child,--undone Before God fashioned star or sun! God, whom I praise; how could I praise, If such as I might understand, Make out and reckon on his ways, And bargain for his love, and stand, Paying a price, at his right hand? 202 MEN AND WOMEN PICTOR IGNOTUS. FLORENCE I5--. I COULD have painted pictures like that youth's Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar Stayed me---ah, thought which saddens while it soothes ---Never did fate forbid me, star by star, To outburst on your night with all my gift Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk To the centre, of an instant; or around Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan The licence and the limit, space and bound, Allowed to truth made visible in man. And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw, Over the canvas could my hand have flung, Each face obedient to its passion's law, Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue, Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood PICTOR IGNOTUS 203 Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place; Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved,--- O human faces, hath it split,my cup? What did ye give me that I had not saved? Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!) Of going--I, in each new picture,---forth, As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, Bound for the calmly-satisfied great State, Or glad aspiring little burgh,it went, Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, Through old streets named afresh from the event, Till it reached home, where learned age should greet My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct Above his hair, lie learning at my feet!-- Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked With love about, and praise, till life should end, And then not go to heaven, but linger here, Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend,--- The thought grew frightful,'t was so wildly dear! But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights Have scared me, like the revels through a door Of some strange house of idols at its rites ! This world seemed not the world it was before: Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped ... Who summoned those cold faces that begun 204 MEN AND WOMEN To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, They drew me forth, and spite of me... enough! These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate, Partakers of their daily pettiness, Discussed of,---" This I love, or this I hate, "This likes me more, and this affects me less! " Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series, Virgin, Babe and Saint, With the same cold calm beautiful regard,--- At least no merchant traffics in my heart; The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart: Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. So, die my pictures! surely, gently die ! O youth men praise so,---holds their praise its worth? Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry? Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth? 205 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! 206 MEN AND WOMEN 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 magnificent House that harbours 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, FRA LIPPO LIPPI 207 And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, 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 208 MEN AND WOMEN 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,'t was refection-time,--- " To quit this very miserable world? " Will you renounce ".. . " the mouthful of bread? " thought I; FRA LIPPO LIPPI 209 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, 'T was not for nothing---the good bellyful, The warn 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 210 MEN AND WOMEN 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 look 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 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 211 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 bunch of flowers (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone. I painted all, then cried "'T is ask and have; "Choose,for more's ready!"---laid the ladder flat, And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall The monks closcd 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: 212 MEN AND WOMEN 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-- " Mans's soul and it's a fire, smoke. -. no, it's not... " It's vapour 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, colours, 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 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 213 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 nought. 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 nought 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 214 MEN AND WOMEN 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, FRA LIPPO LIPPI 215 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 for ever 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: 216 MEN AND WOMEN 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 colours, 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 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 2I7 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!" Stikes 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-- 218 MEN AND WOMEN " 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 tinme 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, Got 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 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 219 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? 220 MEN AND WOMEN " 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 hushand! 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-bye: no lights, no lights! The street's hushed, and I know my own way back, Don't fear me! There's the grey 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 222 MEN AND WOMEN 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 greyness 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, ANDREA DEL SARTO 223 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 things 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--what 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, 224 MEN AND WOMEN 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? ANDREA DEL SARTO 225 Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what 's a heaven for? All is silver-grey 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, IV. Q 226 MEN AND WOMEN 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 over-rules. 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. ANDREA DEL SARTO 227 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 grey, 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? Q2 228 MEN AND WOMEN 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 aiready words like those?) ANDREA DEL SARTO 229 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. What 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 230 MEN AND WOMEN The grey 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 ANDREA DEL SAATO 231 How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have laboured 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.