OF THE BROWNINGS ^•^y../* y^. h-^::^ McMAHAN .* „^^ -' » <, s V*' .■ ,\ •> & \^^^' .^-^'/^ '"^^^^^^ a< "^- ■^.^ * . o ^ ,^ ^ ,0- > - t ^ -^ V, ^ "' '' .V 0^ 0^ V *r „ --^ -O c 0- -r. '^/ ;. s 9 1 -v -^0 o vOO .0 vr . s <3 r^^ iir^^ "''^- v^ xOO '''"\K>i^'- .^■^ V*" V- if f V. .V' .j 30 Museum of San Marco Statue of Savonarola „ » 32 Palazzo Vecchio Cell of Savonarola . . . „ „ 34 Museum of San Marco Cliurch of Santa Maria Novella „ » 36 Fresco of Inferno, by Andrea Orcagna „ » 38 Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella Madonna „ » 40 Rucellai Chapel of Santa Maria Novella Crucifixion, by Margheritone , „ 42 Church of Santa Croce Portrait of Era Angelico „ ,,44 Academy of Fine Arts The Pitti Palace „ „ 46 Loggia dei Lanzi „ „ 48 Monument to Dante „ ,,50 Church of Santa Croce [ix] ILLUSTRATIONS Eresco of Dante To face page 52 Bargello Chapel Gate of San Niccolb . . „ „ 54 Gate of San Gallo „ „ 56 Bust of Brutus „ „ 58 Bargello Piazza in the Cascine „ „ 60 View of Florence „ „ 62 Campanile, with Cathedral and Baptistry . . . . „ „ 66 Portrait of Michel Angelo „ „ 68 Uffizi Gallery Portrait of Raphael Sanzio „ ,,72 Uffizi Gallery Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci ,, „ 74 Uffizi Gallery Statue of Niobe „ „ 80 Uffizi Gallery The Dying Alexander „ „ 84 Uffizi Gallery Portraits of Cimabue, Giotto, and Taddeo Gaddi . . „ „ 88 Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella Statue of Niccola Pisano „ „ 92 Portico of Uffizi Portrait of Ghiberti „ „ 94 Palazzo Vecchio Portrait of Ghirlandajo • » >, 100 Santa Maria Novella Portrait of Botticelli „ „ 102 Uffizi Gallery Portrait of Filippino Lippi „ „ 106 Uffizi Gallery Coronation of the Virgin, by Lorenzo Monaco . . „ „ 108 Uffizi Gallery ILLUSTRATIONS Madonna and Saints, by Baldovinetti .... To face Uffizi Gallery Church of San Spirito „ The Cloisters of the Carmine „ Portrait of Cosimo the Elder, by Pontormo . . . „ Uffizi Gallery St. Jerome, by Fra Filippo Lippi „ Academy of Fine Arts Church of the Carmine „ Group of Angels, by Giotto „ Medici Chapel in Santa Croce Portrait of Masaccio „ Brancacci Chapel in Church of the Carmine The Tribute Money, by Masaccio „ Brancacci Chapel in Church of the Carmine Coronation of the Virgin, by Filippo Lippi . . . „ Academy of Fine Arts Portrait of Filippo Lippi „ Academy of Fine Arts Portrait of Andrea del Sarto and his Wife . . . „ Pitti Gallery View of Fiesole „ Madonna, by Andrea del Sarto „ Pitti Gallery Palace Riccardi-Mannelli „ Piazza dell' Annunziata Villa Petraja „ Statue of Ferdinand I. de' Medici „ Piazza dell' Annunziata Piazza and Church of San Lorenzo „ Book-stall in Piazza San Lorenzo „ Riccardi Palace „ [xi] 'page 112 „ 114 „ 116 ,, 122 « 124 126 130 132 134 138 142 144 150 152 » 156 J» 158 » 164 )> 166 J) 170 J> 172 ILLUSTRATIONS Interior of San Lorenzo To face page 176 Strozzi Palace „ „ 180 Piazza Santa Trinita „ „ 184 Bridge of Santa Trinita „ „ 188 Porta Romana „ „ 194 Mrs. Browning's Tomb „ „ 200 Protestant Cemetery- Donna Velata „ „ 206 Pitti Gallery Madonna del Granduca „ „ 210 Pitti Gallery San Miniato „ „ 212 Galileo's Tower . . „ ,,218 The Protestant Cemetery „ „ 224 Piazza Donatello [xii] Introduction /4 LTHOUGH English poets bj birth, the city of L^L Florence, in Italy, was the home of Eobert and -^ -^ Elizabeth Barrett Browning during the fifteen years of their wedded life. Eor both, this was a period not only of supreme happiness but of continual literary production, most of which was profoundly and essentially influenced by Italian conditions and Italian atmosphere. The most distinctively lyrical poetry of Robert Browning belongs almost entirely to these years ; whoever would see him as a singer, in distinction from the dramatist of his earlier period or the philosophical and religious poet of his later life, must turn to the poems written during this time of " life, love, and Italy.'''' To both poets the history, the scenery, the art of Florence, was a continual inspira- tion; poems and correspondence alike show the supreme place it held in their affections. "The most beautiful of the cities devised by man,^^ says Mrs. Browning, in one of her letters; "completing Florence as Florence Italy ,^^ says Robert Browning, speaking of the campanile of the cathedral. Mrs. Browning's life-long interest in Italian politics and in popular liberty are too well known to need further [13] INTRODUCTION exposition; but the large part played by the local color of the city, the multitude of allusions to the churches, the piazzas, the pictures, the statues, the traditions of Florence can be understood fully only by a somewhat intimate knowledge of the city. The same is true of many of Robert Browning's poems. For example, his " Old Pictures in Florence " is counted among the most obscure of his shorter poems ; but it is obscure only because it assumes a larger amount of infor- mation in the history of art than most readers possess. It is true that nearly every line has some allusion to an artist or an art-principle more or less unknown ; but there is no obscurity either of thought or expression when we are once as well informed as Browning presupposes us all to be. Doubtless it was a mistake on his part. Himself living among these things, which were a part of his daily walk and thought, it was unwise to assume an equal amount of interest and knowledge on the part of his reader. But the error is botli complimentary and inspiring. Yisiting Florence, one of the first ambitions of a lover of Browning is to go about with " Old Pictures in Florence,'^ and other poems, as a guide-book to some of the things best worth seeing. But even such a person finds no small difficulty in locating the special picture, or statue, or scene. This book is an attempt to aid him and also the still larger number of persons who may never see the city itself. The poems of the Brownings already have been annotated ably and sufficiently as far as words can serve ; the pres- ent work aims to set before the eye pictures of the places [14] INTRODUCTION or persons mentioned^ so that each reader may see Flor- ence for himself as nearly as possible as the two poets saw it, may approach, as closely as ever is possible to an out- sider, the sources of poetical inspiration. Indeed, both poets at times seem to have invited us into the inner sanctuary of their minds, by stating dis- tinctly the circumstances which led to poetical creation. Mrs. Browning tells how she heard a little child go sing- ing underneath her windows, and how with it came the thought how " the heart of Italy must beat While such a voice had leave to rise serene 'Twixt church and palace of a Florence street." Hence the poem, '' Casa Guidi Windows.'^ Nor is there in all literature so painstaking an effort on the part of any writer to reveal precisely all the stages of the birth and growth of a poem, as that made by Brown- ing in the first book of " The Eing and the Book."*"* He tells the time and the place where he found, and the price that he paid for, a certain square old yellow book picked out from amid the promiscuous rubbish of an old book- stall ; how the story of it appealed to him from the very moment he laid hands upon it, and how, absorbed in the reading, he took his unconscious way through the familiar streets, finishing it just as he reached the doorway, " where the black begins with the first stone-slab of the staircase cold '^ — an unmistakable description of the dreary en- trance to Casa Guidi. It was the night after, he goes on to tell us, " as I trod the terrace and breathed the beauty [15] INTRODUCTION and the fearfulness of night/^ that the tragic piece acted itself over again, and he saw with his own eyes and heard as if speaking with their own voices all the long-dead per- sonages of the story, listened to their mutual accusations and to the defences of each for his own share in it. How such revelations come to the poetic soul no man will ever be able really to communicate to another ; but along all the list of writers who have attempted it, from Aristotle to Matthew Arnold, is there anywhere a better description of the nature of poetic inspiration than these passages from '' The Eing and the Book '' ? — " I fused my Hve soul and that inert stuff Before attempting smithcraft.'* " The hfe in me abohshed the death of things. Deep calHng unto deep." Or this, of the rapture felt by the poet in the act of creation : — " The Book ! I turn its medicinable leaves In London now tUl, as in Florence erst, A spirit laughs and leaps through every limb. And lights my eye, and Ufts me by the hair. Letting me have my will again with these. — How title I the dead, alive once more ? '* It was four years before the poem was fully wrought out and published in London ; but the whole conception of '^ The Eing and the Book ^^ was practically complete at the close of those twenty-four hours which the author has described so minutely. The scene of the story itself lies chiefly in Eome and Arezzo, but the vivid picture of the [16] INTRODUCTION surroundings and atmosphere on that memorable June day, the matchless description of the kindling of the poetic fire belong solely to Florence. Shortly after occurred the death of Mrs. Browning, the breaking up of the home, and Mr. Browning's departure from the city, to which he never afterwards returned. No effort has been made to correct what many will re- gard as misapprehensions on the part of the poets. What is known as the "new criticism '^ denies that Cimabue painted the " Madonna in Santa Maria Novella,^' and gives it to Duccio; the picture called "Andrea del Sarto and his Wife, Painted by himself,'^ is taken away from Andrea and ascribed to an unknown artist of the Yenetian school, and the portraits are considered to be two unknown persons. Whether right or wrong, no critical conclusion can ever destroy the charm of the poem called " Andrea del Sarto. '^ By whatever name we call the picture, to whatever artist we assign it, the story which Browning read between the lines of the two faces looking out from the canvas is no less eloquent, the monologue no less dramatically expres- sive of that type of artist who just misses his place among the very greatest by reason of his lack of spiritual power and grace. For years, hundreds of persons daily had passed unmoved before this picture in the Pitti Gallery ; one day the man of supreme dramatic imagination, the poet, paused, and to him the lips seemed to move and the heart to throb with a tale of love and woe and resigned despair. Since that time there are none who read the poem who do not wish to see the picture itself, or, fail- 2 [17] INTRODUCTION ing ia that, some reproduction of it. "With "Era Lippo Lippi " and other poems the case is the same. To such persons is offered this book — a selection of those poems of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning which have to do with Florence, — in the belief that with these two great poets as guides they will see with a new vision some of the old glories of the fair city of the Arno. A. B. McM. Tlorence, Italy, 1904. [18] CAS A GUIDI WINDOWS FLORENCE in the POErRYrHE BROWNINGS CAS A GUIDI WINDOWS A POEM, IN TWO PARTS ^'J^^HIS poem contains the impressions of the writer m upon events in Tuscany of which she was a wit- -^ ness. ^' From a xvindow^'' the critic may demur. She hows to the objection in the very title of her work. No continuous narrative nor exposition of political phi- losophy is attempted by her. It is a simple story of personal impressions, zvhose only value is in the intensity xvith which they were received, as proving her warm affection for a beautifid and unfortunate country, and the sincerity with which they are related, as indicating her own good faith and freedom from partisanship. Of the two parts of this poem, the first loas written 7iearly three years ago ; while the second resumes the actual situation of 1851. The discrepancy between the two parts is a sufficient guaranty to the public of the truthfulness of the writer, who, though she certainly escaped the epidemic ''falling sickness'''' of enthusiasm for Pio Nono, takes shame upon herself that she believed, like a woman, some royal oaths, and lost sight of the [21 ] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS probable consequeiices of some obvious popular defects. If the discrepancy shoidd be painfid to the reader^ let him understand that to the writer it has been more so. But such discrepancies we are called upon to accept at every hour by the conditions of our nature, implying the interval between aspiration and performance, between faith and disillusion, betzveen hope and fact, " O trusted broken prophecy, O richest fortune sourly crosst. Born for the future, to the future lost! " Nay, not lost to the future in this case. The future of Italy shall not be disinherited. Florence, 1851. 1 HEARD last night a little child go singing 'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church, " hella liberiay hella ! '' stringing The same words still on notes, he went in search So high for, jou concluded the up-springing Of such a nimble bird to sky from perch Must leave the whole bush in a tremble green. And that the heart of Italy must beat, While such a voice had leave to rise serene ^Twixt church and palace of a Florence street : A little child, too, who not long had been By mother^s finger steadied on his feet. And still " hella liberta " he sang. [22] CAS A GUIDI WINDOWS Then I thought, musing, of the innumerous Sweet songs which still for Italy outrang From older singers^ lips, who sang not thus Exultingly and purely, yet, with pang Fast sheatlied in music, touched the heart of us So finely, that the pity scarcely pained. I thought how Filicaja led on others, Bewailers for their Italy enchained. And how they call her childless among mothers. Widow of empires, ay, and scarce refrained Cursing her beauty to her face, as brothers Might a shamed sister's, — '^ Had she been less fair, She were less wretched,^' — how, evoking so From congregated wrong and heaped despair Of men and women writhing under blow. Harrowed and hideous in a filthy lair. Some personating image wherein woe Was wrapt in beauty from offending much, They called it Cybele, or Niobe, Or laid it corpse-like on a bier for such. Where all the world might drop for Italy Those cadenced tears which burn not where they touch, — " Juliet of nations, canst thou die as we ? And was the violet crown that crowned thy head So over-large, though new buds made it rough. It slipped down, and across thine eyelids dead, O sweet, fair Juliet ? '^ Of such songs enough, Too many of such complaints ! Behold, instead, [ 23] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Void at Verona, Juliet^ s marble trough ; ^ As void as that is, are all images Men set between themselves and actual wrong To catch the weight of pity, meet the stress Of conscience ; since 't is easier to gaze long On mournful masks and sad effigies Than on real, live, weak creatures crushed by strong. For me, who stand in Italy to-day — Where worthier poets stood and sang before, I kiss their footsteps, yet their words gainsay. I can but muse in hope upon this shore Of golden Arno as it shoots away Through Florence^ heart beneath her bridges four, — Bent bridges seeming to strain off like bows. And tremble while the arrowy undertide Shoots on, and cleaves the marble as it goes. And strikes up palace-walls on either side. And froths the cornice out in glittering rows. With doors and windows quaintly multiplied. And terrace-sweeps, and gazers upon all, By whom if flower or kerchief were thrown out From any lattice there, the same would fall Into the river underneath, no doubt. It runs so close and fast ^twixt wall and wall. How beautiful ! The mountains from without In silence listen for the word said next. What word will men say, — here where Giotto planted ^ They show at Verona, as the tomb of Juliet, aa empty trough of stone. [24 ] «• Si, §- I ^ i 1 >- o » 2. OS c -^ o =^> a 5" ^ I > a O o ? H ' a- ^ % o CASA GUIDI WINDOWS His campanile like an uiiperplext Fine question heavenward, touching the things granted A noble people, who, being greatly vext In act, in aspiration keep undaunted ? What word will God say ? MicheFs Night and Day And Dawn and Twilight wait in marble scorn, Like dogs upon a dunghill, couched on clay From whence the Medicean stamp^s outworn. The final putting-ofF of all such sway Bj all such hands, and freeing of the unborn In Florence and the great world outside Florence. Three hundred years his patient statues wait In that small chapel of the dim St. Lawrence : Day's eyes are breaking bold and passionate Over his shoulder, and will flash abhorrence On darkness, and with level looks meet fate. When once loose from that marble film of theirs ; The Night has wild dreams in her sleep, the Dawn Is haggard as the sleepless. Twilight wears A sort of horror ; as the veil withdrawn ''Twixt the artistes soul and works had left them heirs Of speechless thoughts which would not quail nor fawn, Of angers and contempts, of hope and love : For not without a meaning did he place The princely Urbino on the seat above With everlasting shadow on his face, While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove The ashes of his long-extinguished race Which never more shall clog the feet of men. v [ 25 J CASA GUIDI WINDOWS I do believe, divinest Angelo, That winter-hour in Via Larga, when They bade thee build a statue up in snow_,^ And straight that marvel of thine art again Dissolved beneath the sun^s Italian glow. Thine eyes, dilated with the plastic passion, Thawing, too, in drops of wounded manhood, since. To mock alike thine art and indignation. Laughed at the palace-window the new prince, — {" Aha ! this genius needs for exaltation, When all 's said, and however the proud may wince, A little marble from our princely mines ! '') I do believe that hour thou laughedst too Por the whole sad world, and for thy Florentines, After those few tears, which were only few ! That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines Of thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew, — The head, erect as Jove's, being palsied first. The eyelids flattened, the full brow turned blank. The right hand, raised but now as if it curst, Dropt, a mere snowball (till the people sank Their voices, though a louder laughter burst Prom the royal window) — thou couldst proudly thank God and the prince for promise and presage. And laugh the laugh back, I think verily. Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage To read a wrong into a prophecy, 1 This mocking task was set by Pietro, the unworthy successor of Lorenzo the Magnificent. [26] M ICHEL ANGELO'S monument to Giuliano de' Medici in the New Sacristy of Church of San Lorenzo, with statues of Day and Night. " MicheVs Night and Day And Dawn and Twilight wait in marble scorn. " — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 25. ^ CASA GUIDI WINDOWS And measure a true great man^s heritage Against a mere great duke's posterity. I think thy soul said then, '' I do not need A princedom and its quarries, after all ; Eor if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed, On book, or board, or dust, on floor or wall, The same is kept of God, who taketh heed That not a letter of the meaning fall Or ere it touch and teach his world's deep heart, Outlasting, therefore, all your lordships, sir ! So keep your stone, beseech you, for your part. To cover up your grave-place, and refer The proper titles : / live by my art. The thought I threw into this snow shall stir This gazing people when their gaze is done ; And the tradition of your act and mine. When all the snow is melted in the sun, ShaU gather up for unborn men a sign Of what is the true princedom ; ay, and none Shall laugh that day, except the drunk with wine. Amen, great Angelo ! the day 's at hand. If many laugh not on it, shall we weep ? Much more we must not, let us understand. Through rhymers sonneteering in their sleep. And archaists mumbling dry bones up the land. And sketches lauding ruined towns a-heap, — Through all that drowsy hum of voices smootli, The hopeful bird mounts carolling from brake, [27] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS The hopeful child, with leaps to catch his growth. Sings open-eyed for liberty's sweet sake ; And I, a singer also from my youth. Prefer to sing with these who are awake, With birds, with babes, with men who will not fear The baptism of the holy morning dew (And many of such wakers now are here. Complete in their anointed manhood, who Will greatly dare, and greatlier persevere). Than join those old thin voices with my new. And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh Cooped up in music 'twixt an oh and ah : Nay, hand in hand with that young child will I Go singing rather, "Bella liherta" Than, with those poets, croon the dead, or cry '' Se tu men bellafossi, Italia ! " " Less wretched if less fair/"* Perhaps a truth Is so far plain in this, that Italy, Long trammelled with the purple of her youth Against her age's ripe activity. Sits still upon her tombs, without death's ruth. But also without life's brave energy. " Now tell us what is Italy ? " men ask ; And others answer, " Virgil, Cicero, Catullus, Csesar." What beside, to task The memory closer ? — " Why, Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarca," — and if still the flask Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow, — [ 28 ] M ICHEL ANGELO'S monument to Lorenzo de' Medici in the New Sacristy of Church of San Lorenzo, with statues of Evening and Dawn. " Three hundred years his patient statues wait In that small chapel of the dim St. Lawrence.''^ — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 25. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS " Angelo, Eaffael, Pergolese/" — all Whose strong hearts beat through stone^ or charged again The paints with fire of souls electrical. Or broke up heaven for music. What more then ? Why, then, no more. The chaplet^s last beads fall In naming the last saintship within ken. And, after that, none prayetli in the land. Alas ! this Italy has too long swept Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand ; Of her own past, impassioned nympholept ! Consenting to be nailed here by the hand To the very bay-tree under which, she stept A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch ; And, licensing the world too long indeed To use her broad phylacteries to stanch And stop her bloody lips, she takes no heed How one clear word would draw an avalanche Of living sons around her to succeed The vanished generations. Can she count These oil-eaters with large, live, mobile mouths Agape for macaroni, in the amount Of consecrated heroes of her south^s Bright rosary ? The pitcher at the fount. The gift of gods, being broken, she much loathes To let the ground-leaves of the place confer A natural bowl. So henceforth she would seem No nation, but the poet^s pensioner. With alms from every land of song and dream. While aye her pipers sadly pipe of her [g9J CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Until their proper breaths, in that extreme Of sighing, split the reed on which thej played ; Of which, no more. But never say ^^ No more " To Italy's life ! Her memories undismayed Still argue " evermore " ; her graves implore Her future to be strong, and not afraid ; Her very statues send their looks before. =>-— We do not serve the dead : the past is past. God lives, and lifts his glorious mornings up Before the eyes of men awake at last. Who put away the meats they used to sup, And dow^n upon the dust of earth outcast The dregs remaining of the ancient cup. Then turned to wakeful prayer and worthy act. The dead, upon their awful vantage ground, The sun not in their faces, shall abstract No more our strength : we will not be discrowned As guardians of their crowns, nor deign transact A barter of the present, for a sound Of good so counted in the foregone days. O dead ! ye shall no longer cling to us With rigid hands of desiccating praise, And drag us backward by the garment thus, To stand and laud you in long-drawn virelays. We will not henceforth be oblivious Of our own lives, because ye lived before. Nor of our acts, because ye acted well. We thank you that ye first unlatched the door, [30 J ^ n •^ c- c/: 1— 1 c £. E p O t-f H o5 o S" p a ^* •-s rt P •^ p p" ?3 S ^T o c cy ■— s ^ O *-< ►^ 13 p >^ b^> e-t- ^ s ra ,^. 3 g << *tS "T2 5_ E- p^ o ;^ c p" p o 9 (4 ^ o o «-< P -^ o o o li V. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS But will not make it inaccessible By thankings on the threshold any more. We hurry onward to extinguish hell With our fresh souls_, our younger hope, and God^s Maturity of purpose. Soon shall we Die also, and, that then our periods Of life may round themselves to memory As smoothly as on our graves the burial-sods. We now must look to it to excel as ye. And bear our age as far, unlimited By the last mind-mark ; so, to be invoked By future generations, as their dead. ''T is true, that, when the dust of death has choked A great man's voice, the common words he said Turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked Like horses, draw like griffins : this is true And acceptable. I, too, should desire, When men make record with the flowers they strew, " Savonarola's soul went out in fire Upon our Grand-duke's piazza, and burned through A moment first, or ere he did expire. The veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed How near God sate and judged the judges there,''^ — Upon the self- same pavement over-strewed To cast my violets with as reverent care. And prove that all the winters which have snowed Cannot snow out the scent from stones and air. Of a sincere man's virtues. This was he, [31] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Savonarola, who, while Peter sank With his whole boat-load, called courageously, " Wake Christ, wake Christ ! " who, having tried the tank Of old church-waters used for baptistry Ere Luther canie to spill them, swore they stank ; Who also by a princely death-bed cried, " Loose Florence, or God will not loose thy soul ! "" Then fell back the Magnificent, and died Beneath the star-look shooting from the cowl. Which turned to wormwood-bitterness the wide Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul ^- To grudge Savonarola and the rest Their violets : rather pay tbem quick and fresh. The emphasis of death makes manifest The eloquence of action in our flesh ; And men who living were but dimly guessed. When once free from their life's entangled mesh. Show their full length in graves, or oft indeed Exaggerate their stature, in the flat. To noble admirations which exceed Most nobly, yet will calculate in that But accurately. We who are the seed Of buried creatures, if we turned and spat Upon our antecedents, we were vile. Bring violets rather. If these had not walked Their furlong, could we hope to walk our mile ? Therefore bring violets. Yet if we, self-balked. Stand still a-strewing violets all the while, [ 32 ] s TATUE of Savonarola in the Great Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. Savonarola " This was he, . the star-look shooting from the cowl. " — Casa Guidi Windows, pp. 31, 32. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS These moved in vain, of whom we have vainly talked. So rise up henceforth with a cheerful smile. And, having strewn the violets, reap the corn. And, having reaped and garnered, bring the plough And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn. And plant the great Hereafter in this Now. Of old ^t was so. How step by step was worn, As each man gained on each securely ! how Each by his own strength sought his own Ideal, — The ultimate Perfection leaning bright Erom out the sun and stars to bless the leal And earnest search of all for Eair and Right Through doubtful forms by earth accounted real ! Because old Jubal blew into delight The souls of men with clear-piped melodies. If youthful Asaph were content at most To draw from Jubal' s grave, with listening eyes. Traditionary music's floating ghost Into the grass-grown silence, were it wise ? And was 't not wiser, JubaFs breath being lost, That Miriam clashed her cymbals to surprise The sun between her white arms flung apart. With new glad golden sounds ? that David's strings Overflowed his hand with music from his heart ? So harmony grows full from many springs. And happy accident turns holy art. You enter, in your Florence wanderings, The Church of St. Maria Novella. Pass 3 [ 33 ] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS The left stair, where at plague-time Machiavel Saw one with set fair face as in a glass. Dressed out against the fear of death and hell, Rustling her silks in pauses of the mass To keep the thought off how her husband fell. When she left home, stark dead across her feet, — The stair leads up to what the Orgagnas save Of Dante's demons ; jou in passing it Ascend the right stair from the farther nave To muse in a small chapel scarcely lit Bj Cimabue's Yirgin. Bright and brave. That picture was accounted, mark, of old : A king stood bare before its sovran grace, A reverent people shouted to behold The picture, not the king; and even the place Containing such a miracle grew bold. Named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face Which thrilled the artist after work to think His own ideal Marj-smile should stand So very near him, — he, within the brink Of all that glory, let in by his hand With too divine a rashness! Yet none shrink Who come to gaze here now ; albeit 't was planned Sublimely in the thought's simplicity. The Lady, throned in empyreal state. Minds only the young Babe upon her knee, While sidelong angels bear the royal weight. Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly Oblivion of their wings ; the child thereat [34] c ELL of Savonarola iu San Marco. " 2'he emphasis of death makes manifest The eloquence of action in our fiesh.'''' — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 32. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Stretching its hand like God. If any should. Because of some stifP draperies and loose joints, Gaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood On Cimabue's picture, Heaven anoints The head of no such critic, and his blood The poet^s curse strikes full on, and appoints To ague and cold spasms forevermore. A noble picture ! worthy of the shout Wherewith along the streets the people bore Its cherub-faces which the sun threw out Until they stooped, and entered the church-door. Yet rightly was young Giotto talked about. Whom Cimabue found among the sheep,^ And knew, as gods know gods, and carried home To paint the things he had painted, with a deep And fuller insight, and so overcome His Chapel-Lady with a heavenlier sweep Of light; for thus we mount into the sum Of great things known or acted. I hold, too. That Cimabue smiled upon the lad At the first stroke which passed what he could do, Or else his Virgin^s smile had never had Such sweetness in ^t. All great men who foreknew Their heirs in art, for art^s sake have been glad. And bent their old white heads as if uncrowned, ^ How Cimabue found Giotto, the shepherd-boy, sketching a ram of his flock upon a stone, is prettily told by Vasari, who also relates that the elder artist Margheritone died " infastidito " of the successes of the new school. [35] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Fanatics of their pure ideals still Far more than of their triumphs, which were found With some less vehement struggle of the will. If old Margheritone trembled, swooned, And died despairing at the open sill Of other men^s achievements (who achieved By loving art beyond the master) he Was old Margheritone, and conceived Never, at first youth and most ecstasy, A Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved The death-sigh from his heart. If wistfully Margheritone sickened at the smell Of Cimabue^s laurel, let him go ! For Cimabue stood up very well In spite of Giotto's, and Angelico The artist-saint kept smiling in his cell The smile with which he welcomed the sweet slow Inbreak of angels (whitening through the dim That he might paint them) while the sudden sense Of EaffaeFs future was revealed to him By force of his own fair work's competence. The same blue waters where the dolphins swim Suggest the tritons. Through the blue immense Strike out, all swimmers ! cling not in the way Of one another, so to sink, but learn The strong man's impulse, catch the freshening spray He throws up in his motions, and discern By his clear westering eye, the time of day. Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn [36] o ^ '^ '^ ^ a o . '^ I f i » ^ ^ 9! r s 9 a. I o OS o P3 :; rr* C E- 1 H-, t— 1 1 o or as ^^ n- ri n GO m ?-t- B 2 ri- S" P a' rf ►^ • o ^' CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Besides thy heaven and thee ! and when I say There ^s room here for the weakest man alive To live and die, there ''s room, too, I repeat, Por all the strongest to live well, and strive Their own way by their individual heat. Like some new bee-swarm leaving the old hive. Despite the wax which tempts so violet-sweet. Then let the living live, the dead retain Their grave-cold flowers ! though honor 's best supplied By bringing actions to prove theirs not vain. Cold graves, we say? it shall be testified That living men who burn in heart and brain. Without the dead were colder. If we tried To sink the past beneatli our feet, be sure The future would not stand. Precipitate This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure. The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate. How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer ! The tall green poplars grew no longer straight Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight For Athens, and not swear by Marathon ? Who dared build temples, without tombs in sight ? Or live, without some dead man^s benison ? Or seek truth, hope for good, and strive for right. If, looking up, he saw not in the sun Some angel of the martyrs all day long Standing and waiting ? Your last rhythm will need Your earliest keynote. Could I sing this song, [37] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS If my dead masters had not taken heed To help the heavens and earth to make me strong, As the wind ever will find out some reed. And touch it to such issues as belong To such a frail thing ? None may grudge the dead Libations from full cups. Unless we choose To look back to the hills behind us spread, The plains before us sadden and confuse : If orphaned, we are disinherited. I would but turn these lachrymals to use, And pour fresh oil in from the olive-grove. To furnish them as new lamps. Shall I say What made my heart beat with exulting love A few days back ? — The day was such a day As Florence owes the sun. The sky above. Its weight upon the mountains seemed to lay, And palpitate in glory, like a dove Who has flown too fast, full-hearted — take away The image ! for the heart of man beat higher That day in Florence, flooding all her streets And piazzas with a tumult and desire. The people, with accumulated heats. And faces turned one way, as if one fire Both drew and flushed them, left their ancient beats. And went up toward the palace-Pitti wall To thank their Grand-duke, who, not quite of course. Had graciously permitted, at their call, [38] A NDREA ORCAGNA'S fresco of Dante's Inferno in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella. " The stair leads up to what the Orgagnas save Of Dante s demons. " — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 34. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS The citizens to use their civic force To guard their civic homes. So, one and all, The Tuscan cities streamed up to the source Of this new good at Florence, taking it As good so far, presageful of more good, — The first torch of Italian freedom, lit To toss in the next tiger^s face vrho should Approach too near them in a greedy fit, — The first pulse of an even flow of blood To prove the level of Italian veins Towards rights perceived and granted. How we gazed From Casa Guidi windows, while, in trains Of orderly procession — banners raised. And intermittent bursts of martial strains Which died upon the shout, as if amazed By gladness beyond music — they passed on ! The Magistracy, with insignia, passed. And all the people shouted in the sun. And all the thousand windows which had cast A ripple of silks in blue and scarlet down, (As if the houses overflowed at last,) Seemed growing larger with fair heads and eyes. The Lawyers passed, and still arose the shout. And hands broke from the windows to surprise Those grave, calm brows with bay-tree leaves thrown out. The Priesthood passed, the friars with worldly-wise Keen, sidelong glances from their beards about The street to see who shouted ; many a monk Who takes a long rope in the waist was there : [39] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Whereat the popular exultation drunk With indrawn " vivas '' the whole sunny air. While through the murmuring windows rose and sunk A cloud of kerchiefed hands, — " The Church makes fair Her welcome in the new Pope^s name/^ Ensued The black sign of the " Martyrs " — (name no name. But count the graves in silence). Next were viewed The Artists ; next the Trades ; and after came The People, — flag and sign, and rights as good, — And very loud the shout was for that same Motto, " II popolo/' II Popolo, — The word means dukedom, empire, majesty. And kings in such an hour might read it so. And next, with banners, each in his degree, Deputed representatives a-row Of every separate state of Tuscany : Siena^s she-wolf, bristling on the fold Of the first flag, preceded Pisa^s hare ; And Massac's lion floated calm in gold, Pienza^s following with his silver stare ; Arezzo^s steed pranced clear from bridle-hold, — And well might shout our Florence, greeting there . These, and more brethren. Last, the world had sent The various children of her teeming flanks — Greeks, English, Erench — as if to a parliament Of lovers of her Italy in ranks. Each bearing its land^s symbol reverent ; At which the stones seemed breaking into thanks. And rattling up the sky, such sounds in proof [40] ]\/rADONNA in Rucellai Chapel -^^-'-of Santa Maria Novella. " Ascend the right stair from the farther nave To muse in a small chapel scarcely lit By Cimahue^s Virc/iu.''^ — Casa Guidi "Windows, p. 34. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Arose, the very house-walls seemed to bend ; The very windows, up from door to roof. Flashed out a rapture of bright heads, to mend With passionate looks the gesture's whirling off A hurricane of leaves. Three hours did end While all these passed ; and ever, in the crowd, Rude men, unconscious of the tears that kept Their beards moist, shouted; some few laughed aloud, And none asked any why they laughed and wept : Friends kissed each other's cheeks, and foes long vowed More warmly did it ; two-months babies leapt Eight upward in their mother's arms, whose black. Wide, glittering eyes looked elsewhere ; lovers pressed Each before either, neither glancing back ; And peasant maidens smoothly 'tired and tressed Forgot to finger on their throats the slack Great pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest. But pattered with their staves, and slid their shoes Along the stones, and smiled as if they saw. O Heaven, I think that day had noble use Among God's days ! So near stood Eight and Law, Both mutually forborne ! Law would not bruise. Nor Eight deny ; and each in reverent awe Honored the other. And if, ne'ertheless. That good day's sun delivered to the vines No charta, and the liberal Duke's excess Did scarce exceed a Guelf's or Ghibelline's [41 ] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS In any special actual righteousness Of what that day he granted, still the signs Are good and full of promise, we must say. When multitudes approach their kings with prayers. And kings concede their people's right to pray, Both in one sunshine. Griefs are not despairs, So uttered ; nor can royal claims dismay When men from humble homes and ducal chairs. Hate wrong together. It was weU to view Those baimers ruffled in a ruler's face Inscribed, " Live, freedom, union, and all true Brave patriots who are aided by God's grace ! " Nor was it ill when Leopoldo drew His little children to the window-place He stood in at the Pitti to suggest Thei/, too, should govern as the people willed. What a cry rose then ! Some, who saw the best. Declared his eyes filled up and overfilled With good, warm human tears, which unrepressed Ran down. I like his face : the forehead's build Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps Sufficient comprehension ; mild and sad. And careful nobly, not with care that wraps Self-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad. But careful with the care that shuns a lapse Of faith and duty ; studious not to add A burden in the gathering of a gain. And so, God save the Duke, I say with those Who that day shouted it ; and, while dukes reign, [42] M ARGHERITONE'S Crucifixion with Madonna and St. John. In Church of Santa Croce. Ss.»j» ''He Was old Margheritone^ and conceived Never ^ at first youth and most ecstasy y A Viryin like that dream of one ^ which heaved The death-siyh from his heart. " — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 3G. " Margheritone of Arezzo, ^\ ' . . a poor glimmering Crucifi.vioh.'''' — Old Pictures in Florence, pp. 114, 115. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS May all wear in the visible overflows Of spirit such a look of careful pain ! For God must love it better than repose. And all the people who went up to let Their hearts out to that Duke, as has been told — Where guess ye that the living people met. Kept tryst, formed ranks, chose leaders, first unrolled Their banners ? In the Loggia ? where is set Cellini's godlike Perseus, bronze or gold, (How name the metal, when the statue flings Its soul so in your eyes ?) with brow and sword Superbly calm, as all opposing things. Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred Since ended ? No, the people sought no wings Prom Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored An inspiration in the place beside Prom that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand. Where Buonarroti passionately tried Prom out the close-clenched marble to demand The head of Eorae's sublimest homicide. Then dropt the quivering mallet from, his hand, Despairing he could find no model-stuft' Of Brutus in all Plorence, where he found The gods and gladiators thick enough. Nor there ! the people chose still holier ground : The people, who are simple, blind, and rough, [ 43 ] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Know their own angels, after looking round. Whom chose they then ? where met they ? On the stone Called Dante^s, — a plain flat stone scarce discerned From others in the pavement, — whereupon He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned To Brunelleschi^s church, and pour alone The lava of his spirit when it burned : It is not cold to-day. O passionate Poor Dante, who, a banished Florentine, Didst sit austere at banquets of the great, And muse upon this far-off stone of thine. And think how oft some passer used to wait A moment, in the golden day^'s decline, With " Good-night, dearest Dante ! '' — well, good-night ! I muse now, Dante, and think verily, Though chapelled in the by-way, out of sight, Eavenna^s bones would thrill with ecstasv, Couldst know thy favorite stone^s elected right As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee Their earliest chartas from. Good-night, good-morn. Henceforward, Dante ! now my soul is sure That thine is better comforted of scorn. And looks down earthward in completer cure Than when, in Santa Croce Church forlorn Of any corpse, the architect and hewer Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb. For now thou art no longer exiled, now [ 44 ] nARLO DOLCrS portrait of Fra Aiigelico in the Academy of Fine Arts. " Angelico The artist saint kept smllinr/ in his cell.'''' — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 3G. " A scrap of Fra Anf/dico^s.'''' — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114. " Brother Angelico * the man, you 11 find."' — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 129. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Best honored : we salute thee who art come Back to the old stone with a softer brow Than Giotto drew upon the wall, for some Good lovers of our age to track and plough Their way to, through timers ordures stratified. And startle broad awake into the dull Bargello chamber : now thou ^rt milder-eyed, — Now Beatrix may leap up glad to cull Thy first smile, even in heaven and at her side. Like that which, nine years old, looked beautiful At May-game. What do I say ? I only meant That tender Dante loved his Florence well. While Florence, now, to love him is content ; And mark ye, that the piercingest sweet smell Of love's dear incense by the living sent To find the dead is not accessible To lazy livers, no narcotic, not Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune. But trod out in the morning air by hot. Quick spirits who tread firm to ends foreshown. And use the name of greatness unforgot. To meditate what greatness may be done. For Dante sits in heaven, and ye stand here. And more remains for doing, all must feel. Than try sting on his stone from year to year To shift processions, civic toe to heel. The town^s thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer For what was felt that day ? A chariot-wheel May spin fast, yet. the chariot never roll ; [45] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS But if that daj suggested something good. And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul — Better means freer. A land's brotherhood Is most puissant : men, upon the whole, ^re what they can be ; nations, what they would. Will, therefore, to be strong, thou Italy ! Will to be noble ! Austrian Metternich Can fix no yoke, unless the neck agree ; And thine is like the lion's when the thick Dews shudder from it, and no man would be The stroker of his mane, much less would prick His nostril with a reed. When nations roar Like lions, who shall tame them, and defraud Of the due pasture by the river-shore ? Eoar, therefore ! shake your dew-laps dry abroad ; The amphitheatre with open door Leads back upon the benches who applaud The last spear-thruster. Yet the heavens forbid That we should call on passion to confront The brutal with the brutal, and, amid This ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt And lion's vengeance for the wrongs men did And do now, though the spears are getting blunt. We only call, because the sight and proof Of lion-strength hurts nothing ; and to show A lion -heart, and measure paw with hoof, [46] I. -I Si- o c^ a :s ^ i ? « a" CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Helps something, even, and will instruct a foe. As well as the onslaught, how to stand aloof : Or else the world gets past the mere brute blow, Or given or taken. Children use the fist Until they are of age to use the brain j And so we needed Csesars to assist Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain God's counsel, when a point was nearly missed. Until our generations should attain Christ's stature nearer. Not that we, alas ! Attain already ; but a single inch Will raise to look down on the swordsman's pass. As knightly Roland on the coward's flinch : And, after chloroform and ether-gas, We find out slowly what the bee and finch Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in each, — How to our races we may justify Our individual claims, and, as we reach Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply The children's uses, — how to fill a breach With olive-branches, — how to quench a lie With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek With Christ's most conquering kiss. Why, these are things Worth a great nation's finding, to prove weak The *^ glorious arms " of military kings. And so, with wide embrace, my England, seek To stifle the bad heat and flickerings Of this world's false and nearly expended fire. [47] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Draw palpitating arrows to the wood. And twang abroad thy high hopes and thy higher Eesolves from that most virtuous altitude. Till nations shall unconsciously aspire By looking up to thee, and learn that good And glory are not different. Announce law By freedom ; exalt chivalry by peace ; Instruct how clear, calm eyes can overawe. And how pure hands, stretched simply to release A bond-slave, will not need a sword to draw To be held dreadful. O my England, crease Thy purple with no alien agonies, No struggles toward encroachment, no vile war ! Disband thy captains, change thy victories ; Be henceforth prosperous, as the angels are. Helping, not humbling. Drums and battle-cries Go out in music of the morning-star; And soon we shall have thinkers in the place Of fighters, each found able as a man To strike electric influence through a race. Unstayed by city-wall and barbican. The poet shall look grander in the face Than even of old (when he of Greece began - To sing " that Achillean wrath which slew So many heroes "), seeing he shall treat The deeds of souls heroic toward the true. The oracles of life, previsions sweet [48] ^4 : CASA GUIDI WINDOWS No altars, and no hands defiled with pitch. Shall scare me off; but I will pray and eat With all these, taking leave to choose my ewers. And say at last, " Your visible churches cheat Their inward types ; and, if a church assures Of standing without failure and defeat. The same both fails and lies." To leave which lures Of wider subject through past years, — behold. We come back from the popedom to the pope. To ponder what he must be, ere we are bold For what he may be, with our heavy hope To trust upon his soul. So, fold by fold. Explore this mummy in the priestly cope. Transmitted through the darks of time, to catch The man within the wrappage, and discern How he, an honest man, upon the watch Full fifty years for what a man may learn, Contrived to get just there ; with what a snatch Of old-world oboli he had to earn The passage through ; with what a drowsy sop, To drench the busy barkings of his brain ; What ghosts of pale tradition, wreathed with hop ■'Gainst wakeful thought, he had to entertain For heavenly visions ; and consent to stop The clock at noon, and let the hour remain (Without vain windings-up) inviolate Against all chimings from the belfry. Lo, [67] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS From every given pope you must abate_, Albeit you love him, some things — good, you know Which every given heretic you hate. Assumes for his, as being plainly so. A pope must hold by popes a little, — yes. By councils, from Nicsea up to Trent, — By hierocratic empire, more or less Irresponsible to men, — he must resent Each man^s particular conscience, and repress Inquiry, meditation, argument. As tyrants faction. Also, he must not Love truth too dangerously, but prefer " The interests of the Church '' (because a blot Is better than a rent, in miniver) ; Submit to see the people swallow hot Husk-porridge, which his chartered churchmen stir Quoting the only true God's epigraph, " Eeed my lambs, Peter ! " must consent to sit Attesting with his pastoral ring and stafP To such a picture of our Lady, hit Off well by artist-angels (though not half As fair as Giotto would have painted it) ; To such a vial, where a dead man's blood Ptuns yearly warm beneath a churchman's finger; To such a holy house of stone and wood. Whereof a cloud of angels was the bringer From Bethlehem to Loreto. Were it good Eor any pope on earth to be a flinger Of stones against these high-niched counterfeits ? [58] XTNFINISHED bust of Brutus by J ia Bargello. Brutus by Michel Angelo ■ ^^^^^^Kf^ Hp i B v^*r\ / •'■ ^^^^fe^^V S^F*1b ^ ft ^Ht^HH^^^BHh^^ % ^^^^^j^/ff rf^ ..^^H HHI^H " Where Buonarroti passionately/ tried From out the close-clenched marble to demand The head of Rome^s suhlimest homicide.''^ — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 43. '* Straight his plastic hand Fell hack before his prophet-soul, and left A fragment, a maimed Brutus. " — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 87. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Apostates only are iconoclasts. He dares not say, while this false thing abets That true thing, " This is false/^ He keeps his fasts And prayers, as prayer and fast were silver frets To change a note upon a string that lasts, And make a lie a virtue. Now, if he Did more than this, higher hoped, and braver dared, I think he were a pope in jeopardy. Or no pope rather, for his truth had barred The vaulting of his life ; and certainly. If he do only this, mankind^s regard Moves on from him at once to seek some new Teacher and leader. He is good and great According to the deeds a pope can do ; Most liberal, save those bonds ; affectionate. As princes may be, and, as priests are, true. But only the Ninth Pius after eight. When all ^s praised most. At best and hopefullest. He ^s pope : we want a man ! His heart beats warm ; But, like the prince enchanted to the waist, He sits in stone, and hardens by a charm Into the marble of his throne high-placed. Mild benediction waves his saintly arm — So, good ! But what we want 's a perfect man. Complete and all alive : half travertine Half suits our need, and ill subserves our plan. Feet, knees, nerves, sinews, energies divine. Were never yet too much for men who ran In such hard ways as must be this of thine^ [ 59 ] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Deliverer whom we seek, whoe'er thou art, Pope, prince, or peasant ! If, indeed, the first. The noblest, therefore ! since the heroic heart Within thee must be great enough to burst Those trammels buckling to the baser part Thy saintly peers in Rome, who crossed and cursed With the same finger. Come, appear, be found, If pope or peasant, come ! we hear the cock. The courtier of the mountains when first crowned With golden dawn ; and orient glories flock To meet the sun upon the highest ground. Take voice, and work ! we wait to hear thee knock At some one of our Florentine nine gates. On each of which was imaged a subhme Face of a Tuscan genius, which, for hate's And love's sake both, our Florence in her prime Turned boldly on all comers to her states. As heroes turned their shields in antique time Emblazoned with honorable acts. And though The gates are blank now of such images. And Petrarch looks no more from Niccolb Toward dear Arezzo, 'twixt the acacia-trees. Nor Dante, from gate Gallo — still we know. Despite the razing of the blazonries, Eemains the consecration of the shield : The dead heroic faces will start out On all these gates, if foes should take the field, [60] ^ I a- "4 o a «. o n o " CASA GUIDI WINDOWS And blend sublimely, at the earliest shout. With living heroes who will scorn to yield A hair^s-breadth even, when, gazing round about. They find in what a glorious company They fight the foes of Florence. Who will grudge His one poor life, when that great man we see Has given five hundred years, the world being judge. To help the glory of his Italy ? Who, born the fair side of the Alps, will budge. When Dante stays, when Ariosto stays. When Petrarch stays for ever ? Ye brin^ swords. My Tuscans ? Ay, if wanted in this haze. Bring swords, but first bring souls, — bring thoughts and words, Unrusted by a tear of yesterday's. Yet awful by its wrong, — and cut these cords. And mow this green, lush falseness to the roots. And shut the mouth of hell below the swathe ! And, if ye can bring songs too, let the lute's Eecoverable music softly bathe Some poet's hand, that, through all bursts and bruits Of popular passion, all unripe and rathe Convictions of the popular intellect. Ye may not lack a finger up the air, Annunciative, reproving, pure, erect. To show which way your first ideal bare The whiteness of its wings when (sorely pecked By falcons on your wrists) it unaware Arose up overhead and out of sight. [61 ] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Meanwhile, let all the far ends of the world Breathe back the deep breath of their old delight. To swell the Italian banner just unfurled. Help, lands of Europe ! for, if Austria fight. The drums will bar your slumber. Had ye curled The laurel for your thousand artists' brows. If these Italian hands had planted none ? Can any sit down idle in the house. Nor hear appeals from Buonarroti^s stone And EaffaeFs canvas, rousing and to rouse ? Where ^s Poussin's master ? Gallic Avignon Bred Laura, and Vaucluse^s fount has stirred The heart of France too strongly, as it lets Its little stream out (like a wizard^s bird Which bounds upon its emerald wing, and wets The rocks on each side), that she should not gird Her loins with Charlemagne^s sword when foes beset The country of her Petrarch. Spain may well Be minded how from Italy she caught. To mingle with her tinkling Moorish bell, A fuller cadence and a subtler thought. And even the New World, the receptacle Of freemen, may send glad men, as it ought. To greet Vespucci Amerigo's door. While England claims, by trump of poetry, Verona, Venice, the Eavenna-shore, And dearer holds John Milton's Piesole Than Langlande's Malvern with the stars in flower, [62] 1 I o ►5 :a ®> » S. -^ JO V.I B i O i^ s*' Sr^ 3 a- a- 5" -^ - 3c «> ^ ^ o ^ o ^".i K ^. s^ .5> ? s a ^ n' P 1 'Si. a 1 1^ o § iZ; 02 S> Q o ^ p 03 o ^ £L -. o ^ '^ ?- S- =^ P g ^ ^ H- ^ CASA GUIDI WINDOWS The music, winding through the stops^ upsprings To make the player very rich : compute ! " " Here 's goblet-glass_, to take in with your wine The very sun its grapes were ripened under : Drink light and juice together, and each fine.'^ — " This model of a steam-ship moves your wonder ? You should behold it crushing down the brine Like a blind Jove, wlio feels his way with thunder." — " Here 's sculpture ! Ah, we live too ! why not throw Our life into our marbles? Art has place For other artists after Angelo." — " I tried to paint out here a natural face ; For nature includes RafFael, as we know, Not Eaffael nature. Will it help my case ? " — " Methinks you will not match this steel of ours ! " — " Nor you this porcelain ! One might dream the clay Eetained in it the larvae of the flowers, They bud so round the cup, the old spring- way." — " Nor you these carven woods, where birds in bowers With twisting snakes and climbing cupids play/' O Magi of the east and of the west, Your incense, gold, and myrrh are excellent ! — What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest ? Your hands have worked well : is your courage spent In handwork only ? Have you nothing best. Which generous souls may perfect and present. And He shall thank the givers for ? no light Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor [89] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS Who sit in darkness when it is not night ? No cure for wicked children ? Christ — no cure ! No help for women sobbing out of sight Because men made the laws ? no brothel-lure Burnt out by popular lightnings ? Hast thou found No remedy, my England_, for such woes ? No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, No entrance for the exiled ? no repose, Eussia, for knouted Poles worked underground. And gentle ladies bleached among the snows ? No mercy for the slave, America ? No hope for Eome, free France, chivalric France ? Alas, great nations have great shames, I say. No pity, O world, no tender utterance Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way For poor Italia, baffled by mischance? gracious nations, give some ear to me ! You all go to your Fair, and I am one Who at the roadside of humanity Beseech your alms, — God's justice to be done. So, prosper ! In the name of Italy, Meantime her patriot dead have benison. They only have done well ; and, what they did Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber : No king of Egypt in a pyramid Is safer from oblivion, though he number Fall seventy cerements for a coverlid. These dead be seeds of life, and shall encumber [90] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS The sad heart of the land until it loose The clammy clods, and let out the spring-growth In beatific green through every bruise. The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, Since every victim-carrion turns to use, And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth, Against each piled injustice. Ay, the least. Dead for Italia, not in vain has died ; Though many vainly, ere life's struggle ceased, To mad dissimilar ends have swerved aside; Each grave her nationality has pieced By its own majestic breadth, and fortified^ And pinned it deeper to the soil. Forlorn Of thanks be, therefore, no one of these graves ! Not hers, — who, at her husband's side, in scorn. Outfaced the whistling shot and hissing waves. Until she felt her little babe unborn Eecoil, within her, from the violent staves And bloodhounds of the world : at which her life Dropt inwards from her eyes, and followed it Beyond the hunters. Garibaldi's wife And child died so. And now the seaweeds fit Her body, like a proper shroud and coif. And murmurously the ebbing waters grit The little pebbles while she lies interred In the sea-sand. Perhaps, ere dying thus. She looked up in his face (which never stirred From its clinched anguish) as to make excuse For leaving him for his, if so she erred. [91 ] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS He well remembers that she could not choose. A memorable grave ! Another is At Genoa. There a king may fitly lie, Who, bursting that heroic heart of his At lost No vara, that he could not die, (Though thrice into the cannon^s eyes for this He plunged his shuddering steed, and felt the sky Eeel back between the fire-shocks) stripped away The ancestral ermine ere the smoke had cleared. And, naked to the soul, that none might say His kingship covered what was base and bleared With treason, went out straight an exile, yea, An exiled patriot. Let him be revered. Yea, verily, Charles Albert has died well ; And if he lived not all so, as one spoke, The sin pass softly with the passing-bell : For he was shriven, I think, in cannon-smoke. And, taking off his crown, made visible A hero''s forehead. Shaking Austria's yoke, He shattered his own hand and heart. ^' So best/'' His last words were upon his lonely bed, " I do not end like popes and dukes at least — Thank God for it.'' And now that he is dead, Admitting it is proved and manifest That he was worthy, with a discrowned head. To measure heights with patriots, let them stand Beside the man in his Oporto shroud, And each vouchsafe to take him by the hand, [92] QTATUE of Niccola Pisano, in Portico of the Uffizi. " My sculjftor is Nicolo the Pisan.'''' — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 113. CASA GUIDI WINDOWS And kiss him on the cheeky and say aloud, '' Thou, too, hast suffered for our native land ! My brother, thou art one of us ! be proud/^ Still, graves, when Italy is talked upon. Still, still, the patriot's tomb, the stranger^s hate. Still Niobe ! still fainting in the sun. By whose most dazzling arrows violate Her beauteous offspring perished ! has she won Nothing but garlands for the graves, from Fate ? Nothing but death-songs ? Yes, be it understood Life throbs in noble Piedmont ! while the feet Of Eome's clay image, dabbled soft in blood. Grow flat with dissolution, and, as meet. Will soon be shovelled off like other mud. To leave the passage free in church and street. And I, who first took hope up in this song. Because a child was singing one . . . behold. The hope and omen were not, haply, wrong ! Poets are soothsavers still, like those of old Who studied flights of doves ; and creatures young And tender, mighty meanings may unfold. The sun strikes through the windows, up the floor ; Stand out in it, my own young Florentine, Not two years old, and let me see thee more ! It grows along thy amber curls, to shine Brighter than elsewhere. Now, look straight before. And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine, [93] CASA GUIDI WINDOWS And from my soul, which fronts the future so. With unabashed and unabated gaze. Teach me to hope for, what the angels know When they smile clear as thou dost. Down God^s ways With just alighted feet, between the snow And snowdrops, where a little lamb may graze, Thou hast no fear, my lamb, about the road. Albeit in our vain-glory we assume That, less than we have, thou hast learnt of God. Stand out, my blue-eyed prophet ! — thou to whom The earliest world-day light that ever flowed. Through Casa Guidi windows chanced to come ! Now shake the glittering nimbus of thy hair. And be God^s witness that the elemental New springs of life are gushing everywhere To cleanse the water-courses, and prevent all Concrete obstructions which infest the air 1 That earth ^s alive, and gentle or ungentle Motions within her signify but growth ! — The ground swells greenest o^er the laboring moles. However the uneasy world is vexed and wroth. Young children, lifted high on parent souls. Look round them with a smile upon the mouth. And take for music every bell that tolls ; (Who said we should be better if like these ?) But we sit murmuring for the future, though Posterity is smiling on our knees. Convicting us of folly. Let us go — [94] ■yASAlirS portrait of Gliiberti, in Hall of Cosimo I., in Palazzo Veccliio. " Nor ever vms man of them all indeed. From these to Ghihertl and Ghirlandaj'o, Could say that he missed my critic-meed.'" — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 113 CASA GUIDI WINDOWS "We will trust God. The blank interstices Men take for ruins. He will build into With pillared marbles rare, or knit across With generous arches, till the fane 's complete. This world has no perdition, if some loss. Such cheer I gather from thy smiling, sweet ! The self-same cherub-faces which emboss The Veil, lean inward to the Mercy-seat. [95] THE DANCE THE DANCE YOU remember down at Florence our Cascine Where the people on the feast-days walk and drive, And through the trees, long-drawn in many a green way, O'er-roofing hum and murmur like a hive, The river and the mountains look alive ? II You remember the piazzone there, the stand-place Of carriages a-brim with Florence beauties. Who lean and melt to music as the band plays. Or smile and chat with some one who afoot is, Or on horseback, in observance of male duties ? m 'T is so pretty, in the afternoons of summer. So many gracious faces brought together ! Call it rout, or call it concert, they have come here, In the floating of the fan and of the feather, To reciprocate with beauty the fine weather. [99] THE DANCE IV While the flower-girls offer nosegays (because they too Go with other sweets) at every carriage-door ; Here^ by shake of a white finger, signed away to Some next buyer, who sits buying score on score. Piling roses upon roses evermore. V And last season, when the French camp had its station In the meadow-ground, things quickened and grew gayer Through the mingling of the liberating nation With this people ; groups of Frenchmen everywhere, Strolling, gazing, judging lightly — " who was fair/^ VI Then the noblest lady present took upon her To speak nobly from her carriage for the rest : " Pray these officers from France to do us honor By dancing with us straightway/^ The request Was gravely apprehended as addrest. VII And the men of France, bareheaded, bowing lowly. Led out each a proud signora to the space Which the startled crowd had rounded for them — slowly, Just a touch of still emotion in his face. Not presuming, through the symbol, on the grace. [100] PORTRAIT of Ghirlandajo (Domenico Bigordi), from his fresco of Joacliiin's Expulsion from the Temple, ia Santa Maria Novella. " Not that I expect the great Bigordi . ... to hear me." — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114 L.ofC. THE DANCE VIII There was silence in the people : some lips trembled, But none jested. Broke the music at a glance ; And the daughters of our princes, thus assembled, Stepped the measure with the gallant sons of France, Hush ! it might have been a Mass, and not a dance. IX And they danced there till the blue that overskied us Swooned with passion, though the footing seemed sedate ; And the mountains, heaving mighty hearts beside us. Sighed a rapture in a shadow, to dilate. And touch the holy stone where Dante sate. Then the sons of France, bareheaded, lowly bowing. Led the ladies back where kinsmen of the south Stood, received them ; till, with burst of overflowing Feeling, husbands, brothers, Florence's male youth. Turned and kissed the martial strangers mouth to mouth. XI And a cry went up, — a cry from all that people ! — You have heard a people cheering, you suppose. For the member, mayor , . . with chorus from the steeple ? This was different, scarce as loud perhaps (who knows ?) , For we saw wet eyes around us ere the close. [101] THE DANCE XII Amd we felt as if a nation, too long borne in By hard wrongers, — comprehending in such attitude That God had spoken somewhere since the morning. That men were somehow brothers, by no platitude, Cried exultant in great wonder and free gratitude. [ 102 ] PORTRAIT of Alessandro Botticelli, in his picture of The Adoration of the Mai^i. Uffizi Gallery. '■''Sandra .... chivalric, bellicose.'''' — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE THE morn when first it thunders in March, The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch Of the villa-gate this warm March day, No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled In the valley beneath where, white and wide And washed by the morning water-gold, Florence lay out on the mountain-side. II Eiver and bridge and street and square Lay mine, as much at my beck and call. Through the live translucent bath of air. As the sights in a magic crystal ball. And of all I saw and of all I praised. The most to praise and the best to see Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised: But why did it more than startle me? [ 105] OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE III Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, Could you play me false who loved you so ? Some slights if a certain heart endures Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know ! I^ faith, I perceive not why I should care To break a silence that suits them best. But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear When I find a Giotto join the rest. lY On the arch where olives overhead Print the blue sky with twig and leaf, (That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed) ■'Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief. And mark through the winter afternoons, By a gift God grants me now and then. In the mild decline of those suns like moons. Who walked in Florence, besides her men. V They might chirp and chaffer, come and go For pleasure or profit, her men alive — My business was hardly with them, I trow. But with empty cells of the human hive ; — With the chapter- room, the cloister-porch. The church's apsis, aisle or nave. Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch. Its face set full for the sun to shave. [ 106] PORTRAIT of Filippino Lippi, in Uffizi Gallery. Painted by himself. The wrou(/ed Lipplno.'" — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE YI Wherever a fresco peels and drops, Wherever an outline weakens and wanes Till the latest life in the painting stops, Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains : One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, — A lion who dies of an ass^s kick. The wronged great soul of an ancient Master. VII For oh, this world and the wrong it does ! They are safe in heaven with their backs to it. The Michaels and Eafaels, vou hum and buzz Eound the works of, you of the little wit ! Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope, Now that they see God face to face. And have all attained to be poets, I hope ? 'T is their holiday now, in any case. VIII Much they reck of your praise and you ! But the wronged great souls — can they be quit Of a world where their work is all to do, Where you style them, you of the little wit. Old Master This and Early the Other, Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows : [ 107 ] OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE A younger succeeds to an elder brother_, Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.^ IX And here where your praise might yield returns, And a handsome word or two give help. Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. What, not a word for Stefano ^ there. Of brow once prominent and starry. Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For his peerless painting ? (see Yasari.) f There stands the Master. Study, my friends. What a man's work comes to ! So he plans it. Performs it, perfects it, makes amends Por the toiling and moiling, and then, sic transit ! Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor. With upturned eye while the hand is busy. Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbor ! ^Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy. , 1 Dello Belli, whose reputation was founded on his skill in painting small figures on " cassoni " for wedding garments and the like. No existing work can he attrihuted to him with certainty. 2 Although extravagantly praised by Vasari, no authenticated picture by Stefano (1301-1350) exists in Florence. [108] nORONATIOX of the Virgin, by Lorenzo Monaco. In Uffizi Gallery. " Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco ? " — Old Pictures hi Florence, p. 114 " Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer.'"' — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 129 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE XI " If you knew their work you would deal your dole/' May I take upon me to instruct you ? When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, Thus much had the world to boast infrucUi — The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken. Which the actual generations garble. Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken) And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble. XII So, you saw yourself as you wished you were. As you might have been, as you cannot be ; Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there ; And grew content in your poor degree With your little power, by those statues' godhead. And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, And your little grace, by their grace embodied, And your little date, by their forms that stay. XIII You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am ? Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. You would prove a model ? The Son of Priam Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. You 're wroth — can you slay your snake like Apollo ? You 're grieved — still Niobe 's the grander ! You live — there 's the Racers' frieze to follow : You die — there 's the dying Alexander. [109] OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE XIV So, testing your weakness by their strength, Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty, Measured by Art in your breadth and length. You learned — to submit is a mortal's duty. — When I say " you '^ *t is the common soul. The collective, I mean ; the race of Man That receives life in parts to live in a whole, And grow here according to God's clear plan. XV Growth came when, looking your last on them all. You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day And cried with a start — What if we so small Be greater and grander the while than they ! Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ? In both, of such lower types are we Precisely because of our wider nature ; Por time, theirs — ours, for eternity. XVI To-day's brief passion limits their range ; It seethes with the morrow for us and more. They are perfect — how else ? they shall never change : We are faulty — why not ? we have time in store. The Artificer's hand is not arrested With us ; we are rough-hewn, no-wise polished : They stand for our copy, and, once invested With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. [ 110] OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE XVII /^T is a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — The better ! What 's coine to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven : Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto ! Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish. Done at a stroke, was just (was it not ?) " ! '' Thy great Campanile is still to finish. XVIII Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter. But what and where depend on life's minute ? Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter Our first step out of the gulf or in it ? Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, Man's face, have no more play and action Than joy which is crystallized forever, Or grief, an eternal petrifaction ? XIX On which I conclude, that the early painters. To cries of " Greek Art and what more wish you ? Eeplied, "To become now self-acquainters. And paint man, man, whatever the issue ! Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray. New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters : To bring the invisible full into play ! Let the visible go to the dogs — what matters ? "' [ 111 ] OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE XX Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory Eor daring so much, before they well did it. The first of the new, in our race's story, Beats the last of the old ; 't is no idle quiddit. The worthies began a revolution. Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge. Why, honor them now ! (ends my allocution) Nor confer your degree when the folks leave college. XXI I There 's a fancy some lean to and others hate — That, when this life is ended, begins New work for the soul in another state. Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins : Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries, Eepeat in large what they practised in small. Through life after life in unlimited series ; Only the scale ^s to be changed, that 's all. XXII * Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen By the means of Evil that Good is best, ' And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene, — When our faith in the same has stood the test — Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, The uses of labor are surely done ; There remaineth a rest for the people of God : And I have had troubles enough, for one. [ 112 J ALESSIO BALDOVINETTI'S "^Madonna aud Saints, in Uffizi Gallery. " the somewhat petty. Of finical touch and tempera crumhli/ — - . . . . AJesso BaMovinefti/'' — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE XXIII /'But at any rate I have loved the season Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy ; My sculptor is Nicolo, the Pisan^ My painter — who but Cimabue? / Nor ever was man of them all indeed, Prom these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, Could say that he missed my critic-meed. So, now to my special grievance — heigh ho ! XXIV Their ghosts still stand, as I said before, Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er : — No getting again what the church has grasped ! The works on the wall must take their chance ; " Works never conceded to England's thick clime ! " (I hope they prefer their inheritance Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.) XXV When they go at length, with such a shaking Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly Each master his way through the black streets taking. Where many a lost work breathes though badly — Why don't they bethink them of who has merited ? Why not reveal, while their pictures dree Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted ? Why is it they never remember me ? 8 [ 113 ] OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE XXVI Not that I expect the great Bigordi, Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose j Nor the wronged Lippino ; and not a word I Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's : But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, To grant me a taste of your intonaco, Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye? Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco ? XXVII 1 Could not the ghost with the close red cap, My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman. Save me a sample, give me the hap Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughtsman? No Virgin by him the somewhat petty. Of finical touch and tempera crumbly - — Could not Alesso Baldovinetti Contribute so much, I ask him humbly ? XXVIII Margheritone of Arezzo, With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret (Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so. You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot ?) 1 The pictures alluded to in this and the following stanza are said to have been Browning's own property. [ 114] 2!- ar- 5s- a s Gc o '^ nj CO o ^ OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, Where in the foreground kneels the donor ? If such remain, as is my conviction. The hoarding it does you but little honor. XXIX They pass ; for them the panels may thrill. The tempera grow alive and tinglish ; Their pictures are left to the mercies still Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English, Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize, Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno At naked High Art, and in ecstasies Before some clay-cold vile Carlino ! ^ XXX No matter for these ! But Giotto, you. Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it, — Oh, never ! it shall not be counted true — - That a certain precious little tablet ^ Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover, — Was buried so long in oblivion's womb And, left for another than I to discover. Turns up at last ! and to whom ? — to whom ? 1 Carlo Dolci, a painter of the seventeentli century, when art had begun to decline. 2 A famous " Last Supper " mentioned by Vasari, which went astray from San Spirito and was afterwards found in some obscure corner, and purchased by a stranger. [115] OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE XXXI I, that have haunted the dim San Spirito, (Or was it rather the Ognissanti ?) Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe ! Nay, I shall have it yet ! Betur amantil My Koh-i-noor — or (if that 's a platitude) Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian Soli's eye ; So, in anticipative gratitude, What if I take up my hope and prophesy ? XXXII When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotard Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing. To the worse side of the Mont St. Gothard, We shall begin by way of rejoicing ; None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge). Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer. Hunting Radetzky's soul like a partridge Over Morello with squib and cracker. XXXIII This time we ^U shoot better game and bag 'em hot No mere display at the stone of Dante, But a kind of sober Witanagemot (Ex : " Casa Guidi,:*' quod videas aide) Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence, How Art may return that departed with her. Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine's, And bring us the days of Orgagna hither ! [ 116 ] Q o n 12 9 OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE XXXIV How we shall prologize, how we shall perorate. Utter fit things upon art and history. Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero rate Make of the want of the age no mystery ; Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras, Show — monarchy ever its uncouth cub licks Out of the bear's shape into Chimsera's, While Pure Art's birth is still the republic's. XXXV Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan, Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an " issimo,^^^ To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, And turn the bell-towers' alt to altissimo : And fine as the beak of a young beccaccia The Campanile, the Duomo^'s fit ally. Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia. Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy. XXXVI Shall I be alive that morning the scaff'old \ Is broken away, and the long-pent fire. Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffled Springs from its sleep, and up goes the spire While " God and the People " plain for its motto. Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky ? At least to foresee that glory of Giotto And Florence together, the first am I ! [ 117] FRA LIPPO LIPPI FRA LIPPO LIPPI 1855 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, WeJcey that 's crept to keep him company ! Aha, you know your betters ? Then you ''11 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, V the house that caps the corner. Boh ! you were best ! Eemember 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 : [ 121 ] FRA LIPPO LIPPI Zooks, are we pilchards^ that thej 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 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 1 '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, [ 122 ] PORTRAIT of Cosimo de' Medici (called Pater Patrise), by Pon- toriao. In Utiizi Gallery. " Who am 1 ? Whif^ one, sir, icho is lodging tvith a friend Three streets off .... Cosimo of the Medici. " — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 121 '"'' I ''m my oim master, jjaint nov' as I please — Having a friend, you see, in the Cor7ie7'-house." — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 129 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 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 Fve 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, [ 123 ] FRA LIPPO LIPPI 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 ; 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 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. [ 124 ] QT. JEROME, by Era Lippo Lippi. In Academy. " / rise up to-morrow and go to work On Jerome knockincf at his poor old breast With his f/reat round stone to subdue the flesh."' — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 123 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 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 ! Floiver d' 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. Pound 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. [ 125 ] FRA LIPPO LIPPI '^ 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 Priars, 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. Pirst, every sort of monk, the black and white, I drew them, fat and lean : then, folk at church, Prom 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 Por 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 ear-rings and a 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, [ 126] TTNFINISHED facade of the ^ Churcli of tlie Carmine ; IBtli to 15th ceiitiiiT. " What if at last ive get our man of parts . ... to do our church upfne And put the front on it that ought to he.'' — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 12G ERA LIPPO LIPPI 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 deviFs 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 ! [ 127 ] FRA LIPPO LIPPI Eub 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 '11 find the soul you have missed. Within yourself, when you return him thanks. ^' Eub all out ! " Well, well, there 's my life, in short. And so the thing has gone on ever since. [ 128 ] FRA LIPPO LIPPI 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 mv 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 ^11 find ; Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer : Pag on at flesh, you '11 never make the third ! '' Flower d* the pine, You heep your mistr . . . manners, and I'll stich to mine 1 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^ Por, 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 i s ,o o ^ S <» § s- 1 a 1 ij Sr- 5' *, '■^"i* ^- "^ O ^ b-i 5S ^ ^ •k s c C «< :* o So tR 'I • a • a «»^. 1 • o o l-A ^ Cc ?S* J^ 5; ^^ > 1^ ANDREA DEL SARTO 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 donH 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 — 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. [ 139 ] ANDREA DEL SARTO There burns a truer light of God in them. In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whatever else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Eeach 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, Eightly 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 overlooked the world ! " No doubt. Yonder 's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate who died five years ago. ('T is copied, George Yasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, [ 140] ANDREA DEL SARTO 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 ? [141 ] ANDREA DEL SARTO 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 ? [ 142 ] PORTRAIT of Fra Lippo Lippi, in his Coronation of the Virgin. '"''Up shall come Out of a corner when you least expect^ .... who hut Lippo I 1 ! " — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 133 ANDREA DEL SARTO 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 have ended there ; then, if 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 Romanes 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 RafaePs ! — And indeed the arm is wrong. [ 143 ] ANDREA DEL SARTO I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go ! Ay, but the soul ! he ^s Eafael ! 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 Erancis 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 ? [ 144] ^ Cl C7' i^ O — ' -^ ^^ ij « e:. o ^ -^ i |> j^ P^ 1-3 CO -^ JS hi 13 ro ;:^. c- rD 55 8 § C6 g O 1 g «< 1 a > C4 r o- . «. Si. ^ o 3 Ob a*. ^ ?5^ «. a O O- 2. S^ wiT ,s ^ g S *< ?5- c IJts g ;:i ■^ Sc a 5 s 9 Su -4 ANDREA DEL SARTO While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work 's my ware, and what 's it worth ? 1^11 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 ^^ [ 145 ] ANDREA DEL SARTO 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 ? Li heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance — Eour great walls in the New Jerusalem Meted on each side by the angers reed, Tor 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 1 Go, my Love. [ UG] THE STATUE AND THE BUST THE STATUE AND THE BUST THEEE ■'S a palace in Elorence, the world knows well, And a statue watches it from the square. And this story of both do our townsmen tell. Ages ago, a lady there. At the farthest window facing the East Asked, " Who rides by with the royal air? '' The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased ; She leaned forth, one on either hand ; They saw how the blush of the bride increased — They felt by its beats her heart expand — As one at each ear and both in a breath Whispered, " The Great-Duke Ferdinand." That selfsame instant, underneath. The Duke rode past in his idle way. Empty and fine like a swordless sheath. Gay he rode, with a friend as gay. Till he threw his head back — " Who is she ? " — '^ A bride the Eiccardi brings home to-day.''^ [ 149 ] THE STATUE AND THE BUST Hair in heaps lay heavily Over a pale brow spirit-pure — Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree. Crisped like a war-steed^s encolure — And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes Of the blackest black our eyes endure. And lo, a blade for a knight^s emprise Eilled the fine empty sheath of a man, — The Duke grew straightway brave and wise. He looked at her, as a lover can ; She looked at him, as one who awakes : The past was a sleep, and her life began. Now, love so ordered for both their sakes, A feast was held that selfsame night In the pile which the mighty shadow makes. (For Yia Larga is three-parts light. But the palace overshadows one. Because of a crime which may God requite ! To Florence and God the wrong was done. Through the first republic's murder there By Cosimo and his cursed son.) The Duke (with the statue's face in the square) Turned in the midst of his multitude At the bright approach of the bridal pair. [150] 5f- 11 5c ^ ^ c K c/: c. /•^^ c ir a K C ^ "" P' THE STATUE AND THE BUST Face to face the lovers stood A single minute and no more, While the bridegroom bent^ as a man subdued Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor — For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred, As the courtly custom was of yore. In a minute can lovers exchange a word ? If a word did pass, which I do not think. Only one out of the thousand heard. That was the bridegroom. At day's brink He and his bride were alone at last In a bed-chamber by a taper's blink. Calmly he said that her lot was cast. That the door she had passed was shut on her Till the final catafalk repassed. The world meanwhile, its noise and stir. Through a certain window facing the East She could watch like a convent's chronicler. Since passing the door might lead to a feast. And a feast might lead to so much beside. He, of many evils, chose the least. '^ Freely I choose too,'^ said the bride : '' Your window and its world suffice," Eeplied the tongue, while the heart replied — [151] THE STATUE AND THE BUST " If I spend the night with that devil twice. May his window serve as my loop of hell Whence a damned soul looks on paradise ! ^' I fly to the Duke who loves me well. Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow Ere I count another ave-belL " 'T is only the coat of a page to borrow, And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim, And I save my soul — but not to-morrow/' — (She checked herself and her eye grew dim) " My father tarries to bless my state : I must keep it one day more for him. " Is one day more so long to wait ? Moreover the Duke rides past, I know ; We shall see each other, sure as fate/' She turned on her side and slept. Just so ! So we resolve on a thing and sleep : So did the lady, ages ago. That night the Duke said, " Dear or cheap As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove To body or soul, I will drain it deep." And on the morrow, bold with love. He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call. As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove) L 152 ] lyTADONNA and Child, from Andrea del Saito's Holy Tamily, in Pitti Gallery. '"'■ Raphael did this, Andrea painted that; The Roman s is the better when you pray. But still the other s Virgin was his wife.'''' — Andrea del Sarto, p. 143 THE STATUE AND THE BUST And smiled " 'T was a very funeral. Your lady will think, this feast of ours, — A shame to efface,, whatever befall! " What if we break from the Arno bowers. And try if Petraja, cool and green, Cure last nighty's fault with this morning's flowers? The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen On his steady brow and quiet mouth, Saidj " Too much favor for me so mean ! " But, alas ! my lady leaves the South ; Each wind that comes from the Apennine Is a menace to her tender youth : " Nor a way exists, the wise opine, If she quits her palace twice this year. To avert the flower of life's decline." Quoth the Duke, " A sage and a kindly fear. Moreover Petraja is cold this spring : Be our feast to-night as usual here ! " And then to himself — '^ Which night shall bring Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool — Or I am the fool, and thou art the king ! '' Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool — For to-night the Envoy arrives from Prance Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my took [153] THE STATUE AND THE BUST '^ I need thee still and might miss perchance. To-day is not wholly lost, beside, With its hope of my lady's countenance : " For I ride — what should I do but ride ? And passing the palace, if I list, May glance at its window — well betide ! '^ So said, so done : nor the lady missed One ray that broke from the ardent brow. Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed. Be sure that each renewed the vow, No morrow's sun should arise and set And leave them then as it left them now. But next day passed, and next day yet, With still fresh cause to wait one day more Ere each leaped over the parapet. And still, as love's brief morning wore. With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh, They found love not as it seemed before. They thought it would work infallibly. But not in despite of heaven and earth : The rose would blow when the storm passed by. Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth By store of fruits that supplant the rose : The world and its ways have a certain worth : [ 154 ] THE STATUE AND THE BUST And to press a point while these oppose Were simple policy ; better wait : We lose no friends and we gain no foes. Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate. Who daily may ride and pass and look Where his lady watches behind the grate ! And she — she watched the square like a book Holding one picture and only one_, Which daily to find she undertook : When the picture was reached the book was done. And she turned from the picture at night to scheme Of tearing it out for herself next sun. So weeks grew months, years ; gleam by gleam The glory dropped from their youth and love, And both perceived they had dreamed a dream ; Which hovered as dreams do, still above : But who can take a dream for a truth ? Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove ! One day as the lady saw her youth Depart, and the silver thread that streaked Her hair, and, worn by the serpent^s tooth. The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked, — And wondered who the woman was. Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked, [ 155 ] THE STATUE AND THE BUST Fronting her silent in the glass — '' Summon here/^ she suddenly said. Before the rest of my old self pass, (. ci o c». 5r- ^ S ,j»i , ^^♦- "-^ 3^ 2 ^ Si. o ^ z 2 >«3 t=: I, ; M t-^ pi l-H l-H " o — o h— > ?d N o N P 1 THE STATUE AND THE BUST But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace. Was set where now is the empty shrine — (And, leaning out of a bright blue space. As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky. The passionate pale lady's face — Eyeing ever, with earnest eye And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch, Some one who ever is passing by — ) The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch In Florence, " Youth — my dream escapes ! Will its record stay ? ^' And he bade them fetch Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes — " Can the soul, the will, die out of a man Ere his body find the grave that gapes ? " John of Douay shall effect my plan, Set me on horseback here aloft. Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, '^ In the very square I have crossed so oft : That men may admire, when future suns Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, " While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze Admire and say, ' When he was alive How he would take his pleasure once ! ' [ 157 ] THE STATUE AND THE BUST " And it shall go hard but I contrive To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb At idleness which aspires to strive/' So ! While these wait the trump of doom. How do their spirits pass, I wonder, Nights and days in the narrow room? Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder What a gift life was, ages ago. Six steps out of the chapel yonder. Only they see not God, I know, Nor all that chivalry of his, The soldier-saints who, row on row. Burn upward each to his point of bliss — Since, the end of life being manifest. He had burned his way thro' the world to this. I hear you reproach, ^^ But delay was best, Por their end was a crime." — Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test. As a virtue golden through and through. Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view ! Must a game be played for the sake of pelf ? Where a button goes, 't were an epigram To offer the stamp of the very Guelph. [158] Q U- j; § s ,,^ ^ a. ^ ■c**. •^ a § ^ ^• ^- ^ S » s* « ^ 1— ( g St ^ w ^ 7* Ti ri p C Si 3 ^ p- o Ss: THE STATUE AND THE BUST The true has no value beyond the sham : As well the counter as coin, I submit. When your table 's a hat, and your prize, a dram. Stake your counter as boldly every whit. Venture as warily, use the same skill. Do your best, whether winning or losing it, If you choose to play ! — is my principle. Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will ! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin : And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin. Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. You of the virtue (we issue join) How strive you? Be tejfahula ! t 159] THE RING AND THE BOOK BOOK I THE RING AND THE BOOK I THE RING AND THE BOOK DO you see this Eing ? 'Tis Eome-work, made to match (By Castellani^s imitative craft) Etrurian circlets founds some happy morn^ After a dropping April ; found alive Spark-like ^mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots That roof old tombs at Chiusi : soft_, you see^ Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There ■'s one trick, (Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold As this was, — such mere oozings from the mine, Yirgin as oval tawny pendent tear At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow, — To bear the filers tooth and the hammer's tap : Since hammer needs must widen out the round, And file emboss it fine with lily -flowers. Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear. That trick is, the artificer melts up wax With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold [163] THE RING AND THE BOOK With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both. Effects a manageable mass, then works : But his work ended, once the thing a ring. Oh, there 's repristination ! Just a spirt O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face. And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume; While, self-sufficient now,' the shape remains. The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness. Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore : Prime nature with an added artistry — No carat lost, and you have gained a ring. Wliat of it ? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say ; A thing's sign : now for the thing signified. Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about By the crumpled vellum covers, — pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard. And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since ? Examine it yourselves ! I found this book. Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just, (Mark the predestination !) when a Hand, Always above my shoulder, pushed me once. One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm, Across a square in Florence, crammed with booths, Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time, Toward Baccio's marble, — ay, the basement-ledge O' the pedestal where sits and menaces John of the Black Bands with the upright spear, [ 164 ] s TATUE of Ferdinand T. de' Medici, by John of Bolog:na (Jean Boul- logne, from Douai), in Piazza dell' Annunziata. " John of Douay shall effect my plan. Set me on horseback here aloft. Alive, as the crafty sculptor can. In the very square I have crossed so oft. " — The Statue and the Bust, p. 157 THE RING AND THE BOOK ^T wixt palace and church, — Riccardi where they lived, His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie. This book, — precisely on that palace-step Which, meant for lounging knaves o' the Medici, Now serves re- venders to display their ware, — ^Mongst odds and ends of ravage, picture-frames White through the worn gilt, mirror-sconces chipped, Bronze angel-heads once knobs attached to chests (Handled when ancient dames chose forth brocade). Modern chalk drawings, studies from the nude. Samples of stone, jet, breccia, porphyry Polished and rough, sundry amazing busts In baked earth, (broken, Providence be praised I) A wreck of tapestry, proudly-purposed web When reds and blues were indeed red and blue. Now offered as a mat to save bare feet (Since carpets constitute a cruel cost) Treading the chill scagliola bedward : then A pile of brown-etched prints, two crazie each. Stopped by a conch a-top from fluttering forth — Sowing the Square with works of one and the same Master, the imaginative Sienese Great in the scenic backgrounds — (name and fame None of you know, nor does he fare the worse :) From these . . . Oh, with a Lionard going cheap If it should prove, as promised, that Joconde Whereof a copy contents the Louvre ! — these I picked this book from. Pive compeers in flank Stood left and right of it as tempting more — [ 165 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK A dogseared Spicilegium, the fond tale O^ the Frail One of the Flower, by young Dumas, Vulgarized Horace for the use of schools. The Life, Death, Miracles of Saint Somebody, Saint Somebody Else, his Miracles, Death and Life, — With this, one glance at the lettered back of which, And " Stall ! " cried I : a lira made it mine. Here it is, this I toss and take again ; Small-quarto size, part print part manuscript : A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard. And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since. Give it me back ! The thing ''s restorative I' the touch and sight. That memorable day, (June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square) I leaned a little and overlooked my prize By the low railing round the fountain-source Close to the statue, where a step descends : While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place For marketmen glad to pitch basket down, Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the w^et. And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read Presently, though my path grew perilous Between the outspread straw- work, piles of plait Soon to be flapping, each o^er tw^o black eyes [ 166 ] fe^ c to ^ &: ■I h5 -,. V. o THE RING AND THE BOOK And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine : Through fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves, Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape, Eows of tall slim brass lamps with dangling gear, — And worse, cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun : None of them took my eye from off my prize. Still read I on, from written title-page To written index, on, through street and street, At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge ; Till, by the time I stood at home again In Casa Guidi by Felice Church, Under the doorway where the black begins With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold, I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth Gathered together, bound up in this book. Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest. " Roinana Homicidioricm '' — nay, Better translate — "A Eoman murder-case : Position of the entire criminal cause Of Guido Franceschini, nobleman. With certain Four the cutthroats in his pay. Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death By heading or hanging as befitted ranks, At Eome on February Twenty Two, Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight : Wherein it is disputed if, and when, Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape The customary forfeit." [167] THE RING AND THE BOOK Cut tulta Ja Caufa Criminato Contro zi^nu^ y^uiaol/ranco/chinL Jl/o^tyit jfatti morlrc'inRoma :/ai^a.. (yJfnmo can la cuc:o//^:j^^ne ^raftr/ gi/n/t0a at »j^orccL J^OUiana Mmiadiorunh U)/spatatur an ctauandoJnantu/ xAdulteram. (Keduced facsimile of Title-paire of Report of the Trial o£ Guido PrancescliiiilJ [168] THE RING AND THE BOOK Word for word^ So ran the title-page : murder, or else Legitimate punishment of the other crime, Accounted murder by mistake, — just that And no more, in a Latin cramp enough When the law had her eloquence to launch. But interfilleted with Italian streaks When testimony stooped to mother-tongue, — That, was this old square yellow book about. Now, as the ingot, ere the ring was forged. Lay gold, (beseech you, hold that figure fast !) So, in this book lay absolutely truth, Fanciless fact, the documents indeed. Primary lawyer-pleadings for, against. The aforesaid Five ; real summed-up circumstance Adduced in proof of these on either side. Put forth and printed, as the practice was. At Eome, in the Apostolic Chamber's type. And so submitted to the eye o' the Court Presided over by His Heverence Eome's Governor and Criminal Judge, — the trial Itself, to all intents, being then as now Here in the book and nowise out of it ; Seeing, there properly was no judgment-bar. No bringing of accuser and accused. And whoso judged both parties, face to face Before some court, as we conceive of courts. There was a Hall of Justice ; that came last : [ 169 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK "For Justice had a chamber by the hall Where she took evidence first_, summed up the same. Then sent accuser and accused alike. In person of the advocate of each, To weigh its worth, thereby arrange, array The battle. ''T was the so- styled Fisc began. Pleaded (and since he only spoke in print The printed voice of him lives now as then) The public Prosecutor — " Murder 's proved ; With five . . . what we call qualities of bad, Worse, worst, and yet worse still, and still worse yet ; Crest over crest crowning the cockatrice. That beggar helFs regalia to enrich Count Guido Pranceschini : punish him ! " Thus was the paper put before the court In the next stage, (no noisy work at all,) To study at ease. In due time like reply Came from the so-styled Patron of the Poor, Official mouthpiece of the five accused Too poor to fee a better, — Guidons luck Or else his fellow s,"* — which, I hardly know, — - An outbreak as of wonder at the world, A fury-fit of outraged innocence, A passion of betrayed simplicity : " Punish Count Guido ? Por what crime, what hint O^ the colour of a crime, inform us first ! Eeward him rather ! Eecognize, we say, In the deed done, a righteous judgment dealt ! All conscience and all courage, — there 's our Count [ 170 ] LD book-stull at base of Statue of Giovanni de' Medici, by Baccio Bandinelli. " Baccio'' s marble, — ay, the basement ledye 0' the pedestal where sits and menaces John of the Black Bands with the upright spear/" ~ The Ring and the Book, p. 164 THE RING AND THE BOOK Charactered in a word ; and, what 's more strange, He had companionship in privilege, Found four courageous conscientious friends : Absolve, applaud all five, as props of law, Sustainers of society ! — perchance A trifle over-hasty with the hand To hold her tottering ark, had tumbled else ; But that ^s a splendid fault whereat we wink. Wishing your cold correctness sparkled so ! " Thus paper second followed paper first. Thus did the two join issue — nay, the four. Each pleader having an adjunct. " True, he killed — So to speak — in a certain sort — his wife. But laudably, since thus it happed ! '' quoth one : Whereat, more witness and the case postponed. ''^Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed, And proved himself thereby portentousest Of cutthroats and a prodigy of crime. As the woman that he slaughtered was a saint. Martyr and miracle ! " quoth the other to match : Again, more witness, and the case postponed. " A miracle, ay — of lust and impudence ; Hear my new reasons ! '' interposed the first : " — Coupled with more of mine ! " pursued his peer. " Beside, the precedents, the authorities ! '' From both at once a cry with an echo, that ! That was a firebrand at each fox's tail Unleashed in a cornfield : soon spread flare enough, As hurtled thither and there heaped themselves [171 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Prom earth's four corners, all authority And precedent for putting wives to death, Or letting wives live^ sinful as they seem. How legislated, now, in this respect, Solon and his Athenians ? Quote the code Of Eomulus and Rome ! Justinian speak ! Nor modern Baldo, Bartolo be dumb ! The Roman voice was potent, plentiful ; Cornelia de Sicariis hurried to help Pompeia de Parricidiis; Julia de Something-or-other jostled Lex this-and-that ; King Solomon confirmed Apostle Paul : That nice decision of Dolabella, eh ? That pregnant instance of Theodoric, oh ! Down to that choice example ^Elian gives (An instance I find much insisted on) Of the elephant who, brute-beast though he were. Yet understood and punished on the spot His master's naughty spouse and faithless friend ; A true tale which has edified each child. Much more shall flourish favoured by our court ! Pages of proof this way, and that way proof. And always — once again the case postponed. Thus wrangled, brangled, jangled they a month, — Only on paper, pleadings all in print. Nor ever was, except i' the brains of men. More noise by word of mouth than you hear now — Till the court cut all short with " Judged, your cause. Receive our sentence ! Praise God ! We pronounce [ 172 ] R ICCARDI PALACE in Via Larga, now Via Cavour; architecture of Michelozzi, 15tli century. *^ Riccardi inhere they lived, his race.'" — The Ring and tlie Book, p. 1G5 "-(4 feast was held that selfsame night In the pile vyhich the mighty shadov) makes.'''' — The Statue aud the Bust, p. 150 " Those great rings serve more purposes than just To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse ! " — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 129 THE RING AND THE BOOK Count Guido devilish and damnable : His wife Pompilia in thought, word and deed. Was perfect pure, he murdered her for that : As for the Four who helped the One, all Five — Why, let employer and hirelings share alike In guilt and guilt's reward, the death their due ! '' So was the trial at end, do you suppose ? ^' Guilty you find him, death you doom him to ? Ay, were not Guido, more than needs, a priest. Priest and to spare ! '' — this was a shot reserved ; I learn this from epistles w-hich begin Here where the print ends, — see the pen and ink Of the advocate, the ready at a pinch ! — *^ My client boasts the clerkly privilege. Has taken minor orders many enough. Shows still sufficient chrism upon his pate To neutralize a blood-stain : presbyter , Prima tonsura, snbdiaconus, SacerdoSy so he slips from underneath Your power, the temporal, slides inside the robe Of mother Church : to her we make appeal By the Pope, the Church's head ! " A parlous plea. Put in with noticeable effect, it seems ; ^^ Since straight," — resumes the zealous orator. Making a friend acquainted with the facts, — " Once the word ^ clericahtv ' let fall. Procedure stopped and freer breath was drawn [ 173 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK By all considerate and responsible Eome/^ Quality took the decent part^ of course; Held by the husband,, who was noble too : Or, for the matter of that, a churl would side With too-refined susceptibility, And honor which, tender in the extreme. Stung to the quick, must roughly right itself At all risks, not sit still and whine for law As a Jew would, if you squeezed him to the wall. Brisk-trotting through the Ghetto. Nay, it seems, Even the Emperor^s Envoy had his say To say on the subject ; might not see, unmoved. Civility menaced throughout Christendom By too harsh measure dealt her champion here. Lastly, what made all safe, the Pope was kind. From his youth up, reluctant to take life. If mercy might be just and yet show grace; Much more unlikely then, in extreme age. To take a life the general sense bade spare. ^T was plain that Guido would go scatheless yet. But human promise, oh, how short of shine ! How topple down the piles of hope we rear ! How history proves . . . nay, read Herodotus ! Suddenly starting from a nap, as it were, A dog-sleep with one shut, one open orb. Cried the Pope's great self, — Innocent by name And nature too, and eighty-six years old, Antonio Pignatelli of Naples, Pope [ 174 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Who had trod many lands, known many deeds, Probed many hearts, beginning with his own. And now was far in readiness for God, — 'T was he who first bade leave those souls in peace. Those Jansenists, re-nicknamed Molinists, ('Gainst whom the cry went, like a frowsy tune. Tickling men's ears — the sect for a quarter of an hour F the teeth of the world which, clown-like, loves to chew Be it but a straw 'twixt work and whistling-while. Taste some vituperation, bite away. Whether at marjoram-sprig or garlic-clove. Aught it may sport with, spoil, and then spit forth) '^ Leave them alone," bade he, '^ those Molinists ! Who may have other light than we perceive. Or why is it the whole world hates them thus ? '' Also he peeled off that last scandal-rag Of Nepotism ; and so observed the poor That men would merrily say, " Halt, deaf and blind. Who feed on fat things, leave the master's self To gather up the fragments of his feast. These be the nephews of Pope Innocent ! -— ■ His own meal costs but five carlines a day, Poor-priest^s allowance, for he claims no more." — He cried of a sudden, this great good old Pope, When they appealed in last resort to him, " I have mastered the whole matter : I nothing doubt Though Guido stood forth priest from head to heel. Instead of, as alleged, a piece of one, — And further, were he, from the tonsured scalp [175] THE RING AND THE BOOK To the sandaled sole of him, mj son and Christ^ s. Instead of touching us by finger-tip As you assert, and pressing up so close Only to set a blood-smutch on our robe, — I and Christ would renounce all right in him. Am I not Pope, and presently to die. And busied how to render my account. And shall I wait a day ere I decide On doing or not doing justice here ? Cut off his head to-morrow by this time, Hang up his four mates, two on either hand. And end one business more ! " So said, so done — Eather so writ, for the old Pope bade this, I find, with his particular chirograph. His own no such infirm hand, Friday night ; And next day, February Twenty Two, Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight, — Not at the proper head-and-hanging-place On bridge-foot close by Castle Angelo, Where custom somewhat staled the spectacle, ('T was not so well i' the way of Rome, beside. The noble Rome, the Rome of Guidons rank) But at the city's newer gayer end, — The cavalcading promenading place Beside the gate and opposite the church Under the Pincian gardens green with Spring, 'Neath the obelisk 'twixt the fountains in the Square, [176] S'^ CO td » 3 M ^' O THE RING AND THE BOOK Did Guido and his fellows find their fate. All Eome for witness, and — my writer adds — Remonstrant in its universal grief. Since Guido had the suffrage of all Eome. This is the bookful ; thus far take the truth, The untempered gold, the fact untarapered with, The mere ring-metal ere the ring be made ! And what has hitherto come of it ? Who preserves The memory of this Guido, and his wife Pompilia, more than Ademollo^s name. The etcher of those prints, two crazie each. Saved by a stone from snowing broad the Square With scenic backgrounds ? Was this truth of force ? Able to take its own part as truth should. Sufficient, self-sustaining ? Why, if so — Yonder ^s a fire, into it goes my book. As who shall say me nay, and what the loss ? You know the tale already : I may ask. Rather than think to tell you, more thereof, — Ask you not merely who were he and she. Husband and wife, what manner of mankind. But how you hold concerning this and that Other yet-unnamed actor in the piece. The young frank handsome courtly Canon, now, The priest, declared the lover of the wife. He who, no question, did elope with her, For certain bring the tragedy about, Giuseppe Caponsacchi ; — his strange course 12 [ 177 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK F the matter^ was it right or wrong or both ? Then the old couple^ slaughtered with the wife Bj the husband as accomplices in crime. Those Comparini, Pietro and his spouse, — What say you to the right or wrong of that, When, at a known name whispered through the door Of a lone villa on a Christmas night. It opened that the joyous hearts inside Might welcome as it were an angel-guest Come in Christ^s name to knock and enter, sup And satisfy the loving ones he saved ; And so did welcome devils and their death ? I have been silent on that circumstance Although the couple passed for close of kin To wife and husband, were by, some accounts Pompilia^s very parents : you know best. Also that infant the great joy was for. That Gaetano, the wife's two-weeks^ babe, The husband^s first-born child, his son and heir, Whose birth and being turned his night to day — Why must the father kill the mother thus Because she bore his son and saved himself ? Well, British Public, ye who like me not, (God love you !) and will have your proper laugh At the dark question, laugh it ! I laugh first. Truth must prevail, the proverb vows ; and truth — Here is it all i^ the book at last, as first There it was all i^ the heads and hearts of Home [ 1^8 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Gentle and simple,, never to fall nor fade Nor be forgotten. Yet^ a little while^ The passage of a century or so, Decads thrice five, and here 's time paid his tax. Oblivion gone home with her harvesting. And all left smooth again as scythe could shave. Ear from beginning with you London folk, I took my book to Eome first, tried truth's power On likely people. " Have you met such names ? Is a tradition extant of such facts ? Your law-courts stand, your records frown a-row : What if I rove and rummage ? '''' " — Why, you ''11 waste Your pains and end as wise as you began ! '''' Everyone snickered : ^' names and facts thus old Are newer much than Europe news we find Down in to-day^s Diario. Records, quotha ? Why, the French burned them, what else do the French ? The rap-and-rending nation ! And it tells Against the Church, no doubt, — another gird At the Temporality, your Trial, of course ? " " — Quite otherwise this time,^"* submitted I ; ^' Clean for the Church and dead against the world. The flesh and the devil, does it tell for once.^^ ^'^ — The rarer and the happier ! All the same. Content you with your treasure of a book. And waive what 's wanting ! Take a friend's advice ! It 's not the custom of the country. Mend Your ways indeed and we may stretch a point : Go get you manned by Manning and new-manned [ 1^9] THE RING AND THE BOOK By Newman and^ mayhap, wise-mamied to boot By Wiseman, and we ■'11 see or else we won't ! Thanks meantime for the story, long and strong, A pretty piece of narrative enough. Which scarce ought so to drop out, one would think. From the more curious annals of our kind. Do you tell the story, now, in off-hand style. Straight from the book ? Or simply here and there, (The while you vault it through the loose and large) Hang to a hint ? Or is there book at all. And don^t you deal in poetry, make-believe. And the white lies it sounds like ? " Yes and no ! From the book, yes ; thence bit by bit I dug The lingot truth, that memorable day. Assayed and knew my piecemeal gain was gold, — Yes ; but from something else surpassing that. Something of mine which, mixed up with the mass. Made it bear hammer and be firm to file. Fancy with fact is just one fact the more ; To-wit, that fancy has informed, transpierced, Thridded and so thrown fast the facts else free. As right through ring and ring runs the djereed And binds the loose, one bar without a break. I fused my live soul and that inert stuff'. Before attempting smithcraft, on the night After the day when — truth thus grasped and gained — The book was shut and done with and laid by [ 180 ] ti. w c/^ o 3 n ?5 O CD rsi o h-i a- g «=i. o K o p n n P- D- n o 3 1^ p o THE RING AND THE BOOK On the cream-colored massive agate, broad ^Neatli the twin cherubs in the tarnished frame O"* the mirror J tall thence to the ceiling- top. And from the reading, and that slab I leant My elbow on, the while I read and read, I turned, to free myself and find the world. And stepped out on the narrow terrace, built Over the street and opposite the church. And paced its lozenge-brickwork sprinkled cool ; Because Felice-church-side stretched, a-glow Through each square window fringed for festival. Whence came the clear voice of the cloistered ones Chanting a chant made for midsummer nights — I know not what particular praise of God, It always came and went with June. Beneath V the street, quick shown by openings of the sky When flame fell silently from cloud to cloud, Eicher than that gold snow Jove rained on Rhodes, The townsmen walked by twos and threes, and talked. Drinking the blackness in default of air — A busy human sense beneath my feet : While in and out the terrace-plants, and round One branch of tall datura, waxed and weaned The lamp-fly lured there, wanting the white flower. Over the roof o^ the lighted church I looked A bowshot to the street^s end, north away Out of the Uoman gate to the Roman road By the river, till I felt the Apennine. And there would lie Arezzo, the man's town, [ 181 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK The woman's trap and cage and torture-place, Also the stage where the priest played his part, A spectacle for angels, — ay, indeed, There lay Arezzo ! Farther then I fared, Feeling my way on through the hot and dense, Romeward, until I found the wayside inn By Castelnuovo's few mean hut-like homes Huddled together on the hill-foot bleak. Bare, broken only by that tree or two Against the sudden bloody splendor poured Cursewise in day^s departure by the sun O^er the low house-roof of that squalid inn Where they three, for the first time and the last, Husband and wife and priest, met face to face. Whence I went on again, the end was near. Step by step, missing none and m^arking all, Till Eome itself, the ghastly goal, I reached. Why, all the while, — how could it otherwise ? — The life in me abolished the death of things. Deep calling unto deep : as then and there Acted itself over again once more The tragic piece. I saw with my own eyes In Florence as I trod the terrace, breathed The beauty and the fearfulness of night. How it had run, this round from Rome to Rome Because, you are to know, they lived at Rome, Pompilia^s parents, as they thought themselves. Two poor ignoble hearts who did their best Part God's way, part the other way than God's, [ 182] THE RING AND THE BOOK To somehow make a shift and scramble through The world's mud, careless if it splashed and spoiled. Provided they might so hold high, keep clean Their child's soul, one soul white enough for three, And lift it to whatever star should stoop. What possible sphere of purer life than theirs Should come in aid of whiteness hard to save. I saw the star stoop, that they strained to touch, And did touch and depose their treasure on. As Guido Franceschini took away Pompilia to be his for evermore. While they sang " Now let us depart in peace. Having beheld thy glory, Guido's wife ! " I saw the star supposed, but fog o' the fen. Gilded star-fashion by a glint from hell ; Having been heaved up, haled on its gross way. By hands unguessed before, invisible help Prom a dark brotherhood, and specially Two obscure goblin creatures, fox-faced this. Cat-clawed the other, called his next of kin By Guido the main monster, — cloaked and caped. Making as they were priests, to mock God more, — Abate Paul, Canon Girolamo. These who had rolled the starlike pest to Eome And stationed it to suck up and absorb The sweetness of Pompilia, rolled again That bloated bubble, with her soul inside. Back to Arezzo and a palace there — Or say, a fissure in the honest earth [ 183 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Whence long ago had curled the vapor first. Blown big by nether fires to appal day : It touched home, broke, and blasted far and wide. I saw the cheated couple find the cheat And guess what foul rite they were captured for, — Too fain to follow over hill and dale That child of theirs caught up thus in the cloud And carried by the Prince o^ the Power of the Air Whither he would, to wilderness or sea. I saw them, in the potency of fear. Break somehow through the satyr-family (For a gray mother with a monkey-mien. Mopping and mowing, was apparent too. As, confident of capture, all took hands And danced about the captives in a ring) — Saw them break through, breathe safe, at Rome again. Saved by the selfish instinct, losing so Their loved one left with haters. These I saw. In recrudescency of baf&ed hate. Prepare to wring the uttermost revenge From body and soul thus left them : all was sure. Fire laid and caldron set, the obscene ring traced. The victim stripped and prostrate : what of God ? The cleaving of a cloud, a cry, a crash. Quenched lay their caldron, cowered i^ the dust the crew. As, in a glory of armor like Saint George, Out again sprang the young good beauteous priest Bearing away the lady in his arms. Saved for a splendid minute and no more [ 184 J tK ^ Q «-l ?3 f> 2". o* 2 — ■ t3 *— 1?. O o 5' M c' M s P s c/: ^ s: r^ - t=3 3 o 1->S 3 p CO i=i p 5 3 P 2. THE RING AND THE BOOK This that I mixed with truth, motions of mine That quickened, made the inertness malleolable 0' the gold was not mine, — what's your name for this? Are means to the end, themselves in part the end ? Is fiction which makes fact alive, fact too ? The somehow may be thishow. I find first Writ down for very A B C of fact, " In the beginning God made heaven and earth '' ; Erom which, no matter with what lisp, I spell And speak you out a consequence — that man, Man, — as befits the made, the inferior thing, — Purposed, since made, to grow, not make in turn. Yet forced to try and make, else fail to grow, — Formed to rise, reach at, if not grasp and gain The good beyond liim, — which attempt is growth, — Repeats God's process in man's due degree. Attaining man's proportionate result, — Creates, no, but resuscitates, perhaps. Inalienable, the arch -prerogative Which turns thought, act — conceives, expresses too ! No less, man, bounded, yearning to be free, May so project his surplusage of soul In search of body, so add self to self By owning what lay ownerless before, — So find, so fill full, so appropriate forms — That, although nothing which had never life Shall get life from him, be, not having been. Yet, something dead may get to live again, [ 189 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Something with too much life or not enough. Which, either way imperfect, ended once : An end whereat man's impulse intervenes. Makes new beginning, starts the dead alive. Completes the incomplete and saves the thing. Man^s breath were vain to light a virgin wick, — Half-burned-out, all but quite-quenched wicks o^ the lamp Stationed for temple-service on this earth. These indeed let him breathe on and relume ! For such man^s feat is, in the due degree, • — Mimic creation, galvanism for life. But still a glory portioned in the scale. Why did the mage say, — feeling as we are wont For truth, and stopping midway short of truth, - And resting on a lie, — "I raise a ghost '' ? ^' Because,^^ he taught adepts, " man makes not man. Yet by a special gift, an art of arts. More insight and more outsight and much more Will to use both of these than boast my mates, I can detach from me, commission forth Half of my soul ; which in its pilgrimage O^er old unwandered waste ways of the world. May chance upon some fragment of a whole, Eag of flesh, scrap of bone in dim disuse. Smoking flax that fed fire once : prompt therein I enter, spark-like, put old powers to play. Push lines out to the limit, lead forth last (By a moonrise through a ruin of a crypt) What shall be mistily seen, murmuringly heard, [ 190 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Mistakenly felt : then write my name with Paust^s ! " Oh, Faust, why Faust ? Was not Elisha once ? — Who bade them lay his staff on a corpse-face. There was no voice, no hearing : he went in Therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, And prayed unto the Lord : and he went up And lay upon the corpse, dead on the couch. And put his mouth upon its mouth, his eyes Upon its eyes, his hands upon its hands. And stretched him on the flesh ; the flesh waxed warm And he returned, walked to and fro the house. And went up, stretched him on the flesh again. And the eyes opened. ^Tis a credible feat With the right man and way. Enough of me ! The Book ! I tarn its medicinable leaves In London now till, as in Florence erst, A spirit laughs and leaps through every limb. And lights my eye, and lifts me by the hair. Letting me have my will again with these — How title I the dead alive once more ? Count Guido Franceschini the Aretine, Descended of an ancient house, though poor, A beak-nosed bushy-bearded black-haired lord, Lean, pallid, low of stature yet robust. Fifty years old, — having four years ago Married Pompilia Comparini, young. Good, beautiful, at Rome, where she was born, [ 191 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK And brought her to Arezzo, where they lived Unhappy lives, whatever curse the cause, — This husband, taking four accomplices. Followed this wife to Eome, where she was fled From their Arezzo to find peace again. In convoy, eight months earlier, of a priest, Aretine also, of still nobler birth, Giuseppe Caponsacchi, — caught her there Quiet in a villa on a Christmas night. With only Pietro and Yiolante by. Both her putative parents ; killed tlie three. Aged, they seventy each, and she seventeen. And, two weeks since, the mother of his babe First-born and heir to what the style was worth O^ the Guido who determined, dared and did This deed just as he purposed point by point. Then, bent upon escape, but hotly pressed. And captured with his co-mates that same night. He, brought to trial, stood on this defence — Injury to his honor caused the act; And since his wife was false, (as manifest By flight from home in such companionship,) Death, punishment deserved of the false wife And faithless parents who abetted her F the flight aforesaid, wronged nor God nor man. " Nor false she, nor yet faithless they,^^ replied The accuser ; " cloaked and masked this murder glooms ; True was Pompilia, loyal too the pair ; Out of the man^s own heart a monster curled [ 192] THE RING AND THE BOOK Which — • crime coiled with connivancy at crime — His victim's breast, he tells you, hatched and reared ; Uncoil we and stretch stark the worm of hell ! '' A month the trial swayed this way and that Ere judgment settled down on Guido's guilt; Then was the Pope, that good Twelfth Innocent, Appealed to : who Avell weighed what went before, Affirmed the guilt and gave the guilty doom. Let this old woe step on the stage again ! Act itself o'er ancAv for men to judge, Not by the very sense and sight indeed — (Which take at best imperfect cognizance. Since, how heart moves brain, and how both move hand, What mortal ever in entirety saw ?) — No dose of purer truth than man digests. But truth with falsehood, milk that feeds him now, Not strong meat he may get to bear some day — To-wit, by voices we call evidence. Uproar in the echo, live fact deadened down. Talked over, bruited abroad, whispered away. Yet helping us to all we seem to hear : For how else know we save by worth of word ? Here are the voices presently shall sound In due succession. First, the world's outcry Around the rush and ripple of any fact Fallen stonewise, plumb on the smooth face of things ; The world's guess as it crowds the bank o' the pool. 13 [ 193 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK At what were figure and substance^ by their splash : Then^ by vibrations in the general mind_, At depth of deed already out of reach. This threefold murder of the day before,, — Say, Half-Eome^s feel after the vanished truth ; Honest enough, as the way is : all the same, Harboring in the centre of its sense A hidden germ of failure, shy but sure, To neutralize that honesty and leave That feel for truth at fault, as the way is too. Some prepossession such as starts amiss. By but a hair\s breadth at the shoulder-blade, The arm o^ the feeler, dip he ne^er so bold ; So leads arm waveringly, lets fall wide O^ the mark its finger, sent to find and fix Truth at the bottom, that deceptive speck. With this Half-Eome, — the source of swerving, call Over-belief in Guidons right and wrong Eather than in Pompilia^s wrong and right : Who shall say how, who shall say why? ^T is there The instinctive theorizing whence a fact Looks to the eye as the eye likes the look. Gossip in a public place, a sample-speech. Some worthy, with his previous hint to find A husband^s side the safer, and no whit Aware he is not ^acus the while, — How such an one supposes and states fact To whosoever of a multitude Will listen, and perhaps prolong thereby [ 194] o ^ s ^ i rv o § &s ^ «. •S ?i - Siw £5 n rt ►-! 3 THE RING AND THE BOOK "Whence he is summoned on a sudden now, Informed that she, he thought to save, is lost. And, in a breath, bidden re-tell his tale. Since the first telling somehow missed effect. And then advise in the matter. There stands he. While the same grim black-panelled chamber blinks As though rubbed shiny with the sins of Rome Told the same oak for ages — wave-washed wall Against which sets a sea of wickedness. There, where you yesterday heard Guido speak, Speaks Caponsacchi ; and there face him too Tommati, Yenturini and the rest Who, eight months earlier, scarce repressed the smile, Forewent the wink ; waived recognition so Of peccadillos incident to youth. Especially youth high-born ; for youth means love. Vows can^t change nature, priests are only men. And love likes stratagem and subterfuge : Which age, that once was youth, should recognize. May blame, but needs not press too hard upon. Here sit the old Judges then, but with no grace Of reverend carriage, magisterial port. For why? The accused of eight months since, — the same Who cut the conscious figure of a fool. Changed countenance, dropped bashful gaze to ground. While hesitating for an answer then, — Now is grown judge himself, terrifies now This, now the other culprit called a judge. Whose turn it is to stammer and look strange, [ 201 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK As he speaks rapidly, angrily, speech that smites : And they keep silence, bear blow after blow. Because the seeming-solitary man, Speaking for God, may have an audience too, Invisible, no discreet judge provokes. How the priest Caponsacchi said his say. Then a soul sighs its lowest and its last After the loud ones, — so much breath remains Unused by the four-days^-dying ; for she lived Thus long, miraculously long, 't was thought, Just that Pompilia might defend herself. How, while the hireling and the alien stoop. Comfort, yet question, — since the time is brief, And folk, allowably inquisitive. Encircle the low pallet w'here she lies In the good house that helps the poor to die, — Pompilia tells the story of her life. Por friend and lover, — leech and man of law Do service; busy helpful ministrants As varied in their calling as their mind. Temper and age : and yet from all of these. About the white bed under the arched roof. Is somehow, as it were, evolved a one, — Small separate sympathies combined and large. Nothings that were, grown something very much As if the bystanders gave each his straw. All he had, though a trifle in itself, Which, plaited all together, made a Cross [ 20^ ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Fit to die looking on and praying with, Just as well as if ivory or gold. So, to the common kindliness she speaks, There being scarce more privacy at the last For mind than body : but she is used to bear. And only unused to the brotherly look. How she endeavored to explain her life. Then, since a Trial ensued, a touch o^ the same To sober us, flustered with frothy talk. And teach our common sense its helplessness. For why deal simply with divining-rod. Scrape where we fancy secret sources flow. And ignore law, the recognized machine. Elaborate display of pipe and wheel Framed to unchoke, pump up and pour apace Truth till a flowery foam shall wash the world? The patent truth-extracting process, — ha? Let us make that grave mystery turn one wheel. Give you a single grind of law at least ! One orator, of two on either side. Shall teach us the puissance of the tongue — That is, o' the pen which simulated tongue On paper and saved all except the sound Which never was. Law's speech beside law's thought ? That were too stuiming, too immense an odds : That point of vantage law lets nobly pass. One lawyer shall admit us to behold The manner of the making out a case, [ 203 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK First fashion of a speech ; the chick in egg, The masterpiece law^s bosom incubates. How Don Giacinto of the Arcangeli, Called Procurator of the Poor at Eome, Now advocate for Guido and his mates, — The jolly learned man of middle age, Cheek and jowl all in laps with fat and law, Mirthful as mighty, yet, as great hearts use. Despite the name and fame that tempt our flesh. Constant to that devotion of the hearth. Still captive in those dear domestic ties ! — How he, — having a cause to triumph with. All kind of interests to keep intact. More than one efficacious personage To tranquillize, conciliate and secure. And above all, public anxiety To quiet, show its Guido in good hands, — Also, as if such burdens were too light, A certain family-feast to claim his care. The birthday-banquet for the only son — Paternity at smiling strife with law — How he brings both to buckle in one bond; And, thick at throat, 'wdth waterish under-eye, Turns to his task and settles in his seat And puts his utmost means in practice now : Wheezes out law-phrase, whiffles Latin forth. And, just as though roast lamb would never be. Makes logic levigate the big crime small : Rubs palm on palm, rakes foot with itchy foot, [ 204 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Conceives and inchoates the argument, Sprinkling each flower appropriate to the time, — Ovidian quip or Ciceronian crank, A-bubble in the larynx while he laughs. As he had fritters deep down frying there. How he turns, twists, and tries the oily thing Shall be — first speech for Guido 'gainst the Fisc. Then with a skip as it were from heel to head, Leaving yourselves fill up the middle bulk O^ the Trial, reconstruct its shape august. From such exordium clap we to the close ; Give you, if we dare wing to such a height. The absolute glory in some full-grown speech On the other side, some finished butterfly. Some breathing diamond-flake wdth leaf-gold fans. That takes the air, no trace of worm it was, Or cabbage-bed it had production from. Giovambattista o' the Bottini, Fisc, Pompilia^s patron by the chance of the hour. To-morrow her persecutor, — composite, he. As becomes who must meet such various calls — Odds of age joined in him with ends of youth. A man of ready smile and facile tear, Improvised hopes, despairs at nod and beck, And language — ah, the gift of eloquence ! Language that goes, goes, easy as a glove. O'er good and evil, smoothens both to one. Rashness helps caution with him, fires the straw. In free enthusiastic careless fit, [ 205 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK On the first proper pinnacle of rock Which offers^ as reward for all that zeal. To lure some bark to founder and bring gain : While calm sits Caution, rapt with heavenward eye, A true confessor's gaze, amid the glare Beaconing to the breaker, death and hell. " Well done, thou good and faithful ! " she approves *' Hadst thou let slip a faggot to the beach, The crew might surely spy thy precipice And save their boat ; the simple and the slow Might so, forsooth, forestall the wrecker's fee! Let the next crew be wise and hail in time ! " Just so compounded is the outside man. Blue juvenile pure eye and pippin cheek. And brow all prematurely soiled and seamed With sudden age, bright devastated hair. Ah, but you miss the very tones o' the voice. The scrannel pipe that screams in heights of head, As, in his modest studio, all alone. The tall wight stands a-tiptoe, strives and strains, Both eyes shut, like the cockerel that would crow, Tries to his own self amorously o'er What never will be uttered else than so — Since to the four walls. Forum and Mars' Hill, Speaks out the poesy which, penned, turns prose. Clavecinist debarred his instrument. He yet thrums — shirking neither turn nor trill. With desperate finger on dumb table-edge — The sovereign rondo, shall conclude his Suites [ 206 ] )0RTRAIT by Raphael, known as "The Veiled Lady," in the Pitti Gallery. Supposed to represent the Fornarina, whom Raphael loved. His lady of the sonnets. " — One Word More, p. 217 THE RING AND THE BOOK Charm an imaginary audience there, From old Corelli to young Haendel, both V the flesh at Rome, ere he perforce go print The cold black score, mere music for the mind — The last speech against Guido and his gang. With special end to prove Pompilia pure. How the Fisc vindicates Pompilia^s fame. Then comes the all but end, the ultimate Judgment save yours. Pope Innocent the Twelfth, Simple, sagacious, mild yet resolute. With prudence, probity and • — what beside From the other world he feels impress at times. Having attained to fourscore years and six, — How, when the court found Guido and the rest Guilty, but law supplied a subterfuge And passed the final sentence to the Pope, He, bringing his intelligence to bear This last time on what ball behoves him drop In the urn, or white or black, does drop a black. Send five souls more to just precede his own. Stand him in stead and witness, if need were, How he is wont to do God's work on earth. The manner of his sitting out the dim Droop of a sombre February day In the plain closet where he does such work. With, from all Peter's treasury, one stool. One table and one latlien crucifix. There sits the Pope, his thoughts for company ; [207 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Grave but not sad^, — nay, something like a cheer Leaves the lips free to be benevolent. Which, all day long, did duty firm and fast. A cherishing there is of foot and knee, A chafing loose-skinned large-veined hand with hand, — What steward but knows when stewardship earns its wage, May levy praise, anticipate the lord ? He reads, notes, lays the papers down at last. Muses, then takes a turn about the room ; Unclasps a huge tome in an antique guise. Primitive print and tongue half obsolete. That stands him in diurnal stead ; opes page, Finds place where falls the passage to be conned According to an order long in use : And, as he comes upon the evening's chance. Starts somewhat, solemnizes straight his smile. Then reads aloud that portion first to last. And at the end lets flow his own thoughts forth Likewise aloud, for respite and relief. Till by the dreary relics of the west Wan through the half-moon window, all his light, He bows the head while the lips move in prayer. Writes some three brief lines, signs and seals the same. Tinkles a hand-bell, bids the obsequious Sir Who puts foot presently o' the closet-sill He watched outside of, bear as superscribed That mandate to the Governor forthwith : Then heaves abroad his cares in one good sigh, Traverses corridor with no arm's help, [ 208 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK And so to sup as a clear conscience should. The manner of the judgment of the Pope. Then must speak Guido jet a second time, Satan^s old saw being apt here — skin for skin, All a man hath that will he give for life. While life was graspable and gainable, And bird-like buzzed her wings round Guidons brow. Not much truth stiffened out the web of words He wove to catch her : when away she flew And death came, death's breath rivelled up the lies. Left bare the metal thread, the fibre fine Of truth, i' the spinning : the true words shone last. How Guido, to another purpose quite, Speaks and despairs, the last night of his life, In that New Prison by Castle Angelo At the bridge foot : the same man, another voice. On a stone bench in a close fetid cell, Where the hot vapor of an agony. Struck into drops on the cold wall, runs down — Horrible worms made out of sweat and tears — There crouch, well-nigh to the knees in dungeon-straw, Lit by the sole lamp suffered for their sake, Two awe-struck figures, this a Cardinal, That an Abate, both of old styled friends O' the thing part man part monster in the midst. So changed is Franceschini's gentle blood. The tiger-cat screams now, that whined before, That pried and tried and trod so gingerly, 14 [ 209 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Till in its silkiness the trap-teetli joined; Then you know how the bristling fury foams. They listen, this wrapped in his folds of red, While his feet fumble for the filth below ; The other, as beseems a stouter heart. Working his best with beads and cross to ban The enemy that comes in like a flood Spite of the standard set up, verily And in no trope at all, against him there ; For at the prison-gate, just a few steps Outside, already, in the doubtful dawn, Thither, from this side and from that, slow sweep And settle down in silence solidly. Crow-wise, the frightful Brotherhood of Death. Black-hatted and black-hooded huddle they. Black rosaries a-dangling from each waist ; So take they their grim station at the door. Torches lit, skull-and-cross-bones-banner spread. And that gigantic Christ with open arms. Grounded. Nor lacks there aught but that the group Break forth, intone the lamentable psalm, " Out of the deeps. Lord, have I cried to thee ! '^ — When inside, from the true profound, a sign Shall bear intelligence that the foe is foiled. Count Guido Franceschini has confessed, And is absolved and reconciled with God. Then they, intoning, may begin their march. Make by the longest way for the People's Square, Carry the criminal to his crime^s award: [ 210 ] RAPHAEL'S Madonna del Granduca, in the Pitti Gallery. " Madonna that visits Florence in a vision.'''' — One Word More, p. 218 THE RING AND THE BOOK A mob to cleave, a scaffolding to reach. Two gallows and Mannaia crowning all. How Guido made defence a second time. Finally, even as thus by step and step I led you from the level of to-day Up to the summit of so long ago, Here, whence I point you the wide prospect round — Let me, by like steps, slope you back to smooth, Land you on mother-earth, no whit the worse. To feed o^ the fat o' the furrow : free to dwell. Taste our timers better things profusely spread For all who love the level, corn and wine. Much cattle and the many-folded fleece. Shall not my friends go feast again on sward, Though cognizant of country in the clouds Higher than wistful eaglets horny eye Ever unclosed for, ^mid ancestral crags. When morning broke and Spring was back once more, And he died, heaven, save by his heart, unreached ? Yet heaven my fancy lifts to, ladder-like, — As Jack reached, holpen of his beanstalk-rungs ! ) A novel country : I might make it mine By choosing which one aspect of the year Suited mood best, and putting solely that On panel somewhere in the House of Fame, Landscaping what I saved, not what I saw : — Might fix you, whether frost in goblin-time [211 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Startled the moon with his abrupt bright laugh. Or, August's hair afloat in filmy fire, She fell, arms wide, face foremost on the world. Swooned there and so singed out the strength of things. Thus were abolished Spring and Autumn both. The land dwarfed to one likeness of the land, Life cramped corpse-fashion. Rather learn and love Each facet-flash of the revolving year ! — Eed, green and blue that whirl into a white. The variance now, the eventual unity, Which make the miracle. See it for yourselves. This man^s act, changeable because alive ! Action now shrouds, nor shows the informing thought ; Man, like a glass ball with a spark a-top. Out of the magic fire that lurks inside, Shows one tint at a time to take the eye : Which, let a finger touch the silent sleep. Shifted a hair^s-breadth shoots you dark for bright, Sufi'uses bright with dark, and baffles so Your sentence absolute for shine or shade. Once set such orbs, — white styled, black stigmatized, - A-roUing, see them once on the other side Your good men and your bad men every one From Guido Franceschini to Guy Faux, Oft would you rub your eyes and change your names. Such, British Public, ye who like me not, (God love you ! ) — whom I yet have labored for. Perchance more careful whoso runs may read [ 212 ] u. h5 -^ THE RING AND THE BOOK Than erst when all, it seemed, could read who ran, — Perchance more careless whoso reads may praise Than late when he who praised and read and wrote Was apt to find himself the selfsame me, — Such labor had such issue, so I wrought This arc, by furtherance of such alloy, And so, by one spirt, take away its trace Till, justifiably golden, rounds my ring. A ring without a posy, and that ring mine ? lyric Love, half angel and half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire, — Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holier blue. And sang a kindred soul out to his face, — Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart — When the first summons from the darkling earth Eeached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue, And bared them of the glory — to drop down. To toil for man, to suffer or to die, — This is the same voice : can thy soul know change ? Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help ! Never may I commence my song, my due To God who best taught song by gift of thee. Except with bent head and beseeching hand — That still, despite the distance and the dark. What was, again may be ; some interchange Of grace, some splendor once thy very thought, [ 213 ] THE RING AND THE BOOK Some benediction anciently th}^ smile : — Never conclude, but raising hand and head Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn For all hope, all sustainment, all reward. Their utmost up and on, — so blessing back In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud. Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall ! [ 214 ] ONE WORD MORE ONE WOBD 3IORE' To E. B. B. London^ September^ 1855. THEEE they are^ my fifty men and women Naming me the fifty poems finished ! Take them, Love, the book and me together : Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. II Eafael made a century of sonnets, Made and wrote them in a certain volume Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil Else he only used to draw Madonnas : These, the world might view — but one, the volume. Who that one, you ask ? Your heart instructs you. Did she live and love it all her lifetime ? Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets. Die, and let it drop beside her pillow Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, ^ Originally appended to the collection of fifty poems called " Men and imen." Women. [ 217 ] ONE WORD MORE RafaeFs cheek so duteous and so loving — Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, Eafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet^s ? Ill You and I would rather read that volume, (Taken to his beating bosom by it) Lean and list the bosom -beats of Rafael, Would we not ? than wonder at Madonnas — Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, Her, that visits Florence in a vision. Her, that 's left with lilies in the Louvre — Seen by us and all the world in circle. IV You and I will never read that volume. Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. Guido Reni dying, all Bologna Cried, and the world cried too, " Ours, the treasure ! Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. V Dante once prepared to paint an angel : Whom to please ? You whisper " Beatrice." While he mused and traced it and retraced it, (Perad venture with a pen corroded Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for. When, his left-hand in' the hair o^ the wicked, [ 218 ] rpORRE AL GALLO, from which many of Galileo's astronomical observations were made. " Galileo, on his turret. ^^ — One Word More, p. 224 ONE WORD MORE Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, Bit into the live man^s flesh for parchment. Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, Let the wretch go festering through Florence) — Dante, who loved well because he hated. Hated wickedness that hinders loving, Dante standing, studying his angel, — In there broke the folk of his Inferno. Saj^s lie — " Certain people of importance " (Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) *' Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet/' Says the poet — "Then I stopped my painting. '^ VI You and I would rather see that angel. Painted by the tenderness of Dante, Would we not ? — than read a fresh Inferno. VII You and I will never see that picture. While he mused on love and Beatrice, While he softened o'er his outlined angel. In they broke, those ''^ people of importance " : We and Bice bear the loss for ever. VIII What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture ? This : no artist lives and loves, that longs not Once, and only once, and for one only, [ 219 ] ONE WORD MORE ( Ah_, the prize !. ) to find his love a language Fit and fair and simple and sufficient — Using nature that ''s an art to others, Not, this one time, art that ^s turned his nature. Ay, of all the artists living, loving, None but would forego his proper dowry, — Does he paint ? he fain would write a poem, — Does he write? he fain would paint a picture. Put to proof art alien to the artist's. Once, and only once, and for one only, So to be the man and leave the artist. Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. IX Wherefore ? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement ! He who smites the rock and spreads the water, Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, Even he, the minute makes immortal. Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute. Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. While he smites, how can he but remember, So he smote before, in such a peril. When they stood and mocked — " Shall smiting help us ? " When they drank and sneered — '^ A stroke is easy ! " When they wiped their mouths and went their journey. Throwing him for thanks — " But drought was pleasant." Thus old memories mar the actual triumph ; Thus the doing savors of disrelish ; Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; [ 220 ] ONE WORD MORE O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, Carelessness or consciousness — the gesture. Eor he bears an ancient wrong about him, Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude — " How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us? Guesses what is like to prove the sequel — "Egypt's flesh-pots —nay, the drought was better/' X Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant ! Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. Never dares the man put off the prophet. XI Did he love one face from out the thousands, (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave,) He would envy yon dumb patient camel. Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert; Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) Hoard and life together for his mistress. xn I shall never, in the years remaining, Paint you pictures, no, nor carye you statues, [ 221 ] ff ONE WORD MORE Make you music that should all-express me ; So it seems : I stand on my attainment. This of verse alone^, one life allows me ; Verse and nothing else have I to give you. Other heights in other lives^ God willing : All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love ! XIII Yet a semblance of resource avails us — Shade so finely touched, lovers sense must seize it. Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly. Lines I write the first time and the last time. He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush. Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly. Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little. Makes a strange art of an art familiar. Fills his lady^s missal-marge with flowerets. He who blows thro' bronze, may breathe thro' silver. Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. He who writes, may write for once as I do. XIV Love, you saw me gather men and women. Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy. Enter each and all, and use their service. Speak from every mouth, — the speech, a poem. Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving : I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's, f 222 ] ONE WORD MORE Karshish, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty. Let me speak this once in my true person. Not as Lippo, Eoland or Andrea, Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence — Pray you, look on these my men and women, Take and keep my fifty poems finished ; Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also ! Poor the speech ; be how I speak, for all things. XV Not but that you know me ! Lo, the moon's self ! Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. Curving on a sky imbrued with color. Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Came she, our new crescent of a hair^s-breadth. Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, Rounder ■'twixt the cypresses and rounder. Perfect till the nightingales applauded. Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished. Hard to greet, she traverses the houseroofs, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. XVI What, there^s nothing in the moon note-worthy ? Nay : for if that moon could love a mortal. Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy) [ 223 ] ONE WORD MORE All her magic ('t is the old sweet mvthos), She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman — Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace. Blind to Galileo on his turret. Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even ! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal — When she turns round, comes again in heaven. Opens out anew for worse or better ! Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders. Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain ? Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, When they ate and drank and saw God also ! XVH What were seen ? None knows, none ever shall know. Only this is sure — the sight were other. Not the moon^s same side, born late in Florence, Dying now impoverished here in London. God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her ! [ 224 ] o 5 na O o t> ONE WORD MORE XVIII This I say of me, but think of you, Love ! This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! Ah, but that^s the world's side, there's the wonder, Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you ! There, in turn I stand with them and praise you. Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. But the best is when I glide from out them. Cross a step or two of dubious twilight. Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of. Where I hush and bless myself with silence. XIX Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it. Drew one angel — borne, see, on my bosom ! R. B. IS [ 225 ] INDEX In de X Angelico, Fra (da Fiesole), 36, 114, 129. Apollo, Statue of, Uffizi Gallery, 109. Arezzo, Province of, 40; town of, 181, 182, 183, 192. Arno, four bridges over, 24. Baccio Bandinelli's statue of Gio- vanni della Banda Nere, Piazza of San Lorenzo, 164. Baldovinetti, Alesso, Madonna and Saints, Uffizi Gallery, 114. Bandiera, the brothers, 54. Bargello chapel, 45. Beatrix, 45, 218. Bellosguardo, site of Galileo's villa, 64. Bigordi, Domenico, 114. Bridge of Santa Trtnita, 167. Brunelleschi's church, San Lorenzo. 44. Buonarroti (Michelangelo), 43, 62, 115. Campanile of Giotto, 25, 105, 111, 117. Carlo Dolci, 115. Carmine, Carmelite cloister of the, 12], 126, 130. Casa Guidi, 22, 39, 68, 77, 79, 82, 94, 167. Cascine, The, 99 ; piazza in the, 99. Castellani, 163. Cellini's Perseus, 43. Charles Albert, 92. Charles of Anjou, sees Cimabue's Virgin and Child, 34. Chiusi, province Siena, 163. Cimabue, 34, 35; discovers Giotto, 35. Circoli, The, 71. Cosimo Pater Patriae, 121, 123; his palace (Palace of the Medici), 129. Crystal Palace, London, 88-90. Dante, 44, 45, 218, 219, 225; bust on gate of San Gallo, 60. Dante's stone, 44, 45, 101, 116. Da Vinci, Leonardo, 108, 146. Dello Delli, 108. Duorao, Palazzo del, 72, 117. Dying Alexander, The, Uffizi Gallerv, 109. Ferdinand I. de' Medici, Equestrian statue of, Piazza dell' Annunziata, 149, 150, 357. Fiesole, 62, 137, 138, 223. Filicaja, Vincenza da, 23. Francis L of France, patron of An- drea del Sarto, 142, 144, 145. Galileo's Tower, 224. Gallo gate, 60. Garibaldi, Death of wife and child of, 91, 92. Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 113. Ghirlandajo (Domenico Bigordi), 113. Giotto, 24, 36, 45, 5«, 106, 111, 117; Last Supper, 115; Saints, in Chapel of the Medici, Santa Croce, 127. Glad Borgo (Borgo Allegri), 34. Gualbert, St., Altar of, Fiesole, 63. Guerazzi, 72, 75, 76. Guidi, 130. Guido Reni, 218. [ 229 ] INDEX Jerome, St., Painting of by Fra Lippo Lippi, Academy of Fine Arts, 123. Joconde, by Lionard, in the Louvre, 165. Lapaccia, Monna, 124. Leopold, Grand-duke, 41, 42, 68-70, 75-77, 82. Lippino Lippi, 114. Lippo Lippi, Fra, 121-134. Lippo Lippi's, Fra, fresco of St. Law- rence, Prato, 132; altar-piece for S. Ambrogio, 133, 134; painting of St. Jerome, Academy of Fine Arts, 123. Loggia dei Lanzi, 43. Lorenzo the Magnificent, 32. Lucrezia, wife of Andrea del Sarto, 137-146. Machiavelli, Niccolo, 34 Margheritoue, 36 ; Crucifixion, Santa Croce church, 114. Massa-Carrara, Province of, 40. Mazzini, Giuseppe, 83, 86, 87. Metternich, Prince, 46. Michelangelo (see also Buonarroti), 107, 141, 143, 144, 146. Michelangelo's Tomb of the Medici, 25; bust of Brutus, 43, 87; snow statue for Pietro, 26, 27. Monaco, Lorenzo, 114, 129. Mont St. Gothard, 116. Morello, 116, 140, 144. Niccolo gate, 60. Niobe, Group of, Uffizi Gallery, 109. Novara, 80, 92. Ogntssanti, 116. Orcagna (Orgagna), the brothers, Fresco of Inferno by, 34, 116. Petraja, Villa, 153. Petrarch's bust on gate of San Niccolo, 60. Piazza of the Grand-duke, 31. Pienza, 40. Pillar, Piazza Santa Trinita, 167. Pisano, Niccola (Nicolo, the Pisan), 113. Pisa, Province of, 40. Pitti palace, 22, 38, 42, 45, 68. Pius IX. (Pio Nono), 53, 54, 82, 83, 85. Pollajolo, 114. Porta Romana, 181. Prato cathedral, Frescos of the Bap- tist in, 122. Racers, Frieze of the, 109. Radetzky, Count Johann, 116. Raphael (Raffael), 36, 62, 107, 141- 144, 146; Madonnas bv, 217, 218, 225. Riccardi, The Palazzo, Piazza dell' Annunziata, 149, 150, 165. Robbia, della, 156. Rossi, Count, 86. Samminiato, 223. Sandro Botticelli, 114. San Felice, Church of, 22, 167, 181. San Lorenzo, Church of, 25, 123, 165. San Lorenzo, Piazza of, 164, 166. San Spirito, Church of, 116. Santa Croce church, 44. Santa Maria Novella, Church of, 33. Sarto, Andrea del, 137-146; Ma- donna, Pitti Gallery, 139, 143; copy of portrait of Leo X,, 140, 141. Savonarola, 31, 32; martyrdom of, 150. Siena cathedral, Tombs of Borgia and Pope Joan in, 84. Siena, Province of, 40. Stefano, 108. Strozzi, Palace of the, 167. Taddeo Gaddi, Church of Santa Maria Novella, 114. Theseus, Statue of, Uffizi Gallery, 109. Vallombrosa, 63. Vasari, George, 108, 140. Via Larga, 26, 150. 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