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ROBERT BROWNING'S WRITINGS. 
 
 POEMS AND DRAMAS. 2 vols. i6mo $3 00 
 
 MEN AND WOMEN, i vol. i6mo - 1.50 
 
 SORDELLO, STRAFFORD, ,CHRISTMAS-EVE, AND 
 
 EASTER-DAY. i vol. i6mo 1.50 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONiE. i vol. i6mo 1.50 
 
 THE RING AND THE BOOK. 2 vols. i6mo - - - - 3.00 
 BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE, i vol. i6mo - - - - 1.50 
 FIFINE AT THE FAIR, AND OTHER POEMS, i vol. i6mo. 1.50 
 RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY ; OR, TURF AND 
 
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 ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY: Being the Last Adventure 
 
 OF Balaustion. I vol. i6mo - - - - - - -1.50 
 
 THE INN ALBUM, i vol. i6mo 1.50 
 
 PACCHIAROTTO, AND HOW HE WORKED IN DIS- 
 TEMPER, AND OTHER POEMS, i vol. i6mo - - - 1.50 
 Published in uniform size and style ; each work sold separately, or 
 the set complete in box. 
 
 Also LYRICS OF LIFE. Illustrated, i vol. small 4to. Paper 50 
 cents ; cloth 75 cents. 
 
 #*# Senty postpaid, on receipt 0/ price, by the Publishers, 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 
 
 ^A^inthrop Square, Boston. 
 
PACCHIAROTTO 
 
 AND 
 
 HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER: 
 
 WITH OTHER POEMS. 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 (Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 
 
 1877. 
 
FRANKLIN PRESS: 
 
 RAND, AVERV, AND COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Prologue 9 
 
 Of Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper ii 
 
 At the * Mermaid' 43 
 
 House ...••*.... 53 
 
 Shop 57 
 
 PiSGAH-SlGHTS. I. ....... . 65 
 
 2 68 
 
 Fears and Scruples 72 
 
 Natural Magic 76 
 
 Magical Nature 78 
 
 7 
 
 3SG725 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bifurcation . • 79 
 
 numpholeptos . 82 
 
 Appearances • ... 90 
 
 St. Martin's Summer 91 
 
 A Forgiveness 98 
 
 Cenciaja 120 
 
 FiLipPO Baldinucci on the Privilege of BuriaL . 136 
 
 Epilogue 166 
 
PACCHIAROTTO 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
PROLOGUE. 
 
 I. 
 
 O the old wall here ! How I could pass 
 
 Life in a long Midsummer day, 
 My, feet confined to a plot of grass, 
 
 My eyes from a wall not once away! 
 
 ■ ■ ' - - 2'. 
 
 And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe 
 Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green : 
 
 Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath, 
 In lappets of tangle they laugh between. 
 
 - • , 3- ' ; . ' . ) 
 
 Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe? 
 
 Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims 
 The body, — the house, no eye can probe, — 
 
 Divined as, beneath a robe, the limbs? 
 
 9 
 
16 PROLOGUE, 
 
 4. 
 
 And there again! But my heart may guess 
 Who tripped behind ; and she sang perhaps : 
 
 So, the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess 
 Died out and away in the leafy wraps I 
 
 S- 
 Wall upon wall are between us : life 
 
 And song should away from heart to heart! 
 I — prison-bird, with a ruddy strife 
 
 At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start — 
 
 Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing 
 
 That's spirit : though cloistered fast, soar free ; 
 
 Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring 
 Of the rueful neighbors, and — forth to thee ! 
 
OF PA CCHIARO TTO, 1 1 
 
 OF PACCHIAROTTO, AND HOW HE 
 WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 
 
 I. 
 
 Query: was ever a quainter 
 Crotchet than this of the painter 
 Giacomo Pacchiarotto 
 Who took " Reform " for his motto ? 
 
 He, pupil of old Fungaio, 
 Is always confounded (heigho ! ) 
 With Pacchia, contemporaneous 
 No question, but how extraneous 
 In the grace of soul, the power 
 Of hand, — undoubted dower 
 Of Pacchia who decked (as we know, 
 My Kirkup !) San Bernardino, 
 
I2i OF PA CCHIARA TTO, 
 
 Turning the small dark Oratory 
 
 To Siena's Art-laboratory, 
 
 As he made its straightness roomy 
 
 And glorified its, gloomy, 
 
 With Bazzi and Beccafumi. 
 
 (Another heigho for Bazzi : 
 
 How people miscall him Razzi !) 
 
 This Painter was of opinion ) 
 
 Our earth should^ be his dominion 
 Whose Art could correct to pattern 
 What Nature had slurred — the slattern 1 
 And since, beneath the heavens. 
 Things lay now at sixes and sevens, ; 
 Or, as he said, sopra-wtto — 
 Thought the painter Pacchiarotto 
 Things wanted reforming, therefore. 
 " Wanted it " — - ay, but wherefore ? 
 When earth held one so ready 
 As he to step forth, stand steady 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER, 13 
 
 In the middle of God^s creation 
 And prove to demonstration 
 What the dark is, what the light is, 
 What the wrong is, what the right is, 
 What the ugly, what the beautiful, 
 What the restive, what the dutiful. 
 In Mankind profuse around him? 
 Man, devil as now he found him, 
 Would presently soar up angel 
 At the summons of such evangel, 
 And owe — what would Man not owe 
 To the painter Pacchiarotto ? 
 Ay, look to thy laurels, Giotto! 
 
 4. 
 But Man, he perceived, was stubborn, 
 Grew regular brute, once cub born ; 
 And it struck him as expedient — 
 Ere he tried to make obedient. 
 By piping advice in one key, 
 The wolf, fox, bear and monkey — 
 
14 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 That his pipe should play a prelude 
 
 To something heaven-tinged not hell-hued, 
 
 Something not harsh but docile, 
 
 Man-liquid, not Man-fossil — 
 
 Not fact, in short, but fancy. 
 
 By a laudable necromancy 
 
 He would conjure up ghosts — a circle 
 
 Deprived of the means to work ill 
 
 Should his music prove distasteful, 
 
 And pearls to the swine go wasteful. 
 
 To be rent of swine — that was hard 1 
 
 With fancy he ran no hazard : 
 
 Fact might knock him o'er the mazard. 
 
 5- 
 So, the painter Pacchiarotto 
 Constructed himself a grotto 
 In the quarter of Stalloreggi — 
 As authors of note allege ye. 
 And on each of the whitewashed sides of it 
 He painted — (none far and wide so fit 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER, 15 
 
 As he to perform in fresco) — 
 
 He painted nor cried quiesco 
 
 Till he peopled its every square foot 
 
 With Man — from the Beggar barefoot 
 
 To the Noble in cap and feather : 
 
 All sorts and conditions together. 
 
 The Soldier in breastplate and helmet 
 
 Stood frowningly — hail fellow well met — 
 
 By the Priest armed with bell, book and candle. 
 
 Nor did he omit to handle 
 
 The Fair Sex, our brave distemperer : 
 
 Not merely King, Clown, Pope, Emperor — 
 
 He diversified too his Hades 
 
 Of all forms, pinched Labor and paid Ease, 
 
 With as mixed an assemblage of Ladies. 
 
 Which work done, dry, — he rested him. 
 Cleaned palette, washed brush, divested him 
 Of the apron that suits frescanti, 
 And, bonnet on ear stuck jaunty, 
 
1 6 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 This hand upon hip well planted, 
 
 That, free to wave as it wanted. 
 
 He addressed in a choice oration 
 
 His folk of each name and nation 
 
 On the duties, of every station. 
 
 The pope was declared an arrant 
 
 Impostor at once, I warrant. 
 
 The Emperor — truth might tax him 
 
 With ignorance of the maxim 
 
 " Shear sheep but nowise flay them ! " 
 
 And the Vulgar that obey them, 
 
 The Ruled, well-matched with the Ruling, 
 
 They failed not of wholesome schooling 
 
 On their knavery and their fooling. 
 
 As for Art — where's decorum ? Pooh-poohed it is 
 
 By Poets that plague us with lewd ditties, 
 
 And Painters that pester with nudities ! 
 
 7. 
 Now, your rater and debater 
 Is balked by a mere spectator 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 17 
 
 Who simply stares and listens 
 
 Tongue-tied, while eye nor glistens 
 
 Nor brow grows hot and twitchy. 
 
 Nor mouth, for a combat itchy, 
 
 Quivers wdth some convincing 
 
 Reply — that sets him wincing ? 
 
 Nay, rather — reply that furnishes 
 
 Your debater with just what burnishes 
 
 The crest of him, all one triumph, 
 
 As you see him rise, hear him cry " Humph ! 
 
 Convinced am I? This confutes me? 
 
 Receive the rejoinder that suits me ! 
 
 Confutation of vassal for prince meet — 
 
 Wherein all the powers that convince meet, 
 
 And mash my opponent to mincemeat ! " 
 
 So, off from his head fli-es the bonnet, 
 His hip loses hand planted on it. 
 While t'other hand, frequent in gesture, 
 Slinks modestly back beneath vesture, 
 
l8 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 As, — hop, skip and jump, — he's along with 
 
 Those weak ones he late proved so strong with ! 
 
 Pope, Emperor, lo he's beside them, 
 
 Friendly now, who late could not abide them. 
 
 King, Clown, Soldier, Priest, Noble, Burgess ; 
 
 And his voice, that out-roared Boanerges, 
 
 How minikin-mildly it urges 
 
 In accents how gentled and gingered 
 
 Its word in defence of the injured ! 
 
 " O call him not culprit, this Pontiff ! 
 
 Be hard on this Kaiser ye won't if 
 
 Ye take into con-si-de-ration 
 
 What dangers attend elevation! 
 
 The Priest — who expects him to descant 
 
 On duty with more zeal and less cant ? 
 
 He preaches but rubbish he's reared in. 
 
 The Soldier, grown deaf (by the mere din 
 
 Of battle) to mercy, learned tippling 
 
 And what not of vice while a stripling. 
 
 The Lawyer — his lies are conventional. 
 
 And as for the Poor Sort — why mention all 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 19 
 
 Obstructions that leave barred and bolted 
 Access to the brains of each dolt-head ? " 
 
 9- 
 
 He ended, you wager ? Not half ! A bet ? 
 Precedence to males in the alphabet ! 
 Still, disposed of Man's A. B. C, there's X. 
 Y. Z. want assistance, — the Fair Sex ! 
 How much may be said in excuse of 
 Those vanities — males see no use of — 
 From silk shoe on heel to laced poll's-hood ! 
 What's their frailty beside our own falsehood ? 
 The boldest, most brazen of . . . trumpets, 
 How kind can they be to their dumb pets ! 
 Of their charms — how are most frank, how few 
 
 venal ! 
 While as for those charges of Juvenal — 
 Quce nemo dixisset in toto 
 Nisi (cedepol) ore illoto — 
 He dismissed every charge with an ^ Apage !^ 
 
20 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 lO. 
 
 Then, cocking (in Scotch phrase) his cap a-gee, 
 Right hand disengaged from the doublet 
 — Like landlord, in house he had sublet 
 Resuming of guardianship gestion, 
 To call tenants' conduct in question — 
 Hop, skip, jump, to inside from outside 
 Of chamber, he lords, ladies, louts eyed 
 With such transformation of visage 
 As fitted the censor of this age. 
 No longer an advocate tepid 
 Of frailty but champion intrepid 
 Of strength, — not of falsehood but verity, — 
 He, one after one, with asperity 
 Stripped bare all the cant-clothed abuses, 
 Disposed of sophistic excuses. 
 Forced folly each shift to abandon, 
 And left vice with no leg to stand on. 
 So crushing the force he exerted. 
 That Man • at his foot lay converted ! 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 21 
 
 II. 
 
 True — Man bred of paint-pot and mortar ! 
 But why suppose folks of this sort are 
 More likely to hear and be tractable 
 Than folks all alive and, in fact, able 
 To testify promptly by action 
 Their ardor, and make satisfaction 
 For misdeeds non verbis sed factis ? 
 " With folks all alive be my practice 
 Henceforward! O mortar, paint-pot O, 
 Farewell to ye ! " cried Pacchiarotto, 
 " Let only occasion interpose ! '' 
 
 12. 
 
 It did so : for, pat to the purpose 
 Through causes I need not examine, 
 There fell upon Siena a famine. 
 In vain did the magistrates busily 
 Seek succor, fetch grain out of Sicily, 
 Nay, throw mill and bakehouse wide open-— 
 
22 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 Such misery followed as no pen 
 Of mine shall depict ye. Faint, fainter, 
 Waxed hope of relief: so, our painter, 
 Emboldened by triumph of recency, 
 How could he do other with decency 
 Than rush in this strait to the rescue, 
 Play schoolmaster, point as with fescue 
 To each and all slips in Man's spelling 
 The law of the land ? — slips now telling 
 With monstrous effect on the city. 
 Whose magistrates moved him to pity 
 As, bound to read law to the letter, 
 They minded their hornbook no better. 
 
 13- 
 
 I ought to have told you, at starting, 
 How certain, who itched to be carting 
 Abuses away clean and thorough 
 From Siena, both province and borough. 
 Had formed themselves into a company 
 Whose swallow could bolt in a lump any 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER, 23 
 
 Obstruction of scruple, provoking 
 
 The nicer throat's coughing and choking. 
 
 Fit Club, by as fit a name dignified 
 
 Of "Freed Ones '' — " ^^r^^///"— which signified 
 
 " Spare-Horses " that walk by the wagon 
 
 The team has to drudge for and drag on. 
 
 This notable Club Pacchiarotto 
 
 Had joined long since, paid scot and lot to, 
 
 As free and accepted "Bardotto." 
 
 The Bailiwick watched with no quiet eye 
 
 The outrage thus done to society, 
 
 And noted the advent especially 
 
 Of Pacchiarotto their fresh ally. 
 
 14. 
 
 These Spare-Horses forthwith assembled : 
 Neighed words whereat citizens trembled 
 As oft as the chiefs, in the Square by 
 The Duomo, proposed a way whereby 
 The city were cured of disaster. 
 "Just substitute servant for master. 
 
24 OF PACCHTAROTTO, 
 
 Make Poverty Wealth and Wealth Poverty, 
 Unloose Man from overt and covert tie, 
 And straight out of social confusion 
 True Order would spring ! " Brave illusion — 
 Aims heavenly attained by means earthy ! 
 
 15- 
 Off to these at full speed rushed our worthy, - 
 Brain practised and tongue no less tutored. 
 In argument's armor accoutred, — 
 Sprang forth, mounted rostrum and essayed 
 Proposals like those to which " Yes " said 
 So glibly each personage painted 
 O' the wall-side wherewith you're acquainted. 
 He harangued on the faults of the Bailiwick : 
 "Red soon were our State-candle's paly wick, 
 If wealth would become but interfluous. 
 Fill voids up with just the superfluous ; 
 If ignorance gave way to knowledge 
 — Not pedantry picked up at college 
 From Doctors, Professors et ccBtera — 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 25 
 
 {They say: ^ kai fa loipa' — like better a 
 
 Long Greek string of kappas, taus, lambdas^ 
 
 Tacked on to the tail of each damned ass) — 
 
 No knowledge we want of this quality, 
 
 But knowledge indeed — practicality 
 
 Through insight's fine universality! 
 
 If you shout ^ Bailiffs, out on ye all I Fie, 
 
 Thou Chief of our forces, A?nalfi, 
 
 Who shield est the rogue and the clotpoll!^ 
 
 If you pounce on and poke out, with what pole 
 
 I leave ye to fancy, our Siena's 
 
 Beast-litter of sloths and hyenas — " 
 
 (Whoever to scan this is ill able 
 
 Forgets the town's name's a dissyllable) 
 
 " If, this done, ye did — as ye might — place 
 
 For once the right man in the right place, 
 
 If you listened to me . . ." 
 
 16. 
 
 At which last " If " 
 There flew at his throat like a mastiff 
 
26 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 One Spare-Horse — another and another! 
 
 Such outbreak of tumult and pother, 
 
 Horse-faces a- laughing and fleering, 
 
 Horse-voices a-mocking and jeering, 
 
 Horse-hands raised to collar the caitiff 
 
 Whose impudence ventured the late "If" — 
 
 That, had not fear sent Pacchiarotto 
 
 Off tramping, as fast as could trot toe. 
 
 Away from the scene of discomfiture — 
 
 Had he stood there stock-still in a dumb fit — sure 
 
 Am I he had paid in his person 
 
 Till his mother might fail to know her son. 
 
 Though she gazed on him never so wistful, 
 
 In the figure so tattered and tristful. 
 
 Each mouth full of curses, each fist full 
 
 Of cuffings — behold, Pacchiarotto, 
 
 The pass which thy project has got to. 
 
 Of trusting, nigh ashes still hot — tow ! 
 
 (The paraphrase — which I much need — is 
 
 From Horace ^per ignes incedis.*) 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER, 27 
 
 17- 
 
 Right and left did he dash helter-skelter 
 In agonized search of a shelter. 
 No purlieu so blocked and no alley 
 So blind as allowed him to rally 
 His spirits and see — nothing hampered 
 His steps if he trudged and not scampered 
 Up here and down there in a city 
 That's all ups and downs, more the pity 
 For folks who would outrun the constable. 
 At last he stopped short at the one stable 
 And sure place of refuge that's offered 
 Humanity. Lately was coffered 
 A corpse in its sepulchre, situate 
 By St. John's Observance. " Habituate 
 Thyself to the strangest of bedfellows, 
 And, kicked by the live, kiss the dead fellows ! " 
 So Misery counselled the craven. 
 At once he crept safely to haven 
 Through a hole left unbricked in the structure. 
 Ay, Misery, in have you tucked your 
 
28 OF PACCHIAROTTOr 
 
 Poor client and left him conterminous 
 With — pah ! — the thing fetid and verminous ! 
 (I gladly would spare you the detail, 
 But History writes what I retail.) 
 
 i8. 
 
 Two days did he groan in his domicile : 
 " Good Saints, set me free and I promise PU 
 Abjure all ambition of preaching 
 Change, whether to minds touched by teaching 
 
 — The smooth folk of fancy, mere figments 
 Created by plaster and pigments, — 
 
 Or to minds that receive with such rudeness 
 Dissuasion from pride, greed and lewdness, 
 
 — The rough folk of fact, life's true specimens 
 Of mind — ' hand in posse sed esse mens * 
 
 As it was, is and shall be forever 
 Despite of my utmost endeavor. 
 
 live foes I thought to illumine, 
 Henceforth lie untroubled your gloom in! 
 
 1 need my own light, every spark, as 
 
 I couch with this sole friend — a carcass ! " 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 29 
 
 19. 
 
 Two days thus he maundered and rambled ; 
 Then, starved back to sanity, scrambled 
 From out his receptacle loathsome. 
 "A spectre!" — declared upon oath some 
 Who saw him emerge and (appalling 
 To mention) his garments a-crawling 
 With plagues far beyond the Egyptian. 
 He gained, in a state past description 
 A convent of monks, the Observancy. 
 
 Thus far is a fact : I reserve fancy 
 For Fancy's more proper employment : 
 And now she weaves wing with enjoyment, 
 To tell ye how preached the Superior 
 When som.ewhat our painter's exterior 
 Was sweetened. He needed (no mincing 
 The matter) much soaking and rinsing, 
 Nay, rubbing with drugs odoriferous, 
 
30 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 Till, rid of his garments pestiferous 
 
 And robed by the help of the Brotherhood 
 
 In odds and ends, — this gown and t'other hood, ■ 
 
 His empty inside first well-garnished, — 
 
 He delivered a tale round, unvarnished. 
 
 " Ah, Youth ! '' so might run the admonishment, 
 "Thine error scarce moves my astonishment. 
 For — why shall I shrink from asserting ? — 
 Myself have had hopes of converting 
 The foolish to wisdom, till, sober. 
 My life found its May grow October. 
 I talked and I wrote, but, one morning, 
 Life's Autumn bore fruit in this warning : 
 * Let tongue rest, and quiet thy quill he I 
 Earth is earth and not heaven^ and ne\r will be,^ 
 Man's work is to labor and leaven — 
 As best he may — earth here with heaven ; 
 'Tis work for work's sake that he's needing: 
 Let him work on and on as if speeding 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER, 31 
 
 Work's end, but not dream of succeeding! 
 
 Because if success were intended, 
 
 Why, heaven would begin ere earth ended. 
 
 A Spare-Horse ? Be rather a thill-horse, 
 
 Or — what's the plain truth — just a mill-horse! 
 
 Earth's a mill where we grind and wear mufflers : 
 
 A whip awaits shirkers and shufflers 
 
 Who slacken their pace, sick of lugging 
 
 At what don't advance for their tugging. 
 
 Though round goes the mill, we must still post 
 
 On and on as if moving the mill-post. 
 
 So, grind away, mouth-wise and pen-wise. 
 
 Do all that we can to make men wise ! 
 
 And if men prefer to be foolish. 
 
 Ourselves have proved horse-like not mulish : 
 
 Sent grist, a good sackful, to hopper. 
 
 And worked as the Master thought proper. 
 
 Tongue I wag, pen I ply, who am Abbot ; 
 
 Stick, thou. Son, to paint-brush and dab-pot! 
 
 But, soft ! I scratch hard on the scab hot ? 
 
 Though cured of thy plague, there may linger 
 
32 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 A pimple I fray with rough finger ? 
 So soon could my homily transmute 
 Thy brass into gold ? Why, the man's mute ! '* 
 
 "Ay, Father, I'm mute with admiring 
 How Nature's indulgence untiring 
 Still bids us turn deaf ear to Reason's 
 Best rhetoric — clutch at all seasons 
 And hold fast to what's proved untenable ! 
 Thy maxim is — Man's not amenable 
 To argument : whereof by consequence — 
 Thine arguments reach me : a non-sequence ! 
 Yet blush not discouraged, O Father! 
 I stand unconverted, the rather 
 That nowise I need a conversion. 
 No live man (I cap thy assertion) 
 By argument ever could take hold 
 Of me. 'Twas the dead thing, the clay-cold, 
 Which grinned ^ Art thou so in a hurry 
 That out of 7uarm light thou i7iust scurry 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 33 
 
 And join ine down here in the dungeon 
 Because^ above, one^s Jack and one — John, 
 One^s swift in the race, one — a hohhler. 
 One's a crowned king and one — a capped cobbler, 
 Rich and poor, sage and fool, virtuous, vicious ? 
 Why co77iplain ? Art thou so unsuspicious 
 That aWs for an hour of essaying 
 Who^s ft and who^s unfit for playing 
 His part in the after-construction 
 — Heaven's Piece whereof Earth's the Induction ? 
 Things rarely go sfnooth at Rehearsal. 
 Wait patient the change universal. 
 And act, afid let act, in existence I 
 For, as thou art clapped hence or hissed hence. 
 Thou hast thy promotion or otherwise. 
 And why mitst wise thou have thy brother wise 
 Because in rehearsal thy cue be 
 To shine by the side of a booby ? 
 A^o polishing garnet to ruby / 
 Alps well that ends well — through Arfs magic. 
 Some end, whether co7nic or tragic, 
 
34 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 The Artist has purposed^ he certain ! 
 Explained at the fall of the curtain — 
 In showing thy wisdom at odds imth 
 That folly : he tries men aJid gods with 
 No problem for weak wits to solve meant, 
 But one worth such Author^ s evolvement. 
 So, back nor disturb plafs production 
 By giving thy brother instriution 
 To throiv up his fooFs-part allotted! 
 Lest haply thyself prove besotted 
 When stript, for thy pains, of that costmne 
 Of sage, which has bred the imposthume 
 I prick to relieve thee of, — Vanity !^ 
 
 23- 
 
 " So, Father, behold me in sanity ! 
 . I'm back to the paint-brush and mahlstick: 
 And as for Man — let each and all stick 
 To what was prescribed them at starting! 
 Once planted as fools — no departing 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 35 
 
 From folly one inch, sceculonim 
 
 In scecula! Pass me the jorum, 
 
 And push me the platter — my stomach 
 
 Retains, through its fasting, still some ache — 
 
 And then, with your kind Benedicite, 
 
 Good-by 1 " 
 
 24. 
 
 I have told with simplicity 
 My tale, dropped those harsh analytics, 
 And tried to content you, my critics, 
 Who greeted my early uprising ! 
 I knew you through all the disguising, 
 Droll dogs, as I jumped up, cried " Heyday 
 This Monday is — what else but May-day 
 And these in the drabs, blues and yellows 
 Are surely the privileged fellows. 
 So, saltbox and bones, tongs and bellows ! " 
 (I threw up the window) " Your pleasure ? " 
 
36 OF PACCHIAROTTO, 
 
 25. 
 
 Then he who directed the measure — 
 An old friend — put leg forward nimbly, 
 " We critics as sweeps out your chimbly ! 
 Much soot to remove from your flue sir! 
 Who spares coal in kitchen an't you, sir ! 
 And neighbors complain it's no joke, sir, 
 — You ought to consume your own smoke, sir ! " 
 
 26. 
 
 Ah, rogues, but my housemaid suspects you — 
 Is confident oft she detects you 
 In bringing more filth into my house 
 Than ever you found there ! I'm pious 
 However : 'twas God made you dingy 
 And me — with no need to be stingy 
 Of soap, when 'tis sixpence the packet. 
 So, dance away, boys, dust my jacket. 
 Bang drum and blow fife — ay, and rattle 
 Your brushes, for that's half the battle ! 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 37 
 
 Don't trample the grass, — hocus-pocus 
 
 With grime my Spring snow-drop and crocus, — 
 
 And, what with your rattling and tinkling, 
 
 Who knows but you give me an inkling 
 
 How music sounds, thanks to the jangle 
 
 Of regular drum and triangle ? 
 
 Whereby, tap-tap, chink-chink, 'tis proven 
 
 I break rule as bad as Beethoven. 
 
 " That chord now — a groan or a grunt is't ? 
 
 Schumann's self was no worse contrapuntist. 
 
 No ear ! or if ear, so tough-gristled — 
 
 He thought that he sung while he whistled ! " 
 
 27. 
 
 So, this time I whistle, not sing at all, 
 My story, the largess I fling at all 
 And every the rough there whose aubade 
 Did its best to amuse me, — nor so bad ! 
 Take my thanks, pick up largess, and scamper 
 Off free, ere your mirth gets a damper! 
 
38 OF PACCHJAROTTO, 
 
 YouVe Monday, your one day, your fun-day, 
 While mine is a year that's all Sunday. 
 I've seen you, times — who knows how many?- 
 Dance in here, strike up, play the zany. 
 Make mouths at the Tenant, hoot warning 
 You'll find him decamped next May-morning ; 
 Then scuttle away, glad to 'scape hence 
 With — kicks ? no, but laughter and ha'pence ! 
 Mine's freehold, by grace of the grand Lord 
 Who lets out the ground here, — my landlord : 
 To him I pay quit-rent — devotion ; 
 Nor hence shall I budge, I've a notion, 
 Nay, here shall my whistling and singing 
 Set all his street's echoes a-ringing 
 Long after the last of your number 
 Has ceased my front-court to encumber 
 While, treading down rose and ranunculus, 
 You Tommy-make-rooin-for-your- Uncle us ! 
 Troop, all of you — man or homunculus. 
 Quick march ! for Xanthippe, my housemaid, 
 If once on your pates she a souse made 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 39 
 
 With what, pan or pot, bowl or skoramis 
 
 First comes to her hand — things were more amiss! 
 
 I would not for worlds be your place in — 
 
 Recipient of slops from the basin ! 
 
 You, Jack-in-the-Green, leaf-and-twiggishness 
 
 Won't save a dry thread on your priggishness ! 
 
 While as for Quilp-Hop-oMny-thumb there, 
 
 Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum there — 
 
 He'll think, as the pickle he curses, 
 
 I've discharged on his pate his own verses ! 
 
 " Dwarfs are saucy," says Dickens : so, sauced in 
 
 Your own sauce, . . * 
 
 28. 
 
 But, back to my Knight of the Pencil, 
 Dismissed to his fresco and stencil ! 
 Whose story — begun with a chuckle. 
 And throughout timed by raps of the knuckle, — * 
 
 * No, please ! For 
 
 *'Who would be satirical 
 On a thing so very small?" — Printer's Devil. 
 
40 OF PACCHIAROTTO^ 
 
 To small enough purpose were studied 
 
 If it ends with crown cracked or nose bloodied. 
 
 Come, critics, — not shake hands, excuse me ! 
 
 But — say have you grudged to amuse me 
 
 This once in the forty-and-over 
 
 Long years since you trampled my clover 
 
 And scared from my house-eaves each sparrow 
 
 I never once harmed by that arrow 
 
 Of song, karterotaton belos, 
 
 (Which Pindar declares the true melos) 
 
 I was forging and filing and finishing, 
 
 And no whit my labors diminishing 
 
 Because, though high up in a chamber 
 
 Where none of your kidney may clamber 
 
 Your hullabaloo would approach me ? 
 
 Was it " grammar " wherein you would " coach " me — 
 
 You, — pacing in even that paddock 
 
 Of language allotted you ad hoc, 
 
 With a clog at your fetlocks, — you — scorners 
 
 Of me free of all its four corners ? 
 
 Was it "clearness of words which convey thought?" 
 
AND HOW HE WORKED IN DISTEMPER. 41 
 
 Ay, if words never needed enswathe aught 
 
 But ignorance, impudence, envy 
 
 And malice — what word-swathe would then vie 
 
 With yours for a clearness crystalline ? 
 
 But had you to put in one small line 
 
 Some thought big and bouncing — as noddle 
 
 Of goose, born to cackle and waddle 
 
 And bite at man's heel as goose-wont is, 
 
 Never felt plague its puny os fro?itis — 
 
 You'd know, as you hissed, spat and sputtered, 
 
 Clear " quack-quack " is easily uttered ! 
 
 29. 
 
 Lo, Pve laughed out my laugh on this mirth-day ! 
 Beside, at week's end, dawns my birth-day, 
 That hebdo7?ie^ hieron emar — 
 (More things in a day than you deem are !) 
 — Tei gar Apollona chriisaora 
 Egeinato Leto, So, gray or ray 
 Betide me, six days hence, I'm vexed here 
 
42 OF PACCHIAROTTO. 
 
 By no sweep, that's certain, till next year! 
 
 *' Vexed ?" — roused from what else were insipid ease ! 
 
 Leave snoring a-bed to Pheidippides ! 
 
 We'll up and work! won't we, Euripides? 
 
AT THE 'mermaid: 43 
 
 AT THE 'MERMAID.' 
 
 The figure that thou here seest . . Tut ! 
 Was it for gentle Shakespeare put? 
 
 B. Jon SON. {Adapted,) 
 
 I — "Next Poet?" No, my hearties, 
 
 I nor am nor fain would be ! 
 Choose your chiefs and pick your parties, 
 
 Not one soul revolt to me ! 
 I, forsooth, sow song sedition ? 
 
 I, a schism in verse provoke ? 
 I, blown up by bard's ambition, 
 
 Burst — your bubble-king? You joke. 
 
 Come, be grave ! The sherris mantling 
 Still about each mouth, mayhap. 
 
 Breeds you insight — just a scantling — 
 Brings me truth out — just a scrap. 
 
44 AT THE ' mermaid: 
 
 Look and tell me ! Written, spoken, 
 Here's my life-long work : and where 
 
 — Where's your warrant or my token 
 I'm the dead king's son and heir ? 
 
 3- 
 
 Here's my work : does work discover 
 
 What was rest from work — my life ? 
 Did I live man's hater, lover? 
 
 Leave the world at peace, at strife ? 
 Call earth ugliness or beauty ? 
 
 See things there in large or small ? 
 Use to pay its Lord my duty? 
 
 Use to own a lord at all ? 
 
 4. 
 
 Blank of such a record, truly, 
 
 Here's the work I hand, this scroll, 
 
 Yours to take or leave ; as duly, 
 Mine remains the unproffered soul. 
 
AT THE 'mermaid: 45 
 
 So much, no whit more, my debtors — 
 How should one like me lay claim 
 
 To that largess elders, betters 
 
 Sell you cheap their souls for — fame ? 
 
 5- 
 Which of 3^ou did I enable 
 
 Once to slip inside my breast 
 There to catalogue and label 
 
 What I like least, what love best, 
 Hope and fear, believe and doubt of, 
 
 Seek and shun, respect — deride ? 
 Who has right to make a rout of 
 
 Rarities he found inside ? 
 
 Rarities or, as he'd rather, 
 
 Rubbish such as stocks his ov/n : 
 
 Need and greed (O strange) the Father 
 Fashioned not for him alone ! 
 
46 AT THE 'mermaid: 
 
 Whence — the comfort set a-strutting, 
 Whence — the outcry " Haste, behold ! 
 
 Bard's breast open wide, past shutting, 
 Shows what brass we took for gold ! '' 
 
 7. 
 
 Friends, I doubt not he'd display you 
 
 Brass — myself call oreichalch, — 
 Furnish much amusement ; pray you 
 
 Therefore, be content I balk 
 Him and you, and bar my portal ! 
 
 Here's my work outside : opine 
 What's inside me mean and mortal ! 
 
 Take your pleasure, leave me mine ! 
 
 8. 
 
 Which is — not to buy your laurel 
 As last king did, nothing loath. 
 
 Tale adorned and pointed moral 
 Gained him praise and pity both. 
 
AT THE ' mermaid: 47 
 
 Out rushed sighs and groans by dozens, 
 Forth by scores oaths, curses flew : 
 
 Proving you were cater-cousins, 
 Kith and kindred, king and you ! 
 
 9- 
 
 Whereas do I ne'er so little 
 
 (Thanks to sherris) leave ajar 
 Bosom's gate — no jot nor tittle 
 
 Grow we nearer than we are. 
 Sinning, sorrowing, despairing. 
 
 Body-ruined, spirit-wrecked, — 
 Should I give my woes an airing, — 
 
 Where's one plague that claims respect ? 
 
 Have you found your life distasteful ? 
 
 My life did and does smack sweet. 
 Was your youth of pleasure wasteful ? 
 
 Mine I saved and hold complete. 
 
48 AT THE 'mermaid: 
 
 Do your joys with age diminish ? 
 
 When mine fail me, I'll complain. 
 Must in death your daylight finish? 
 
 My sun sets to rise again. 
 
 What, like you, he proved — your Pilgrim — 
 
 This our world a wilderness, 
 Earth still gray and heaven still grim. 
 
 Not a hand there his might press. 
 Not a heart his own might throb to. 
 
 Men all rogues and women — say, 
 Dolls which boys' heads duck and bob to. 
 
 Grown folk drop or throw away ? 
 
 My experience being other. 
 
 How should T contribute verse 
 
 Worthy of your king and brother ? 
 Balaam-like I bless, not curse. 
 
A 7' THE 'mermaid: 49 
 
 I find earth not gray but rosy, 
 Heaven not grim but fair of hue. 
 
 Do I stoop ? I pluck a posy. 
 
 Do I stand and stare? AlFs blue. 
 
 13- 
 
 Doubtless I am pushed and shoved by 
 
 Rogues and fools enough : the more 
 Good luck mine, I love, am loved by 
 
 Some few honest to the core. 
 Scan the near high, scout the far low ! 
 
 " But the low come close : " what then ? 
 Simpletons ? My match is Marlowe ; 
 
 Sciolists ? My mate is Ben. 
 
 14. 
 
 Womankind — " the cat-like nature. 
 False and fickle, vain and weak " — 
 
 What of this sad nomenclature 
 
 Suits my tongue, if I must speak? 
 
50 AT THE 'mermaid: 
 
 Does the sex invite, repulse so, 
 Tempt, betray, by fits and starts ? 
 
 So becalm but to convulse so. 
 
 Decking heads and breaking hearts ? 
 
 IS- 
 
 Well may you blaspheme at fortune ! 
 
 I " threw Venus " (Ben, expound !) 
 Never did I need importune 
 
 Her, of all the Olympian round. 
 Blessings on my benefactress ! 
 
 Cursings suit — for aught I know — 
 Those who twitched her by the back tress, 
 
 Tugged and thought to turn her — so ! 
 
 i6. 
 
 Therefore, since no leg to stand on 
 Thus I'm left with, — joy or grief 
 
 Be the issue, — I abandon 
 
 Hope or care you name me Chief! 
 
AT THE 'Mermaid: 51 
 
 Chief and king and Lord's anointed, 
 
 I ? — who never once have wished 
 Death before the day appointed : 
 
 Lived and liked, not poohed and pished ! 
 
 \1' 
 
 "Ah, but so I shall not enter, 
 
 Scroll in hand, the common heart — 
 
 Stopped at surface : since at centre 
 
 Song should reach . Wclt-sc/uncrz, world-smart ! " 
 
 " Enter in the heart ? " Its shelly- 
 Cuirass guard mine, fore and aft ! 
 
 Such song " enters in the belly 
 And is cast out in the draught." 
 
 18. 
 
 Back then to our sherris-brewage ! 
 
 " Kingship " quotha ? I shall wait — 
 Waive the present time : some new age . . . 
 
 But let fools anticipate ! 
 
52 AT THE 'mermaid: 
 
 Meanwhile greet me — "friend, good fellow, 
 Gentle Will/' my merry men ! 
 
 As for making Envy yellow 
 With "Next Poet " — (Manners, Ben!) 
 
HOUSE, 53 
 
 HOUSE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself? 
 
 Do I live in a house you would like to see ? 
 Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf? 
 
 "Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?" 
 
 2. 
 
 Invite the world, as my betters have done? 
 
 " Take notice : this building remains on view, 
 Its suites of reception every one, 
 
 Its private apartment and bedroom too ; 
 
 3. 
 " For a ticket, apply to the Publisher." 
 
 No : thanking the public, I must decline. 
 A peep through my window, if folks prefer ; 
 
 But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine ! 
 
54 HOUSE, 
 
 4. 
 
 I have mixed with a crowd and heard free talk 
 In a foreign land where an earthquake chanced 
 
 And a house stood gaping, nought to balk 
 Man's eye wherever he gazed or glanced. 
 
 5- 
 The whole of the frontage shaven sheer, 
 
 The inside gaped : exposed to day, 
 Right and wrong and common and queer, 
 
 Bare, as the palm of your hand, it lay. 
 
 6. ' 
 
 The owner ? Oh, he had been crushed, no doubt ! 
 
 " Odd tables and chairs for a man of wealth ! 
 What a parcel of musty old books about ! 
 
 He smoked, — no wonder he lost his health ! 
 
HOUSE. 5S 
 
 7- 
 
 " I doubt if he bathed before he dressed. 
 
 A brazier? — the pagan, he burned perfumes! 
 You see it is proved, what the neighbors guessed : 
 
 His wife and himself had separate rooms." 
 
 8. 
 
 Friends, the goodman of the house at least 
 
 Kept house to himself till an earthquake came: 
 
 'Tis the fall of its frontage permits you feast 
 On the inside arrangement you praise or blame. 
 
 ' 9- 
 
 Outside should suffice for evidence : 
 
 And whoso desires to penetrate 
 Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense — 
 
 No optics like yours, at any rate! 
 
56 HOUSE. 
 
 lo. 
 
 " Hoity toity ! A street to explore, 
 
 Your house the exception ! * With this same key 
 Shakespeare unlocked his heart ^^ once more ! '' 
 
 Did Shakespeare ? If so, the less Shakespeare he ! 
 
SHOP, 57 
 
 SHOP. 
 
 So, friend, your shop was all your house I 
 Its front, astonishing the street. 
 
 Invited view from man and mouse 
 To what diversity of treat 
 Behind its glass — the single sheet ! 
 
 What gimcracks, genuine Japanese : 
 Gape-jaw and goggle-eye, the frog; 
 
 Dragons, owls, monkeys, beetles, geese ; 
 Some crush-nosed human-hearted dog: 
 Queer names, too, such a catalogue ! 
 
58 SHOP. 
 
 3. 
 
 I thought " And he who owns * the wealth 
 Which blocks the window's vastitude, 
 
 — Ah, could I peep at him by stealth 
 Behind his ware, pass shop, intrude 
 On house itself, what scenes were viewed ! 
 
 4. 
 
 "If wide and showy thus the shop. 
 What must the habitation prove ? 
 
 The true house with no name a-top — 
 The mansion, distant one remove, 
 Once get him ofE his traffic-grove ! 
 
 5- 
 
 "Pictures he likes, or books perhaps; 
 And as for buying most and best, 
 
 Commend me to these city chaps ! 
 Or else he's social, takes his rest 
 On Sundays, v;ilh a Lord for guest. 
 
SHOP. 59 
 
 6. 
 
 " Some suburb-palace, parked about 
 And gated grandly, built last year : 
 
 The four-mile walk to keep off gout ; 
 Or big seat sold by bankrupt peer : 
 But then he takes the rail, that's clear. 
 
 7- 
 
 " Or, stop ! I wager, taste selects 
 
 Some out o' the way, some all-unknown 
 
 Retreat : the neighborhood suspects 
 Little that he who rambles lone 
 Makes Rothschild tremble on his throne ! " 
 
 8. 
 
 Nowise ! Nor Mayfair residence 
 Fit to receive and entertain, — 
 
 Nor Hampstead villa's kind defence 
 
 From noise and crowd, from dust and drain, ■ 
 Nor country-box was soul's domain ! 
 
6o SHOP. 
 
 9- 
 
 Nowise ! At back of all that spread 
 Of merchandise, woe's me, I find 
 
 A hole i' the wall where, heels by head, 
 The owner couched, his ware behind, 
 — In cupboard suited to his mind. 
 
 For why? He saw no use of life 
 But, while he drove a roaring trade. 
 
 To chuckle " Customers are rife ! " 
 
 To chafe " So much hard cash outlaid 
 Yet zero in my profits made ! 
 
 " This novelty costs pains, but — takes ? 
 Cumbers my counter ! Stock no more ! 
 
 This article, no such great shakes, 
 Fizzes like wild fire ? Underscore 
 The cheap thing — thousands to the fore ! " 
 
SHOP, 6l 
 
 12. 
 
 'Twas lodging best to live most nigh 
 (Cramp, coffinlike as crib might be) 
 
 Receipt of Custom ; ear and eye 
 
 Wanted no outworld : " Hear and see 
 The bustle in the shop ! '^ quoth he. 
 
 13- 
 
 My fancy of a merchant-prince 
 
 Was different. Through his wares we groped 
 Our darkling way to — not to mince 
 
 The matter — no black den where moped 
 
 The master if we interloped ! 
 
 14. 
 
 Shop was shop only : household-stuff ? 
 
 What did he want with comforts there ? 
 " WallSj ceiling, floor, stay blank and rough, 
 
 So goods on sale show rich and rare ! 
 
 ^ Sell and scud home^^ be shop's affair!" 
 
62 SHOP, 
 
 15- . 
 
 What might he deal m? Gems, suppose! 
 Since somehow business must be done 
 
 At cost of trouble, — see, he throws 
 You choice of jewels, every one 
 Good, better, best, star, moon and sun 1 
 
 1 6. 
 
 Which lies within your power of purse ? 
 This ruby that would tip aright 
 
 Solomon's sceptre ? Oh, your nurse 
 Wants simply coral, the delight 
 Of teething baby, — stuff to bite ! 
 
 17. 
 
 Howe'er your choice fell, straight you took 
 Your purchase, prompt your money rang 
 
 On counter, — scarce the man forsook 
 His study of the " Times," just swang 
 Till-ward his hand that stopped the clang, ■ 
 
SHOP. 63 
 
 18. 
 
 Then off made buyer with a prize, 
 Then seller to his " Times " returned, 
 
 And so did day wear, wear, till eyes 
 Brightened apace, for rest was earned : 
 He locked door long ere candle burned. 
 
 19. 
 
 And whither went he? Ask himself. 
 Not me ! To change of scene, I think. 
 
 Once sold the ware and pursed the pelf. 
 Chaffer was scarce his meat and drink, 
 Nor all his music — money-chink. 
 
 Because a man has shop to mind 
 
 In time and place, since flesh must live, 
 
 Needs spirit lack all life behind. 
 All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive. 
 All loves except what trade can give ? 
 
64 SHOP. 
 
 I want to know a butcher paints, 
 A baker rhymes for his pursuit, 
 
 Candlestick-maker much acquaints 
 His soul with song, or, haply mute, 
 Blows out his brains upon the flute! 
 
 22. 
 
 But — shop each day and all day long ! 
 Friend, your good angel slept, your star 
 
 Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong! 
 From where these sorts of treasures are. 
 There should our hearts be — Christ, how far ! 
 
PISGAII-SIGHTS. 65 
 
 PISGAH-SIGHTS. I. 
 
 Over the ball of it, 
 
 Peering and prying, 
 How I see all of it, 
 
 Life there, outlying! 
 Roughness and smoothness. 
 
 Shine and defilement, 
 Grace and uncouthness : 
 
 One reconcilement. 
 
 Orbed as appointed, 
 Sister with brother 
 
 Joins, ne'er disjointed 
 One from the other. 
 
66 PISGAH-SIGHTS, ■ 
 
 AlPs lend-and-borrow ; 
 • Good, see, wants evil, 
 Joy demands sorrow, 
 Angel weds devil 1 
 
 3- 
 " Which things must — why be ? " 
 
 Vain our endeavor ! 
 So shall things aye be 
 
 As they were ever. 
 " Such things should so be \ " 
 
 Sage our desistence ! 
 Rough-smooth let globe be, 
 
 Mixed — man's existence ! 
 
 4. 
 Man — wise and foolish. 
 
 Lover and scorner. 
 Docile and mulish — 
 
 Keep each his corner ! 
 
PISGAH-SIGHTS, 67 
 
 Honey yet gall of it! 
 
 There's the life lying, 
 And I see all of it, 
 
 Only, I'm dying I 
 
68 FISGAH-SIGHTS. 
 
 PISGAH-SIGHTS. 2. 
 
 Could I but live again, 
 
 Twice my life over, 
 Would I once strive again? 
 
 Would not I cover 
 Quietly all of it — 
 
 Greed and ambition — ■ 
 So, from the pall of it, 
 
 Pass to fruition? 
 
 " Soft ! " I'd say, " Soul mine ! 
 
 Three-score and ten years, 
 Let the blind mole mine 
 
 Digging out deniers ! 
 
PISGAH-SIGHTS. 69 
 
 Let the dazed hawk soar, 
 
 Claim the sun's rights too ! 
 Turf 'tis thy walk's o'er, 
 
 Foliage thy flight's to." 
 
 3- 
 
 Only a learner, 
 
 Quick one or slow one, 
 Just a discerner, 
 
 I would teach no one. 
 I am earth's native : 
 
 No re-arranging it ! 
 / be creative. 
 
 Chopping and changing it? 
 
 4. 
 March, men, my fellows ! 
 
 Those who, above me, 
 (Distance so mellows) 
 
 Fancy you love me : 
 
70 PISGAH-SIGHTS, 
 
 Those who, below me, 
 
 (Distance makes great so) 
 Free to forego me, 
 Fancy you hate so ! 
 
 5- 
 Praising, reviling, 
 
 Worst head and best head, 
 Past me defiling, 
 
 Never arrested, 
 Wanters, abounders, 
 
 March, in gay mixture, 
 Men, my surrounders ! . 
 
 I am the fixture. 
 
 6. 
 
 So shall I fear thee, 
 Mightiness yonder ! 
 
 Mock-sun — more near thee, 
 What is to wonder ? 
 
PISGA H-SIGHTS. , 7 1 
 
 So shall I love thee, 
 
 Down in the dark, — lest 
 Glowworm I prove thee, 
 
 Star that now sparkiest I 
 
72 FEARS AND SCRUPLES. 
 
 FEARS AND SCRUPLES. 
 
 I. 
 
 Here's my case. Of old I used to love him, 
 This same unseen friend, before I knew : 
 
 Dream there was none like him, none above him, - 
 Wake to hope and trust my dream was true. 
 
 Loved I not his letters full of beauty? 
 
 Not his actions famous far and wide ? 
 Absent, he would know I vowed him duty. 
 
 Present, he would find me at his side. 
 
 3- 
 
 Pleasant fancy ! for I had but letters, 
 
 Only knew of actions by hearsay : 
 He himself was busied with my betters ; 
 
 What of that } My turn must come some day. 
 
FEARS AND SCRUPLES, 73 
 
 4. 
 
 ^' Some day" proving — no day! Here's the puzzle. 
 
 Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain? 
 He's so busied ! If I could but muzzle 
 
 People's foolish mouths that give me pain ! 
 
 5- 
 "Letters?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing? 
 
 Ask the experts ! How they shake the head 
 O'er these characters, your friend's inditing — 
 
 Call them iorgery from A. to Z. ! 
 
 6. 
 " Actions ? Where's your certain proof " (they bother) 
 
 " He, of all you find so great and good, 
 He, he only, claims this, that, the other 
 
 Action — claimed by men, a multitude ? " 
 
 7- 
 I can simply wish I might refute you. 
 
 Wish my friend would, — by a word, a wink, — 
 Bid me stop that foolish mouth, — you brute you! 
 
 He keeps absent, — why, I cannot think. 
 
74 FEARS AND SCRUPLES, 
 
 8. 
 
 Never mind ! Though fooUshness may flout me, 
 One thing's sure enough : 'tis neither frost, 
 
 No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me 
 Thanks for truth — though falsehood, gained — 
 though lost. 
 
 9- 
 
 All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier. 
 
 For that dream's sake ! How forget the thrill 
 
 Through and through me as I thought " The gladlier 
 Lives my friend because I love him still ! " 
 
 lO. 
 
 Ah, but there's a menace some one utters ! 
 
 "What and if your friend at home play tricks? 
 Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters? 
 
 Mean your eyes should pierce through solid bricks ? 
 
 II. 
 
 "What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy 
 Lay on you the blame that bricks — conceal ? 
 
 Say ' At least I saw who did not see rne^ 
 Docs see now, and p7'esently shall feel V"*^ 
 
FEARS AND SCRUPLES. 75 
 
 " Why, that makes your friend a monster ! " say you : 
 " Had his house no window ? At first nod, 
 
 Would you not have hailed him ? " Hush, I pray 
 you ! 
 What if this friend happen to be — God? 
 
76 NATURAL MAGIC, 
 
 NATURAL MAGIC. 
 
 All I can say is — I saw it ! 
 
 The room was as bare as your hand. 
 
 I locked in the swarth little lady, — I swear, 
 
 From the head to the foot of her — well, quite as 
 
 bare ! 
 "No Nautch shall cheat me," said I, "taking my 
 
 stand 
 At this bolt which I draw ! " And this bolt — • I 
 
 withdraw it, 
 And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered 
 With — who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'er- 
 
 flowered ? 
 Impossible ! Only — I saw it 1 
 
NATURAL MAGIC, 77 
 
 2. 
 
 All I can sing is — I feel it ! 
 
 This life was as blank as that room ; 
 
 I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed? 
 
 Walls, ceiling and floor, — not a chance for a weed ! 
 
 Wide opens the entrance : where's cold now, where's 
 gloom ? 
 
 No May to sow seed here, no June to reveal it. 
 
 Behold you enshrined in these blooms of your bring- 
 ing. 
 
 These fruits of your bearing — nay, birds of your 
 winging ! 
 
 A fairy-tale ! Only — I feel it I 
 
78 MAGICAL NATURE, 
 
 MAGICAL NATURE. 
 
 Flower — I never fancied, jewel — I profess you ! 
 Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a 
 flower. 
 Save but glow inside and — jewel, I should guess 
 you, 
 Dim to sight and rough to touch : the glory is 
 the dower. 
 
 You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel — 
 Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime ! 
 
 Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or 
 cruel. 
 Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time ! 
 
BIFURCA TION, 79 
 
 BIFURCATION. 
 
 We were two lovers ; let .me lie by her, 
 
 My tomb beside her tomb. On hers inscribe — 
 
 " I loved him ; but my reason bade prefer 
 
 Duty to love, reject the tempter's bribe 
 
 Of rose and lily when each path diverged, 
 
 And either I must pace to life's far end 
 
 As love should lead me, or, as duty urged. 
 
 Plod the worn causeway arm in arm with friend. 
 
 So, truth turned falsehood : ^ How I loathe a flower^ 
 
 How prize the pavement .f still caressed his ear — 
 
 The deafish friend's — through life's day, hour by 
 
 hour. 
 As he laughed (coughing) ^ Ay^ it would appear T 
 But deep within my heart of hearts there hid 
 Ever the confidence, amends for all, 
 That heaven repairs what wrong earth's journey did, 
 When love from lifc-lon^ exile comes at call. 
 
8o BIFURCATION. 
 
 Duty and love, one broadway, were the best — 
 Who doubts ? But one or other was to choose. 
 I chose the darkhng half, and wait the rest 
 In that new world where light and darkness fuse." 
 
 Inscribe on mine — "I loved her : love's track lay 
 O'er sand and pebble, as all travellers know. 
 Duty led through a smiling country, gay 
 With greensward where the rose and lily blow. 
 ' Our roads are diverse : farewell^ love ! ' said she : 
 '^Tis duty I abide by : homely sward 
 And not the rock-rough picturesque for 7ne I 
 Above, where both roads Join, I wait reward. 
 Be you as constant to the path whereon 
 I leave you planted P But man needs must move. 
 Keep moving — whither, when the star is gone 
 Whereby he steps secure nor strays from love ? 
 No stone but I was tripped by, stumbling-block 
 But brought me to confusion. Where I fell, 
 There I lay flat, if moss disguised the rock, 
 Thence, if flint pierced, I rose and cried ^ All's well! 
 
BIFUR CA TIOiV. 8 1 
 
 Duty be mine to tread in that high sphere 
 Where love from duty ne'er disparts, I trust, 
 And two halves make that zuhole, whereof — since here 
 Ojie must suffice a man — why, this one must ! ' " 
 
 Inscribe each tomb thus : then, some sage acquaint 
 The simple — which holds sinner, which holds saint ! 
 
82 NUMPHOLEPTOS, 
 
 NUMPHOLEPTOS. 
 
 Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile ! 
 Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile, 
 Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft 
 Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft 
 I coiild believe your moonbeam-smile has past 
 The pallid limit and, transformed at last. 
 Lies, sunlight and salvation — warms the soul 
 It sweetens, softens ! Would you pass that goal, 
 Gain love's birth at the limit's happier verge. 
 And, where an iridescence lurks, but urge 
 The hesitating pallor on to prime 
 Of dawn ! — true blood-streaked, sun-warmth, action- 
 time, 
 By heart-pulse ripened to a ruddy glow 
 Of gold above my clay — I scarce should know 
 
NUMPHOLEPTOS. 83 
 
 From gold's self, thus suffused ! For gold means 
 
 love. 
 What means the sad slow silver smile above 
 My clay but pity, pardon? — at the best, 
 But acquiescence that I take my rest, 
 Contented to be clay, while in your heaven 
 The sun reserves love for the Spirit- Seven 
 Companioning God's throne they lamp before, 
 — Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'er 
 By that pale soft sweet disempassioned moon 
 Which smiles me slow forgiveness ! Such, the boon 
 I beg? Nay, dear, submit to this — just this 
 Supreme endeavor ! As my lips now kiss 
 Your feet, my arms convulse your shrouding robe, 
 My eyes, acquainted with the dust, dare probe 
 Your eyes above for — what, if born, would blind 
 Mine with redundant bliss, as flash may find 
 The inert nerve, sting awake the palsied limb, 
 Bid with life's ecstasy sense overbrim 
 And suck back death in the resurging joy — 
 Love, the love whole and sole without alloy ! 
 
84 NUMPHOLEPTOS. 
 
 Vainly! The promise withers! I employ 
 
 Lips, arms, eyes, pray the prayer which finds the 
 
 word, 
 Make the appeal which must be felt, not heard, 
 And none the more is changed your calm regard : 
 Rather, its sweet and soft grow harsh and hard — 
 Forbearance, then repulsion, then disdain. 
 Avert the rest ! I rise, see ! — make, again 
 Once more, the old departure for some track 
 Untried yet through a world which brings me back 
 Ever thus fruitlessly to find your feet. 
 To ^iL your eyes, to pray the soft and sweet 
 Which smile there — take from his new pilgrimage 
 Your outcast, once your inmate, and assuage 
 With love — not placid pardon now — his thirst 
 For a mere drop from out the ocean erst 
 He drank at ! Well, the quest shall be renewed. 
 Fear nothing ! Though I linger, unimbued 
 With any drop, my lips thus close. I go ! 
 So did I leave you, I have found you so. 
 And doubtlessly, if fated to return, 
 
NUMPHOLEPTOS. 85 
 
 So shall my pleading persevere and earn 
 Pardon — not love in that same smile, I learn, 
 And lose the meaning of, to learn once more, 
 Vainly ! 
 
 What fairy track do I explore ? 
 What magic hall return to, like the gem . 
 CentLiply-angled o'er a diadem ? 
 
 You dwell there, hearted ; from your midmost home 
 Rays forth — through that fantastic world I roam 
 Ever — from centre to circumference, 
 Shaft upon colored shaft : this crimsons thence. 
 That purples out its precinct through the waste. 
 Surely I had your sanction when I faced. 
 Fared forth upon that untried yellow ray 
 Whence I retrack my steps ? They end to-day 
 Where they began, before your feet, beneath 
 Your eyes, your smile : the blade is shut in sheath, 
 Fire quenched in flint ; irradiation, late 
 Triumphant through the distance, finds its fate. 
 Merged in your blank pure soul, alike the source 
 
86 NUMPIIOLEPTOS. 
 
 And tomb of that prismatic glow: divorce 
 
 Absolute, all-conclusive ! Forth I fared, 
 
 Treading the lambent llamelet : little cared 
 
 If now its flickering took the topaz tint, 
 
 If now my dull-caked path gave sulphury hint 
 
 Of subterranean rage — no stay nor stint 
 
 To yellow, since you sanctioned that I bathe, 
 
 Burnish me, soul and body, swim and swathe 
 
 In yellow license. Here I reek suffused 
 
 With crocus, saffron, orange, as I used 
 
 With scarlet, purple, every dye o' the bow 
 
 Born cf the storm-cloud. As before, you show 
 
 Scarce recognition, no approval, some 
 
 Mistrust, more wonder at a man become 
 
 Monstrous in garb, nay — flesh disguised as well. 
 
 Through his adventure. Whatsoe'er befell, 
 
 I followed, wheresoe'er it wound, that vein 
 
 You authorized should leave your whiteness, stain 
 
 Earth's sombre stretch beyond your midmost place 
 
 Of vantage, — trode that tinct whereof the trace 
 
 On garb and flesh repel you ! Yes, I plead 
 
NUMPffOLEPTOS. 87 
 
 Your own permission — your command, indeed, 
 
 That who would worthily retain the love 
 
 Must share the knowledge shrined those eyes above, 
 
 Go boldly on adventure, break through bounds 
 
 O' the quintessential whiteness that surrounds 
 
 Your feet, obtain experience of each tinge 
 
 That bickers forth to broaden out, impinge 
 
 Plainer his foot its pathway all distinct 
 
 From every other. Ah, the wonder, linked 
 
 With fear, a-s exploration manifests 
 
 What agency it was first tipped the crests 
 
 Of unnamed wildflower, soon protruding grew 
 
 Portentous mid the sands, as when his hue 
 
 Betrays him and the burrowing snake gleams 
 
 through ; 
 Till, last . . but why parade more shame and pain ? 
 Are not the proofs upon me ? Here again 
 I pass into your presence, I receive 
 Your smile of pity, pardon, and I leave . . . 
 No, not this last of times I leave you, mute, 
 Submitted to my penance, so my foot 
 
88 NUMPHOLEPTOS. 
 
 May yet again adventure, tread, from source 
 To issue, one more ray of rays which course 
 Each other, at your bidding, from the sphere 
 Silver and sweet, their birthjDlace, down that drear 
 Dark of the world, — you promise shall return 
 Your pilgrim jewelled as with drops o' the urn 
 The rainbow j^aints from, and no smatch at all 
 Of ghastliness at edge of some .cloud-pall 
 Heaven cowers before, as earth awaits the fall 
 O' the bolt and flash of doom. Who trusts your 
 
 word 
 Tries the adventure : and returns — absurd 
 As frightful — in that sulphur-steeped disguise 
 Mocking the priestly cloth-of-gold, sole prize 
 The arch-heretic was wont to bear away 
 Until he reached the burning. No, I say : 
 No fresh adventure ! No more seeking love 
 At end of toil, and finding, calm above 
 My passion, the old statuesque regard, 
 The sad petrifi^ smile ! 
 
NUMPHOLEPTOS. 89 
 
 O you — less hard 
 And hateful than mistaken and obtuse 
 Unreason of a she-intelligence ! 
 You very woman with the pert pretence 
 To match the male achievement ! Like enough ! 
 Ay, you were easy victors, did the rough 
 Straightway efface itself to smooth, the gruff 
 Grind down and grow a whisper, — did man's truth 
 Subdue, for sake of chivalry and ruth, 
 Its rapier-edge to suit the bulrush-spear 
 Womanly falsehood fights with ! O that ear 
 All fact pricks rudely, that thrice-superfine 
 Feminity of sense, with right divine 
 To waive all process, take result stain-free 
 From out the very muck wherein . . . 
 
 Ah me ! 
 The true slave's querulous outbreak ! All the rest 
 Be resignation ! Forth at your behest 
 I fare. Who knows but this — the crimson-quest — 
 May deepen to a sunrise, not decay 
 To that cold sad sweet smile? — wliich I obtv. 
 
90 APPEARANCES. 
 
 APPEARANCES. 
 
 And so you found that poor room dull, 
 Dark, hardly to your taste, my dear ? 
 
 Its features seemed unbeautiful : 
 
 But this I know — 'twas there, not here, 
 
 You plighted troth to me, the word 
 
 Which — ask that poor room how it heard. 
 
 2. 
 
 And this rich room obtains your praise 
 Unqualified — so bright, so fair. 
 
 So all whereat perfection stays ? 
 
 Ay, but remember — here, not there. 
 
 The other word was spoken ! — Ask 
 
 This rich room how you dropped the mack ! 
 
ST, MARTIN'S SUMMER, 91 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 
 
 No protesting, dearest ! 
 Hardly kisses even ! 
 
 Don't we both know how it ends, 
 How the greenest leaf turns searest, 
 Bluest outbreak — blankest heaven, 
 Lovers — friends ? 
 
 2. 
 
 You would build a mansion, 
 I would weave a bower 
 — Want the heart for enterprise. 
 Walls admit of no expansion : 
 Trellis-work may haply flower 
 Twice the size. 
 
92 ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER, 
 
 3- 
 
 What makes glad Life's Winter ? 
 New buds, old blooms after. 
 Sad the sighing " How suspect 
 Beams would ere mid- Autumn splinter, 
 Rooftree scarce support a rafter, 
 Walls lie wrecked ? " 
 
 4. 
 
 You are young, my princess ! 
 I am hardly older : 
 
 Yet — I steal a glance behind I 
 Dare I tell you what convinces 
 Timid me that you, if bolder, 
 Bold — are blind ? 
 
 5- 
 Where we plan our dwelling 
 Glooms a graveyard surely ! 
 
 Headstone, footstone moss may drape, ■ 
 
ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 
 
 Name, date, violets hide from spelling, — 
 But, though corpses rot obscurely, 
 Ghosts escape. 
 
 93 
 
 Ghosts ! O breathing beauty. 
 Give my frank word pardon ! 
 
 What if I — somehow, somewhere — 
 Pledged my soul to endless duty 
 Many a time and oft ? Be hard on 
 Love — laid there ? 
 
 7- 
 
 Nay, blame grief that's fickle, 
 Time that proves a traitor. 
 
 Chance, change, all that purpose warps,— 
 Death who spares to thrust the sickle 
 
 Laid Love low, through flowers which later 
 Shroud the corpse! 
 
94 
 
 ST, MARTIN'S SUMMER. 
 
 8. 
 
 And you, my winsome lady, 
 
 Whisper me with like frankness ! 
 Lies nodiing buried long ago ? 
 Are yon — which shimmer mid the shady 
 Where moss and violet run to rankness ■ 
 Tombs or no ? 
 
 9- 
 
 Who taxes you with murder? 
 
 My hands are clean — or nearly ! 
 Love being mortal needs must pass. 
 Repentance? Nothing were absurder. 
 Enough: we felt Love's loss severely; 
 Though now — alas ! 
 
 Love's corpse lies quiet therefore, 
 Only Love's ghost plays truant, 
 
 And warns us have in wholesome awe 
 
ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 95 
 
 Durable mansionry ; that's wherefore 
 
 I weave but trelHs-work, pursuant , 
 
 — Life, to law. 
 
 The solid, not the fragile, 
 
 Tempts rain and hail and thunder. 
 
 If bower stand firm at Autumn's close, 
 Beyond my hope, — why, boughs were agile ; 
 If bovver fall flat, we scarce need wonder 
 Wreathinoj — rose ! 
 
 12. 
 
 So, truce to the protesting. 
 So, muffled be the kisses ! 
 
 For, would we but avow the truth, 
 Sober is genuine joy. No jesting ! 
 Ask else Penelope, Ulysses — 
 Old in youth ! 
 
g6 ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 
 
 13- 
 
 For why should ghosts feel angered ? 
 Let all their interference 
 
 Be faint march-music in the air ! 
 " Up ! * Join the rear of us the vanguard ! 
 Up, lovers, dead to all appearance, 
 Laggard pair ! " 
 
 14. 
 
 ■The while you clasp me closer, 
 ■ The while I press you deeper. 
 
 As safe we chuckle, — under breath. 
 Yet all the slyer, the jocoser, — 
 
 " So, life can boast its day, like leap-year. 
 Stolen from death ! " 
 
 IS- 
 
 Ah me — the sudden terror ! 
 
 Hence quick — avaunt, avoid me. 
 
 You cheat, the ghostly flesh-disguised ! 
 
ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 97 
 
 Nay, all the ghosts in one ! Strange error ! 
 
 So, 'twas Death's self that clipped and coyed me ! 
 Loved — and lied ! 
 
 16. 
 
 Ay, dead loves are the potent ! 
 Like any cloud they used you, 
 
 Mere semblance you, but substance tbey 1 
 Build we no mansion, weave we no tent ! 
 Mere flesh — their spirit interfused you ! 
 Hence, I say ! 
 
 All theirs, none yours the glamour ! ^ 
 
 Theirs each low word that won me. 
 
 Soft look that found me Love's, and left 
 What else but you — the tears and clamor 
 That's all your very own ! Undone me — 
 Ghost-bereft ! 
 
98 A FORGIVENESS, 
 
 A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 I AM indeed the personage you know. 
 As for my wife, — what happened long ago — 
 You have a right to question me, as . I 
 Am bound to answer. 
 
 " Son, a fit reply ! '' 
 The monk half spoke, half ground through his 
 
 clenched teeth, 
 At the confession-grate I knelt beneath. 
 
 Thus then all happened, Father ! Power and place 
 I had as still I have. I ran life's race. 
 With the whole world to see, as only strains 
 His strength some athlete whose prodigious gains 
 Of good appall him : happy to excess, — 
 Work freely done should balance happiness 
 
A FORGIVENESS, 99 
 
 Fully enjoyed ; and, since beneath my roof 
 
 Housed she who made home heaven, in heaven's 
 
 behoof 
 I went forth every day, and all day long 
 Worked for the world. Look, how the laborer's song 
 Cheers him ! Thus sang my soul, at each sharp 
 
 throe 
 Of laboring flesh and blood — " She loves me so ! '' 
 
 One day, perhaps such song so knit the nerve 
 That work grew play and vanished. " I deserve 
 Haply my heaven an hour before the time ! " 
 I laughed, as silverly the clockhouse-chime 
 Surprised me passing through the postern-gate 
 — Not the main entry where the menials wait 
 And wonder why the world's affairs allow 
 The master sudden leisure. That was how 
 I took the private garden-way for once. 
 
 Forth from the alcove, I saw start, ensconce 
 Himself behind the porphyry vase, a man. 
 
lOO A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 My fancies in the natural order ran : 
 
 " A spy, — perhaps a foe in ambuscade, — 
 
 A thief, — more like, a sweetheart of some maid 
 
 Who pitched on the alcove for tryst perhaps " 
 
 " Stand there ! " I bid. 
 
 Whereat my man but wraps 
 His face the closelier with uplifted arm 
 Whereon the cloak lies, strikes in blind alarm 
 This and that pedestal as, — stretch and stoop, — 
 Now in, now out of sight, he thrids the group 
 Of statues, marble god and goddess ranged 
 Each side the pathway, till the gate's exchanged 
 For safety : one step thence, the street, you know ! 
 
 Thus far I followed my gaze. Then, slow. 
 Near on admiringly, I breathed again, 
 And — back to that last fancy of the train — 
 " A danger risked for hope of just a word 
 With- — which of all my nest may be the bird 
 This poacher covets for her plumage, pray? 
 
y4 FORGIP^E^/i/E'SS. ibt ' 
 
 Carmen ? Juana ? Carmen seems too gay 
 For such adventure, while Juana's grave 
 — Would scorn the folly. I applaud the knave ! 
 He had the eye, could shigle from my brood 
 His proper fledgling ! '' 
 
 As I turned, there stood 
 In face of me, my wife stone-still stone-white. 
 Whether one bound had brought her, — at first sight 
 Of what she judged the encounter, sure to be 
 Next moment, of the venturous man and me, — 
 Brought her to clutch and keep me from my prey , 
 Whether impelled because her death no day 
 Could come so absolutely opportune 
 As now at joy's height, like a year in June 
 Stayed at the fall of its first ripened rose ; 
 Or whether hungry for my hate — who knows ? — 
 Eager to end an irksome lie, and taste 
 Our tingling true relation, hate embraced 
 By hate one naked moment : — anyhow 
 There stone-still stone-white stood my wife, but now 
 
I02 ^A fV'RGIVENESS. 
 
 The woman who made heaven within my house. 
 Ay, she who faced me was my very spouse 
 As well as love — you are to recollect ! 
 
 " Stay ! " she said. "Keep at least one soul unspecked 
 
 With crime, that's spotless hitherto — your own ! 
 
 Kill me who court the blessing, who alone 
 
 Was, am and shall be guilty, first to last ! 
 
 The man lay helpless in the toils I cast 
 
 About him, helpless as the statue there 
 
 Against that strangling bell-flower's bondage : tear 
 
 Away and tread to dust the parasite, 
 
 But do the passive marble no despite ! 
 
 I love him as I hate you. Kill me ! Strike 
 
 At one blow both infinitudes alike 
 
 Out of existence — hate and love ! Whence love ? 
 
 That's safe inside my heart, nor will remove 
 
 For any searching of your steel, I think. 
 
 Whence hate ? The secret lay on lip, at brink 
 
 Of speech, in one fierce tremble to escape. 
 
 At every form wherein your love took shape, 
 
A FORGIVENESS. 103 
 
 At each new provocation of your kiss. 
 Kill me ! " 
 
 We went in. 
 
 Next day after this, 
 I felt as if the speech might come. I spoke — 
 Easily, after all. 
 
 "The lifted cloak 
 Was screen sufficient: I concern myself 
 Hardly with laying hands on who for pelf — 
 Whate'er the ignoble kind — may prowl and brave 
 Cuffing and kicking proper to a knave 
 Detected by my household's vigilance. 
 Enough of such ! As for my love-romance — 
 I, like our good Hidalgo, rub my eyes 
 And wake and wonder how the film could rise 
 Which changed for me a barber's basin straight 
 Into — Mambrino's helm? I hesitate 
 Nowise to say — God's sacramental cup ! 
 
T04 A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 Why should I blame the brass which, burnished up, 
 
 Will blaze, to all but me, as good as gold? 
 
 To me — a warning I was overbold 
 
 In judging metals. The Hidalgo waked 
 
 Only to die, if I remember, — staked 
 
 His life upon the basin's w^orth, and lost : 
 
 While I confess torpidity at most 
 
 In here and there a limb ; but, lame and halt, 
 
 Still should I work on, still repair my fault 
 
 Ere I took rest in death, — no fear at all ! 
 
 Now, work — no word before the curtain fall ! " 
 
 The " curtain ? " That of death on life, I meant : 
 
 My " word " permissible in death's event. 
 
 Would be — truth, soul to soul; for, otherwise, 
 
 Day by day, three years long, there had*" to rise 
 
 And, night by night, to fall upon our stage — 
 
 Ours, doomed to public play by heritage — 
 
 Another curtain, when the world, perforce 
 
 Our critical assembly, in due course 
 
 Came and went, witnessing, gave praise or blam.e 
 
 To art-mimetic. It had spoiled the game 
 
A FORGIVENESS. 1 05 
 
 If, suffered to set foot behind our scene, 
 
 The world had witnessed how stage-king and queen, 
 
 Gallant and lady, but a minute since 
 
 Enarming each the other, would evince 
 
 No sign of recognition as they took 
 
 His way and her way to whatever nook 
 
 Waited them in the darkness either side 
 
 Of that bright stage where lately groom and bride 
 
 Had fired the audience to a frenzy-fit 
 
 Of sympathetic rapture — every whit 
 
 Earned as the curtain fell on her and me, 
 
 — Actors. Three whole years, nothing was to see 
 
 But calm and concord : where a speech was due 
 
 There came the speech ; when smiles were wanted 
 
 too 
 Smiles were as ready. In a place like -mine, 
 Where foreign and domestic cares combine. 
 There's audience every day and all day long ; 
 But finally the last of the whole throng 
 Who linger lets one see iiis back. For her — 
 Why, liberty and liking : I aver. 
 
io6 A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 Liking and liberty ! For me — I breathed, 
 Let my face rest from every wrinkle wreathed 
 Smile like about the mouth, unlearned my task 
 Of personation till next day bade mask, 
 And quietly betook me from that world 
 To the real world, not pageant : there unfurled 
 In work, its wings, my soul, the fretted power. 
 Three years I worked, each minute of each hour 
 Not claimed by acting :-— work I may dispense 
 With talk about, since work in evidence, 
 Perhaps in history ; who knows or cares ? 
 
 After three years, this way, all unawares, 
 
 Our acting ended. She and I, at close 
 
 Of a loud night-feast, led, between two rows 
 
 Of bending male and female loyalty. 
 
 Our lord the king down staircase, while, held high 
 
 At arm's length did the twisted tapers' flare 
 
 Herald his passage from our palace where 
 
 Such visiting left glory evermore. 
 
 Again the ascent in public, till at door 
 
A FORG/FENESS. 1 07 
 
 As we two stood by the saloon — now blank 
 And disencumbered of its guests — there sank 
 A whisper in my ear, so low and yet 
 So unmistakable ! 
 
 " I half forget 
 The chamber you repair to, and I want 
 Occasion for one short word — if you grant 
 That grace— within a certain room you called 
 Our ' Study,^ for you wrote there while I scrawled 
 Some paper full of faces for my sport. 
 That room I can remember. Just one short 
 Word with you there, for the remembrance^ sake ! " 
 
 " Follow me thither ! '* I replied. 
 
 We break 
 The gloom a little, as with guiding lamp 
 I lead the way, leave warmth and cheer, by damp 
 Blind disused serpentining ways afar 
 From where the habitable chambers are, — 
 
Io8 A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 Ascend, descend stairs tunnelled through the stone, — 
 
 Always in silence, ■ — till I reach the lone 
 
 Chamber sepulchred for my very own 
 
 Out of the palace-quarry. When a boy, 
 
 Here was my fortress, stronghold from annoy, 
 
 Proof-positive of ownership ; in youth 
 
 I garnered up my gleanings here — uncouth 
 
 But precious relics of vain hopes, vain fears ; 
 
 Finally, this became in after years 
 
 My closet of intrenchment to withstand 
 
 Invasion of the foe on every hand — 
 
 The multifarious herd in bower and hall. 
 
 State-room, — rooms whatsoe'er the style, which call 
 
 On masters to be mindful that, before 
 
 Men, they must look like men and something more. 
 
 Here, — when our lord the king's bestowment ceased 
 
 To deck me on the day that, golden-fleeced, 
 
 I touched ambition's height, — 'twas here, released 
 
 From glory (always symbolled by a chain !) 
 
 No sooner was I privileged to gain 
 
 My secret domicile than glad I flung 
 
A FORGIVENESS. 109 
 
 That last toy on the table — gazed where hung 
 
 On hook my father's gift, the arquebuss — 
 
 And asked myself '' Shall I envisage thus 
 
 The new prize and the old prize, when I reach 
 
 Another year's experience? — own that each 
 
 Equalled advantage — sportsman's — statesman's tool? 
 
 That brought me down an eagle, this — a fool ! " 
 
 Into which room on entry, I set down 
 The lamp, and turning saw whose rustled gown 
 Had told me my wife followed, pace for pace. 
 Each of us looked the other in the face, 
 She spoke. " Since I could die now . . ." 
 
 (To explain 
 Why that first struck me, know — not once again 
 Since the adventure at the porphyry's edge 
 Three years before, which sundered like a wedge 
 Her soul from mine, — though daily, smile to smile. 
 We stood before the public, — all the while 
 Not once had I distinguished, in that face 
 
no A FORGIVENESS, 
 
 I paid observance to, the faintest trace 
 
 Of feature more than requisite for eyes 
 
 To do their duty by and recognize : 
 
 So did I force mine to obey my will 
 
 And pry no further. There exists such skill, — 
 
 Those know who need it. What physician shrinks 
 
 From needful contact with a corpse ? He drinks 
 
 No plague so long as thirst for knowledge, — not 
 
 An idler impulse, — prompts inquiry. What, 
 
 And will you disbelieve in power to bid 
 
 Our spirit back to bounds, as though we chid 
 
 A child from scrutiny that's just and right 
 
 In manhood? Sense, not soul, accomplished sight, 
 
 Reported daily she it was — not how 
 
 Nor why a change had come to cheek and brow.) 
 
 " Since I could die now of the truth concealed, 
 Yet dare not, must not die, — so seems revealed 
 The Virgin's mind to me, — for death means peace, 
 Wherein no lawful part have I, whose lease 
 Of life and punishment the truth avowed 
 
A FORGIVENESS. Ill 
 
 May haply lengthen, — let me push the shroud 
 
 Away, that steals to muffle ere is just 
 
 My penance-fire in snow ! I dare — I must 
 
 Live, by avowal of the truth — this truth — 
 
 I loved you ! Thanks for the fresh serpent's tooth 
 
 That, by a prompt new pang more exquisite 
 
 Than all preceding torture, proves me right ! 
 
 I loved you yet I lost you ! May I go 
 
 Burn to the ashes, now my shame you know ? " 
 
 I think there never was such — how express ? — 
 
 Horror coquetting with voluptuousness. 
 
 As in those arms of Eastern workmanship — 
 
 Yataghan, kandjar, things that rend and rip. 
 
 Gash rough, slash smooth, help hate so many ways, 
 
 Yet ever keep a beauty that betrays 
 
 Love still at work with the artificer 
 
 Throughout his quaint devising. Why prefer. 
 
 Except for love's sake, that a blade should writhe 
 
 And bicker like a flame ? — now play the scythe 
 
 As if some broad neck tempted, — now contract 
 
112 A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 And needle off into a fineness lacked 
 
 For just that puncture which the heart demands? 
 
 Then, such adornment ! Wherefore need our hands 
 
 Enclose not ivory alone, nor gold 
 
 Roughened for use, but jewels ? Nay, behold ! 
 
 Fancy my favorite — which I seem to grasp 
 
 While I describe the luxury. No asp 
 
 Is diapered more delicate round throat 
 
 Than this below the handle ! These denote 
 
 — These mazy lines meandering, to end 
 
 Only in flesh they open — what intend 
 
 They else but water-purlings — pale contrast 
 
 With the life-crimson where they blend at last ? 
 
 And mark the handle's dim pellucid green, 
 
 Carved, the hard jadestone, as you pinch a bean. 
 
 Into a sort of parrot-bird ! He pecks 
 
 A grape-bunch ; his two eyes are ruby-specks 
 
 Pure from the mine: seen this way, — glassy blank. 
 
 But turn them, — lo the inmost fire, that shrank 
 
 From sparkling, sends a red dart right to aim ! 
 
 Why did I choose such toys ? Perhaps the game 
 
A FORGIVENESS, II3 
 
 Of peaceful men is warlike, just as men 
 War-wearied get amusement from that pen 
 And paper we grow sick of — statesfolk tired 
 Of merely (when such measures are required) 
 Dealing out doom to people by three words, 
 A signature and seal : we play with swords 
 Suggestive of quick process. That is how 
 I came to like the toys described you now, 
 Store of which glittered on the walls and strewed 
 The table, even, while my wife pursued 
 Her purpose to its ending. "Now you know 
 This shame, my three years' torture, let me go, 
 Burn to the very ashes ! You — I lost, 
 Yet you — I loved ! '' 
 
 The thing I pity most 
 In men is — action prompted by surprise 
 Of anger: men? nay, bulls — whose onset lies 
 At instance of the firework and the goad ! 
 Once the foe prostrate, — trampling once bestowed, — 
 Prompt follows placability, regret. 
 
114 A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 Atonement. Trust me, blood-warmth never yet 
 
 Betokened strong will ! As no leap of pulse 
 
 Pricked me, that first time, so did none convulse 
 
 My veins at this occasion for resolve. 
 
 Had that devolved which did not then devolve 
 
 Upon me, I had done — what now to do 
 
 Was quietly apparent. 
 
 "Tell me who 
 The man was, crouching by the porphyry vase ! " 
 " No, never ! All was folly in his case, 
 All guilt in mine. I tempted, he complied." 
 
 "And yet you loved me?" 
 
 " Loved you. Double-dyed 
 In folly and in guilt, I thought you gave 
 Your heart and soul away from me to slave 
 At statecraft. Since my right in you seemed lost, 
 I stung myself to teach you, to your cost, 
 What you rejected could be prized beyond 
 
A FORGIVENESS. 115 
 
 Life, heaven, by the first fool I threw a fond 
 Look on, a fatal word to." 
 
 "And you still 
 Love me ? Do I conjecture well or ill ? '' 
 "Conjecture — well or ill! I had three years 
 To spend in learning you." 
 
 '^We both are peers 
 In knowledge, therefore : since three years are spent 
 Ere thus much of yourself / learn — who went 
 Back to the house, that day, and brought my mind 
 To bear upon your action, uncombined 
 Motive from motive, till the dross, deprived 
 Of every purer particle, survived 
 At last in native simple hideousness. 
 Utter contemptibility, nor less 
 Nor more. Contemptibility — exempt 
 How could I, from its proper due — contempt? 
 I have too much despised you to divert 
 My life from its set course by help or hurt 
 
Ii6 A FORGIVENESS. 
 
 Of your all-despicable life — perturb 
 
 The calm I work in, by — men's mouth to curb, 
 
 Which at such news were clamorous enough — 
 
 Men's eyes to shut before my broiclered stuff 
 
 With the huge hole there, my emblazoned wall 
 
 Blank where a scutcheon hung, — by, worse than all, 
 
 Each day's procession, my paraded life 
 
 Robbed and impoverished through the wanting wife 
 
 — Now that my life (which means — my work) was 
 
 grown 
 Riches indeed ! Once, just this worth alone 
 Seemed work to have, that profit gained thereby 
 Of good and praise would — how rewardingly ! — 
 Fall at your feet, — a crown I hoped to cast 
 Before your love, my love should crown at last. 
 No love remaining to cast crown before. 
 My love stopped work now : but contempt the more 
 Impelled me task as ever head and hand. 
 Because the very fiends weave ropes of sand 
 Rather than taste pure hell in idleness. 
 Therefore I kept my memory down by stress 
 
A FORGIVENESS. 117 
 
 Of daily work I had no mind to stay 
 
 For the world's wonder at the wife away. 
 
 Oh, it was easy all of it, believe. 
 
 For I despised you ! But your words retrieve 
 
 Importantly the past. No hate assumed 
 
 The mask of love at any time ! There gloomed 
 
 A moment when love took hate's semblance, urged 
 
 By causes you declare ; but love's self purged 
 
 Away a fancied wrong I did both loves 
 
 — Yours and my own : by no hate's help, it proves, 
 
 Purgation was attempted. Then, you rise 
 
 High by how many a grade ! I did despise — 
 
 I do but hate you. Let hate's punishment 
 
 Replace contempt's ! First step to which ascent — 
 
 Write down your own words I re-utter you ! 
 
 ^ I loved my husband and I hated — who 
 
 He was, I took tip as my first chance, mere 
 
 Mud-ball to fling aitd inake love foul with I ' Here 
 
 Lies paper ! " 
 
 "Would my blood for ink suffice!" 
 
Ii8 A FORGIVENESS, 
 
 '' It may : this minion from a land of spice, 
 Silk, feather — every bird of jewelled breast — 
 This poniard's beauty, ne'er so lightly prest 
 Above your heart there . ." 
 
 " Thus ? " 
 
 " It flows, I see. 
 Dip there the point and write ! " 
 
 " Dictate to me ! 
 Nay, I remember." 
 
 And she wrote the words. 
 I read them. Then — " Since love, in you, affords 
 License for hate, in me, to quench (I say) 
 Contempt — why, hate itself has passed away 
 In vengeance — foreign to contempt. Depart 
 Peacefully to that death which Eastern art 
 Imbued this weapon with, if tales be true ! 
 Love will succeed to hate. I pardon you — 
 Dead in our chamber ! " 
 
A FORGIVEIVESS. 1 19 
 
 True as truth the tale. 
 She died ere morning ; then, I saw how pale 
 Her cheek was ere it wore day's paint-disguise, 
 And what a hollow darkened 'neath her eyes, 
 Now that I used my own. She sleeps, as erst 
 Beloved, in this your church : ay, yours ! 
 
 Immersed 
 In thought so deeply, Father? Sad, perhaps? 
 For whose sake, hers or mine or his who wraps 
 — Still plain I seem to see ! — about his head 
 The idle cloak, — about his heart (instead 
 Of cuirass) some fond hope he may elude 
 My vengeance in the cloister's solitude ? 
 Hardly, I think ! As little helped his brow 
 The cloak then, Father — as your grate helps now ! 
 
120 CENCIAJA. 
 
 CENCIAJA. 
 
 Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato. — Italian Proverb, 
 
 May I print, Shelley, how it came to pass 
 
 That when your Beatrice seemed — by lapse 
 
 Of many a long month since her sentence fell — 
 
 Assured of pardon for the parricide, — 
 
 By intercession of stanch friends, or, say, 
 
 By certain pricks of conscience in the Pope 
 
 Conniver at Francesco Cenci's guilt, — 
 
 Suddenly all things changed and Clement grew 
 
 " Stern," as you state, " nor to be moved nor bent, 
 
 But said these three words coldly 'She must die;^ 
 
 Subjoining ' Pardon ? Paolo Santa Croce 
 
 Murdered his mother also yestereve. 
 
 And he is fled : she shall not flee at least I ^ 
 
 — So, to the letter, sentence was fulfilled? 
 
CENCIAJA. 121 
 
 Shelley, may I condense verbosity 
 
 That lies before me, into some few words 
 
 Of English, and illustrate your superb 
 
 Achievement by a rescued anecdote. 
 
 No great things, only new and true beside? 
 
 As if some mere familiar of a house 
 
 Should venture to accost the group at gaze 
 
 Before its Titian, famed the wide world through, 
 
 And supplement such pictured masterpiece 
 
 By whisper " Searching in the archives here, 
 
 I found the reason of the Lady's fate, 
 
 And how by accident it came to pass 
 
 She wears the halo and displays the palm : 
 
 Who, haply, else had never suffered — no, 
 
 Nor graced our gallery, by consequence." 
 
 Who loved the work would like the little news 
 
 Who lauds your poem lends an ear to me 
 
 Relating how the penalty was paid 
 
 By one Marchese dell' Oriolo, called 
 
 Onofrio Santa Croce otherwise, 
 
 For his complicity in matricide 
 
122 CENCIAJA. 
 
 With Paolo his own brother, — he whose crime 
 And flight induced " those three words — She must 
 
 die." 
 Thus I unroll you then the manuscript. 
 
 " God's justice " — (of the multiplicity 
 Of such communications extant still, 
 Recording, each, injustice done by God 
 In person of his Vicar-upon-earth, 
 Scarce one but leads off to the self-same tune) — 
 " God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, 
 Rests never on the track until it reach 
 Delinquency. In proof I cite the case 
 Of Paolo Santa Croce." 
 
 Many times 
 The youngster, — haying been importunate 
 That Marchesine Costanza, who remained 
 His widowed mother, should supplant the heir 
 Her elder son, and substitute himself 
 In sole possession of her faculty, — 
 
CENCIAJA, 123 
 
 And meeting just as often with rebuff, — 
 Blinded by so exorbitant a lust 
 Of gold, the youngster straightway tasked his wits, 
 Casting about to kill the lady — thus. 
 
 He first, to cover his iniquity. 
 Writes to Onofrio Santa Croce, then 
 Authoritative lord, acquainting him 
 Their mother was contamination — v^^rought 
 Like hell-fire in the beauty of their House 
 By dissoluteness and abandonment 
 Of soul and body to impure delight. 
 Moreover, since she suffered from disease. 
 Those symptoms which her death made manifest 
 Hydroptic, he affirmed were fruits of sin 
 About to bring confusion and disgrace 
 Upon the ancient lineage and high fame 
 O' the family, when published. Duty bound. 
 He asked his brother — what a son should do ? 
 
 Which when Marchese dell' Oriolo heard 
 
124 CE NCI A J A, 
 
 By letter, being absent at his land 
 
 Oriolo, he made answer, this, no more 
 
 "It must behoove a son, — things haply so, — 
 
 To act as honor prompts a cavalier 
 
 And son, perform his duty to all three, 
 
 Mother and brothers" — here advice broke off. 
 
 By which advice informed and fortified 
 As he professed himself — the bound by birth 
 To hear God's voice in primogeniture — 
 Paolo, who kept his mother company 
 In her domain Subiaco, straightway dared 
 His whole enormity of enterprise 
 And, falling on her, stabbed the lady dead ; 
 Whose death demonstrated her innocence, 
 And happened, — by the way, — since Jesus Christ 
 Died to save man, just sixteen hundred years. 
 Costanza was of aspect beautiful 
 Exceedingly, and seemed, although in age 
 Sixty about, to far surpass her peers 
 The coetaneous dames, in youth and grace. 
 
CENCIAJA. 125 
 
 * Done the misdeed, its author takes to flight, 
 Foiling thereby the justice of the world : 
 Not God's however, — God, be sure, knows well 
 The way to clutch a culprit. Witness here ! 
 The present sinner, when he least expects, 
 Snug-cornered somewhere i' the Basilicate, 
 Stumbles upon his death by violence. 
 A man of blood assaults the man of blood 
 And slays him somehow. This was afterward : 
 Enough, he promptly met with his deserts, 
 And, ending thus, permits we end with him, 
 And push forthwith to this important point — 
 His matricide fell out, of all the days, 
 Precisely when the law-procedure closed 
 Respecting Count Francesco Cenci's death 
 Chargeable on his daughter, sons and wife. 
 " Thus patricide was matched with matricide," 
 A poet not inelegantly rhymed : 
 Nay, fratricide — those Princes Massimi ! — 
 Which so disturbed the spirit of the Pope 
 That all the likelihood Rome entertained 
 
126 CENCIAJA, 
 
 Of Beatrice's pardon vanished straight, 
 And she endured the piteous death. 
 
 Now see 
 The sequel — what effect commandment had 
 For strict inquiry into this last case, 
 When Cardinal Aldobrandini (great 
 His efficacy — nephew to the Pope!) 
 Was bidden crush — ay, though his very hand 
 Got soil i' the act — crime spawning everywhere 1 
 Because, when all endeavor had been used 
 To catch the aforesaid Paolo, all in vain — 
 " Make perquisition " quoth our Eminence, 
 " Throughout his now deserted domicile ! 
 Ransack the palace, roof and floor, to find 
 If haply any scrap of writing, hid 
 In nook or corner, may convict — who knows? — 
 Brother Onofrio of intelligence 
 With brother Paolo, as in brotherhood 
 Is but too likely : crime spawns everywhere ! " 
 
CENCIAJA, 127 
 
 And, every cranny searched accordingly, 
 There comes to light — O lynx-eyed Cardinal! — 
 Onofrio's unconsidered writing-sqrap, 
 The letter in reply to Paolo's prayer, 
 The word of counsel that — things proving so, 
 Paolo should act the proper knightly part, 
 And do as was incumbent on a son, 
 A brother — and a man of birth, be sure ! 
 
 Whereat immediately the officers 
 Proceeded to arrest Onofrio — found 
 At foot-ball, child's play, unaware of harm. 
 Safe with his friends, the Orsini, at their seat 
 Monte Giordano ; as he left the house 
 He came upon the v;atch in wait for him 
 Set by the Barigel, — was caught and caged. 
 
 News of which capture being, that same hour, 
 Conveyed to Rome, forthwith our Eminence 
 Commands Taverna, Governor and Judge, 
 To have the process in especial care, 
 
128 CE NCI A J A. 
 
 Be, first to last, not only president 
 
 In person, but inquisitor as well. 
 
 Nor trust ihe by-work to a substitute: 
 
 Bids him not, squeamish, keep the bench, but scrub 
 
 The floor of Justice, so to speak, — go try 
 
 His best in prison with the criminal ; 
 
 Promising, as reward for by-work done 
 
 Fairly on all-fours, that, success obtained 
 
 And crime avowed, or such connivancy 
 
 With crime as should procure a decent death — 
 
 Himself will humbly beg — which means, procure — 
 
 The Hat and Purple from his relative 
 
 The Pope, and so repay a diligence 
 
 Which, meritorious in the Cenci-case, 
 
 Mounts plainly here to Purple and the Hat ! 
 
 Whereupon did my lord the Governor 
 So masterfully exercise the task 
 Enjoined him, that he, day by day, and week 
 By week, and month by month, from first to last 
 Deserved the prize : now, punctual at his place, 
 
CENCIAJA. 129 
 
 Played Judge, and now, assiduous at his post, 
 Inquisitor — pressed cushion and scoured plank, 
 Early and late. Noon's fervor and night's chill. 
 Nought moved whom morn would, purpling, make 
 
 amends ! 
 So that obseorvers laughed as, many a day, 
 He left home, in July when day is flame, 
 Posted to Tordinona-prison, plunged 
 Into the vault where daylong night is ice, 
 There passed his eight hours on a stretch, content, 
 Examining Onofrio : all the stress 
 Of all examination steadily 
 Converging into one pin-point, — he pushed 
 Tentative now of head and now of heart. 
 As when the nuthatch taps and tries the nut 
 This side and that side till the kernel sound, — 
 So did he press the sole and single point 
 — What was the very meaning of the phrase 
 * Do what beseems an honored cavalier ? ' 
 
 Which one persistent question-torture, — plied 
 
I30 CENCIAJA, 
 
 Day by day, week by week, and month by month, 
 Morn, noon and night, — fatigued away a mind 
 Grown imbecile by darkness, solitude, 
 And one vivacious memory gnawing there 
 As when a corpse is coffined with a snake : 
 
 — Fatigued Onofrio into what might seem 
 Admission that perchance his judgment groped 
 So bHndly, feeling for an issue — aught 
 
 With semblance of an issue from the toils 
 Cast of a sudden round feet late so free, 
 He possibly might have envisaged, scarce 
 Recoiled from — even were the issue death 
 
 — Even her death whose life was death and worse ! 
 Always provided that the charge of crime. 
 
 Each jot and tittle of the charge were true. 
 In such a sense, belike, he might advise 
 His brother to expurgate crime with . . well. 
 With blood, if blood must follow on * the course 
 Taken as might beseem a cavalier.^ 
 
 Whereupon process ended, and report 
 
CENCIAJA. 131 
 
 Was made without a minute of delay 
 To Clement who, because of those two crimes 
 O' the Massimi and Cenci flagrant late, 
 Must needs impatiently desire result. 
 
 Result obtained, he bade the Governor 
 Summon the Congregation and despatch. 
 Summons made, sentence passed accordingly 
 — Death by beheading. When his death-decree 
 Was intimated to Onofrio, all 
 Man could do — that did he to save himself. 
 'Twas much, the having gained for his defence 
 The Advocate o' the Poor, with natural help 
 Of many noble friendly persons fain 
 To disengage a man of family, 
 So young too, from his grim entanglement. 
 But Cardinal Aldobrandini ruled 
 There must be no diversion of the law. 
 Justice is justice, and the magistrate 
 Bears not the sword in vain. Who sins must die. 
 
132 CENCIAJA. 
 
 So, the Marchese had his head cut off 
 In Place Saint Angelo beside the Bridge, 
 With Rome to see, a concourse infinite ; 
 Where, demonstrating magnanimity 
 Adequate to his birth and breed, — poor boy ! — 
 He made the people the accustomed speech. 
 Exhorted them to true faith, honest works, 
 And special good behavior as regards 
 A parent of no matter what the sex, 
 Bidding each son take warning from himself. 
 Truly, it was considered in the boy 
 Stark staring lunacy, no less, to snap 
 So plain a bait, be hooked and hauled a-shore 
 By such an angler as the Cardinal ! 
 Why make confession of his privity 
 To Paolo's enterprise ? Mere sealing lips — 
 Or, better, saying "When I counselled him 
 *' To do as might beseem a cavalier,^ 
 What could I mean but ' Hide our parenfs shame 
 As Christian ought, by aid of Holy Church I 
 Bury it in a convent — ay, beneath 
 
CENCIAJA. 133 
 
 Enough dotation to prevent its ghost 
 
 From troubling earth P ^^ Mere saying thus, — 'tis 
 
 plain, 
 Not only were his life the recompense, 
 But he had manifestly proved himself 
 True Christian, and in lieu of punishment 
 Been praised of all men ! — So the populace. 
 
 Anyhow, when the Pope made promise good 
 (That of Aldobrandini, near and dear) 
 And gave Taverna, who had toiled so much, 
 A Cardinal's equipment, some such word 
 As this from mouth to ear went saucily : 
 " Taverna's cap is dyed in what he drew 
 From Santa Croce's veins ! " So joked the world. 
 
 I add : Onofrio left one child behind, 
 A daughter named Valeria, dowered with grace 
 Abundantly of soul and body, doomed 
 To life the shorter for her father's fate. 
 By death of her, the Marquisate returned 
 
134 CENCIAJA, 
 
 To that Orsini House from whence it came : 
 Oriolo having passed as donative 
 To Santa Croce from their ancestors. 
 
 And no word more ? By all means ! Would you 
 know 
 The authoritative answer, when folks urged 
 " What made Aldobrandini, hound-like stanch, 
 Hunt out of life a harmless simpleton ? " 
 The answer was — " Hatred implacable, 
 By reason they were rivals in their love/' 
 The CardinaFs desire was to a dame 
 Whose favor was Onofrio's. Pricked with pride, 
 The simpleton must ostentatiously 
 Display a ring, the Cardinal's love-gift, 
 Given to Onofrio as the lady's gage ; 
 Which ring on finger, as he put forth hand 
 To draw a tapestry, the Cardinal 
 Saw and knew, gift and owner, old and young; 
 Whereon a fury entered him — the fire 
 He quenched with wliat could quench fire only — 
 blood. 
 
CENCIAJA, 135 
 
 Nay, more : " there want not who affirm to boot, 
 
 The unwise boy, a certain festal eve, 
 
 Feigned ignorance of who the wight might be 
 
 That pressed too closely on him with a crowd, 
 
 And struck the Cardinal a blow : and then. 
 
 To put a face upon the incident, 
 
 Dared next day, smug as ever, go pay court 
 
 I' the Cardinal's antechamber. Mark and mend, 
 
 Ye youth, by this example how may greed 
 
 Vainglorious operate in worldly souls ! " 
 
 So ends the chronicler, beginning with 
 " God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, 
 Rests never till it reach delinquency." 
 Ay, or how otherwise had come to pass 
 That Victor rules this present year, in Rome ? 
 
136 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI ON THE PRIVI- 
 LEGE OF BURIAL. 
 
 A Reminiscence of a.t>, 1676. 
 I. 
 " No, boy, we must not " — so began 
 
 My Uncle (he's with God long since) 
 A-petting me, the good old man ! 
 
 " We must not " — and he seemed to wince. 
 And lost that laugh whereto had grown 
 
 His chuckle at my piece of news, 
 How cleverly I aimed my stone — 
 
 " I fear we must not pelt the Jews ! 
 
 2. 
 " When I was young indeed, — ah, faith 
 
 Was young and strong in Florence too ! 
 We Christians never dreamed of scathe 
 
 Because we cursed or kicked the crew. 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL. 137 
 
 But now — well, well ! The olive-crops 
 Weighed double then, and Arno's pranks 
 
 Would always spare religious shops 
 Whenever he o'erflowed his banks ! 
 
 3. 
 
 " I'll tell you " — and his eye regained 
 
 Its twinkle — " tell you something choice ! 
 Something may help you keep unstained 
 
 Your honest zeal to stop the voice 
 Of unbelief with stone-throw — spite 
 
 Of laws, which modern fools enact, 
 That we must suffer Jews in sight 
 
 Go wholly unmolested ! Fact ! 
 
 4. 
 
 " There was, then, in my youth, and yet 
 
 Is, by San Frediano, just 
 Below the Blessed Olivet, 
 
 A wayside ground wherein they thrust 
 
138 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 Their dead, — these Jews, — the more our shame 
 
 Except that, so they will but die, 
 We may perchance incur no blame 
 
 In giving hogs a hoist to sty. 
 
 5- 
 " There, anyhow, Jews stow away 
 
 Their dead ; and, — such their insolence, — 
 Slink at odd times to sing and pray 
 
 As Christians do — all make-pretence ! — 
 Which wickedness they perpetrate 
 
 Because they think no Christians see. 
 They reckoned here, at any rate, 
 
 Without their host : ha, ha, he, he ! 
 
 " For, what should join their plot of ground 
 But a good Farmer's Christian field ? 
 
 The Jews had hedged their corner round 
 With bramble-bush to keep concealed 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BUR/AL. 139 
 
 Their doings : for the public road 
 
 Ran betwixt this their ground and that 
 
 The Farmer's, where he ploughed and sowed, 
 Grew corn for barn and grapes for vat. 
 
 7. 
 
 " So, properly to guard his store 
 
 And gall the unbelievers too, 
 .He builds a shrine and, what is more, 
 
 Procures a painter whom I knew, 
 One Buti (he's with God) to paint 
 
 A holy picture there — no less 
 Than Virgin Mary free from taint 
 
 Borne to the sky by angels : yes ! 
 
 8. 
 
 "Which shrine he fixed, — who says him nay?- 
 
 A-facing with its picture-side 
 Not, as you'd think, the public way. 
 
 But just where sought these hounds to hide 
 
I40 ' FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 Their carrion from that very truth 
 Of Mary's triumph : not a hound 
 
 Could act his mummeries uncouth 
 
 But Mary shamed the pack all round ! 
 
 9- 
 
 " Now, if it was amusing, judge ! 
 
 — To see the company arrive, 
 Each Jew intent to end his trudge 
 
 And take his pleasure (though alive) 
 With all his Jewish kith and kin 
 
 Below ground, have his venom out, 
 Sharpen his wits for next day's sin, 
 
 Curse Christians, and so home, no doubt ! 
 
 "Whereas, each phiz upturned beholds 
 Mary, I warrant, soaring brave ! 
 
 And in a trice, beneath the folds 
 
 Of filthy garb which gowns each knave, 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 141 
 
 Down drops it — there to hide grimace, 
 Contortion of the mouth and nose 
 
 At finding Mary in the place 
 
 They'd keep for Pilate, I suppose ! 
 
 "At last, they will not brook — not they!- 
 
 Longer such outrage on their tribe : 
 So, in some hole and corner, lay 
 
 Their heads together — how to bribe 
 The meritorious Farmer's self 
 
 To straight undo his work, restore 
 Their chance to meet, and muse on pelf — 
 
 Pretending sorrow, as before ! 
 
 12. 
 
 " Forthwith, a posse, if you please, 
 Of Rabbi This and Rabbi That 
 
 Almost go down upon their knees 
 To get him lay the picture flat. 
 
142 FILIPPO DALDINUCCI 
 
 The spokesman, eighty years of age, 
 Gray as a badger, with a goat's 
 
 — Not only beard but bleat, 'gins wage 
 War with our Mary. Thus he dotes : • 
 
 ^3- 
 
 ^^ ^ Friends, grant a grace! How Hebrews toil 
 
 Through life in Florence — why relate 
 To those who lay the burden, spoil 
 
 Our paths of peace 1 We bear our fate. 
 But when with life the long toil ends, 
 
 Why must you — the expression craves 
 Pardon, but truth compels me, frie?ids I — 
 
 Why must you plague us in our graves ? 
 
 14. 
 
 " * Thoughtlessly plague, I would believe / 
 For how can you — the lords of ease 
 
 By nurture, birthright — e'en conceive 
 Our luxury to Us with trees 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 143 
 
 And turf, — the cricket and the bird 
 
 Left for our last compa?ilonshlp : 
 No harsh deed, no unkindly word, 
 
 No frowning brow nor scornful lip ! 
 
 15- 
 
 " ' Death^s luxury, we now rehearse 
 
 While, living, through your streets we fare 
 And take your hatred : nothing worse 
 
 Have we, once dead a?td safe, to bear ! 
 So we refresh our souls, fulfil 
 
 Our works, our dally tasks ; and thus 
 Gather you grain — earth's harvest — still 
 
 The wheat for you, the straw for us, 
 
 16. 
 
 " * What flouting in a face, what, harm, 
 
 In just a lady borne aloft 
 By boys^ heads, wings for leg and arm ? ^ 
 
 You question. Friends, the harm Is here — 
 
144 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 That just when our last sigh is heaved, 
 And we would fain thank God and you 
 
 For labor do?ie and peace achieved, 
 Back comes the Past in full review / 
 
 "*^/ sight of Just that simple fag, 
 
 Starts the foefeeling serpe?tt-like 
 From slumber. Leave it lulled, nor drag — 
 
 Though fanglcss — forth, what needs must strike 
 Whe?t stricken sore^ though stroke be vain 
 
 Against the mailed oppressor I Give 
 Flay to our fancy that we gain 
 
 Life's rights when once we cease to live! 
 
 i8. 
 
 " * Thus much to courtesy, to kind, 
 To conscience I Now to Florence folk! 
 There's core beneath tJiis applc-rind. 
 Beneath this w/iite-ofegg there's yolk! 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 145 
 
 Beneath this prayer to courtesy^ 
 
 Kind, conscience — there's a siun to pouch ! 
 How many ducats down will buy 
 
 Our shame^s removal, sirs ? Avouch I 
 
 19- 
 
 " * Removal, not destruction, sirs / 
 
 yust turn your picture I Let it front 
 The public path I Or memory errs. 
 
 Or that same public path is wont 
 To witness many a chance befall 
 
 Of lust, theft, bloodshed — sins enough, 
 Wherein our Hebrew part is small. 
 
 Convert yourselves / ' — he cut up rough. 
 
 20. 
 
 "Look you, how soon a service paid 
 Religion yields the servant fruit ! 
 
 A prompt reply our Farmer made 
 
 So following : ^ Sirs, to grant your suit 
 
146 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 Involves much danger ! Howl Transpose 
 Our Lady ? Stop the chastisement^ 
 
 All for your good, herself bestows ? 
 What wonder if I grudge consent ? 
 
 " ' — Yet grant it : since, what cash I take 
 
 Is so much saved from wicked use. 
 We know you I And, for Marfs sake, 
 
 A hundred ducats shall induce 
 Concession to your prayer. One day 
 
 Suffices : Master Buti^s brush 
 Turns Mary round the other way, 
 
 And deluges your side with slush. 
 
 ^^ ^ Down with the ducats therefore T Dump, 
 Dump, dump it falls, each counted piece, 
 
 Hard gold. Then out of door they stump, 
 These dogs, each brisk as with new lease 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 147 
 
 Of life, I warrant, — glad he'll die 
 Henceforward just as he may choose, 
 
 Be buried and in clover lie ! 
 
 Well said Esaias — * stiff-necked jfews ! ' 
 
 23. 
 
 "Off posts without a minute's loss 
 
 Our Farmer, once the cash in poke, 
 And summons Buti — ere its gloss 
 
 Have time to fade from off the joke — 
 To chop and change his w^ork, undo 
 
 The done side, make the side, now blank. 
 Recipient of our Lady — who, 
 
 Displaced thus, had these dogs to thank ! 
 
 24. 
 
 "Now, boy, you're hardly to instruct 
 
 In technicalities of Art ! 
 My nephew's childhood sure has sucked 
 
 Along with mother's-milk some part 
 
148 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 Of painter's-practice — learned, at least, 
 
 How expeditiously is plied 
 A work in fresco — never ceased 
 
 When once begun — a day, each side 
 
 25- 
 "So, Buti — (he's with God) — begins: 
 
 First covers up the shrine all round 
 With hoarding; then, as like as twins, 
 
 Paints, t'other side the burial-ground, 
 New Mary, every point the same ; 
 
 Next, sluices over, as agreed. 
 The old; and last — but, spoil the game 
 
 By telling you ? Not I, indeed ! 
 
 26. 
 
 "Well, ere the week was half at end, 
 Out came the object of this zeal, 
 
 This fine alacrity to spend 
 
 Hard money for mere dead men's weal! 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 149 
 
 How think you ? That old spokesman Jew 
 Was High Priest, and he had a wife 
 
 As old, and she was dying too, 
 
 And wished to end in peace her life ! 
 
 27. 
 
 " And he must humor dying whims, 
 
 And soothe her with the idle hope 
 They'd say their prayers and sing their hymns 
 
 As if her husband were the Pope ! 
 And she did die — believing just 
 
 This privilege was purchased ! Dead 
 In comfort through her foolish trust! 
 
 * Stiff-necked ones^ well Esaias said ! 
 
 " So, Sabbath morning, out of gate 
 And on to way, what sees our arch 
 
 Good Farmer? Why, they hoist their freight — 
 The corpse — on shoulder, and so, march ! 
 
150 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 ^ Now for if, Buti!^ In the nick 
 Of time 'tis pully-hauly, hence 
 
 With hoarding ! O'er the wayside quick 
 There's Mary plain in evidence ! 
 
 29. 
 
 " And here's the convoy halting : right ! 
 
 O they are bent on howling psalms 
 And growling prayers, when opposite 1 
 
 And yet they glance, for all their qualms, 
 Approve that promptitude of his. 
 
 The Farmer's — duly at his post 
 To take due thanks from every phiz, 
 
 Sour smirk — nay, surly smile almost! 
 
 30- 
 " Then earthward drops each brow again ; 
 
 The solemn task's resumed ; they reach 
 Their holy field — the unholy train : 
 
 Enter its precinct, all and each. 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 151 
 
 Wrapt somehow in their godless rites ; 
 
 Till, rites at end, up-waking, lo 
 They lift their faces ! What delights 
 
 The mourners as they turn to go ? 
 
 31- 
 
 " Ha, ha, he, he ! On just the side 
 
 They drew. their purse-strings to make quit 
 Of Mary, — Christ the Crucified 
 
 Fronted them now — these biters bit ! 
 Never was such a hiss and snort. 
 
 Such screwing nose and shooting lip ! 
 Their purchase — honey in report — 
 
 Proved gall and verjuice at first sip ! 
 
 32. 
 
 " Out they break, on they bustle, where, 
 
 A-top of wall, the Farmer waits 
 With Buti : never fun so rare 1 
 
 The Farmer has the best : he rates 
 
152 
 
 FILIPPO BALDINUCCT 
 
 The rascal, as the old High Priest 
 
 Takes on himself to sermonize — 
 Nay, sneer, ' We Jews supposed^ at leasts 
 
 Theft was a crime in Christian eyes ! ' 
 
 " * Theft ? ' cries the Farmer, * Eat your words ! 
 
 Show me what constitutes a breach 
 Of faith in aught was said or heard ! 
 
 I promised you in plainest speech 
 Td take the thing you count disgrace 
 
 And put it here — and here Uis put I 
 Did you suppose I^d leave the place 
 
 Blank therefore^ just your rage to glut ? 
 
 34. 
 " ' / guess you dared not stipulate 
 
 For such a damned impertinence I 
 So J quick^ my - gray beard, out of gate 
 
 And in at Ghetto I Haste you hence I 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL. 153 
 
 As lo7ig as I have house and land^ 
 
 To spite you irreligious chaps 
 Here shall the Crucifixion sta7id — 
 
 Unless you down with cash, perhaps I ' 
 
 35- 
 " So snickered he and Buti both. 
 
 The Jews said nothing, interchanged 
 A glance or two, renewed their oath 
 
 To keep ears stopped and hearts estranged 
 From grace, for all our Church can do ; 
 
 Then off they scuttle : sullen jog 
 Homewards, against our Church to brew 
 
 Fresh mischief in their synagogue. 
 
 " But next day — see what happened, boy ! 
 
 See why I bid you have a care 
 How you pelt Jews ! The knaves employ 
 
 Such methods of revenge, forbear 
 
154 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 No outrage on our -faith, when free 
 
 To wreak their malice ! Here they took 
 
 So base a method — plague o' me 
 If I record it in my Book ! 
 
 37- 
 
 *' For, next day, while the Farmer sat 
 
 Laughing, with Buti in his shop. 
 At their successful joke, — rat-tat, — 
 
 Door opens, and they're like to drop 
 Down to the floor as in there stalks 
 
 A six-feet-high herculean-built 
 Young he-Jew with a beard that balks 
 
 Description. ' Help ere blood be spilt ! ' 
 
 38. 
 — " Screamed Buti : for he recognized 
 
 Whom but the son, no less no more, 
 Of that High Priest his work surprised 
 
 So pleasantly the day before ! 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 155 
 
 Son of the mother, then, whereof 
 
 The bier he lent a shoulder to. 
 And made the moans about, dared scoff 
 
 At sober Christian grief — the Jew! 
 
 39- 
 
 " * Sirs^ I salute you I Never rise I 
 
 No apprehension ! ' (Buti, white 
 And trembling like a tub of size, 
 
 Had tried to smuggle out of sight 
 The picture's self — the thing in oils, 
 
 You know, from which a fresco's dashed 
 Which courage speeds while caution spoils) 
 
 * Stay and be praised, sir, unabashed I 
 
 40. 
 
 " * Praised, — ay, and paid too : for I come 
 
 To buy that very work of yours. 
 My poor abode, which boasts — well, some 
 
 Few spcci7nens of Art, secures 
 
156 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 Haply^ a masterpiece iiideed 
 
 If I should find my humble mea^is 
 
 Suffice the outlay. So, proceed I 
 Propose — ere prudence intervenes /* 
 
 41. 
 
 " On Buti, cowering like a child, 
 
 These words descended from aloft, 
 In tones so ominously mild, 
 
 With smile terrifically soft 
 To that degree — could Buti dare 
 
 (Poor fellow) use his brains, think twice? 
 He asked, thus taken unaware, 
 
 No more than just the proper price ! 
 
 42. 
 
 " * Done ! ' cries the monster. ' / disburse 
 Forthwith your moderate demand. 
 
 Count 071 my custom — if no worse 
 Your future work be, understand, 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL. 157 
 
 Than this I carry off! No aid I 
 My arm, sir, lacks nor bone nor thews : 
 
 The burden's easy, and we're made, 
 Easy or hard, to bear — we yews I * 
 
 43- 
 
 "Crossing himself at such escape, 
 
 Buti by turns the money eyes 
 And, timidly, the stalwart shape 
 
 Now moving doorwards ; but, more wise, 
 The Farmer, — who, though dumb, this while 
 
 Had watched advantage, — straight conceived 
 A reason for that tone and smile 
 
 So mild and soft ! The Jew — believed ! 
 
 44. 
 
 " Mary in triumph borne to deck 
 
 A Hebrew household ! Pictured where 
 
 No one was used to bend the neck 
 In praise or bow the knee in prayer ! 
 
158 FILIPPO BALDINUCCr 
 
 Borne to that domicile by whom ? 
 
 The son of the High Priest ! Through what ? 
 An insult done his mother's tomb ! 
 
 Saul changed to Paul — the case came pat ! 
 
 45- 
 " ^Stay^ dog- yew . . gentle sir, that is / 
 
 Resolve me I Can it be, she crowns, — 
 Mary, by miracle, — Oh bliss I — 
 
 My present to your burial-grou7id ? 
 Certain, a ray of light has burst 
 
 Your veil of darkness I Had you else. 
 Only for Marfs sake, disbursed 
 
 So much hard money '^ Tell — oh, telPs !^ 
 
 46. 
 
 " Round — like a serpent that we took 
 For worm and trod on — turns his bulk 
 
 About the Jew. First dreadful look 
 Sends Buti in a trice to skulk 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 159 
 
 Out of sight somewhere, save — alack ! 
 
 But our good Farmer faith made bold : 
 And firm (with Florence at his back) 
 
 He stood, while gruff the gutturals rolled — 
 
 47- 
 " * Ay^ sir^ a miracle was worked 
 
 By quite another power ^ I trow^ 
 Than ever yet in canvas lurked^ 
 
 Or you would scarcely face me now I 
 A certain impulse did suggest 
 
 A certain grasp with this right-hand, 
 Which probably had put to rest 
 
 Our quarrel, — thus your throat o?ice spanned I 
 * 
 
 48. 
 
 " * But I remembered me, subdued 
 
 That impulse, and you face me still! 
 
 And soon a philosophic mood 
 
 Succeeding (hear it, if you will!) 
 
l6o FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 Has altogether changed my views 
 
 Concerning Art. Blind prejudice! 
 Well may you Christians tax us Jews 
 With scrupulosity too nice ! 
 
 49- 
 " * For^ don^t I see, — lefs issue join I — 
 
 Whenever Fm allowed pollute 
 (I — and my little hag of coin) 
 
 Some Christian palace of repute, — 
 Don^t I see stuck up everywhere 
 
 Abundant proof that cultured taste 
 Has Beauty for its only care, 
 
 A?id upon Truth no thought to waste ? 
 
 50- 
 " ' " Jew, since it must be, take in pledge 
 
 Of payment " — so a Cardinal 
 Has sighed to me as if a wedge 
 
 Entered his heart " this best of all 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, i6i 
 
 My treasures ! " Leda, Ganymede 
 
 Or Antiope : . swan, eagle, ape, 
 {Or whafs the beast of whafs the breed) 
 
 And jfupiter in every shape I 
 
 51- 
 
 " * Whereat if I presume to ask, 
 
 "But, Eminence, though Titian's whisk 
 Of brush have well performed its task, 
 
 How comes it these false godships frisk 
 In presence of — what yonder frame 
 
 Pretends to image ? Surely, odd 
 It seems, you let confront The Name 
 
 Each beast the heathen called his god I " 
 
 52. 
 " ' Benignant smiles me pity straight 
 
 The Cardinal. " 'Tis Truth, we prize! 
 Art's the sole question in debate 1 
 These subjects are so many lies. 
 
l62 FILIPFO BALDINUCCI 
 
 We treat them with a proper scorn 
 
 When we turn lies — called gods forsooth ■ 
 
 To lies' fit use, now Christ is born. 
 Drawing and coloring are Truth. 
 
 53- 
 "^ "Think you I honor lies so much 
 
 As scruple to parade the charms 
 Of Leda — Titian, every touch — 
 
 Because the thing within her arms 
 Means Jupiter who had the praise 
 
 And prayer of a benighted world ? 
 He would have mine too, if, in days 
 
 Of light, I kept the canvas furled ! " 
 
 54. 
 " * So ending^ with some easy gibe. 
 
 What power has logic! /, at once, 
 Acknowledged error in our tribe 
 
 So squeamish that, when friends ensconce 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL, 163 
 
 A pretty picture in its niche 
 
 To do us honor, deck our graves, 
 We fret and fume and have an itch 
 
 To strangle folk — ungrateful knaves I 
 
 55- 
 " * No, sir I Be sure that — whafs its style, 
 
 Your picture ? — shall possess ungrudged 
 A place amoftg my rank and file ' 
 
 Of Ledas and what not — be judged 
 jfust as a picture ! and {because 
 
 I fear me much I scarce have bought 
 A Titian) Master Buti's flaws 
 
 Found there, will have the laugh flaws ought T 
 
 56. 
 
 " So, with a scowl, it darkens door — 
 This bulk — no longer! Buti makes 
 
 Prompt glad re-entry ; there's a score 
 Of oaths, as the good Farmer wakes 
 
164 FILIPPO BALDINUCCI 
 
 From what must needs have been a trance, 
 Or he had struck (he swears) to ground 
 
 The bold bad mouth that dared advance 
 Such doctrine the reverse of sound ! 
 
 57. 
 
 " Was magic here ? Most like ! For, since^ 
 
 Somehow our city's faith grows still 
 More and more lukewarm, and our Prince 
 
 Or loses heart or wants the will 
 To check increase of cold. 'Tis ^ Live 
 
 And let live I Languidly repress 
 The Dissident ! Ln short — contrive 
 
 Christians must bear with Jews : no less P 
 
 S8. 
 
 " The end seems, any Israelite 
 
 Wants any picture, — pishes, poohs, 
 
 Purchases, hangs it full in sight 
 In any chamber he may choose ! 
 
ON THE PRIVILEGE OF BURIAL. 165 
 
 In Christ^s crown, one more thorn we rue ! 
 
 In Mary's bosom, one more sword ! 
 No, boy, you must not pelt a Jew ! 
 
 O Lord, how long ? How long, O Lord ? " 
 
t66 EPILOGUE. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 (learol . . . 
 ol 6* afi(f>op7^g olvov fieXavog avdoGfiiov, 
 
 " The poets pour us wine — " 
 
 Said the dearest poet I ever knew, 
 Dearest and greatest and best to me. 
 You clamor athirst for poetry — 
 We pour. " But when shall a vintage be '' — 
 
 You cry — " strong grape, squeezed gold from 
 screw. 
 Yet sweet juice, flavored flowery-fine ? 
 
 That were indeed the wine!" 
 
 2. 
 
 One pours your cup — stark strength. 
 
 Meat for a man ; and you eye the pulp 
 Strained, turbid still, from the viscous blood 
 Of the snaky bough : and you grumble " Good ! 
 
EPILOGUE. 167 
 
 For it swells resolve, breeds hardihood ; 
 
 Despatch it, then, in a single gulp ! " 
 So, down, with a wry face, goes at length 
 
 The liquor : stuff for strength. 
 
 3- 
 
 One pours your cup — sheer sweet, 
 
 The fragrant fumes of a year condensed: 
 
 Suspicion of all that's ripe or rathe, 
 
 From the bud on branch to the grass in swathe. 
 
 "We suck mere milk of the seasons," saith 
 A curl of each nostril — "dew, dispensed 
 
 Nowise for ner\dng man to feat: 
 Boys sip such honeyed sweet ! " 
 
 4. 
 
 And thus who wants wine strong, 
 
 Waves each sweet smell of the year away; 
 Who likes to swoon as the sweets suffuse 
 * His brain with a mixture of beams and dews 
 
i68 EPILOGUE, 
 
 Turned sirupy drink — rough strength eschews : 
 " What though in our veins your wine-stock stay ? 
 
 The lack of the bloom does our palate wrong. 
 Give us wine sweet, not strong ! " 
 
 5- 
 
 Yet wine is — some affirm — 
 
 Prime wine there is in the world somewhere, 
 Of portable strength with sweet to match. 
 You double your heart its dose, yet catch — 
 As the draught descends — a violet-smatch. 
 Through drops expressed by the fire and worm ; 
 
 Strong sweet wine — some affirm. 
 
 Body and bouquet both? 
 
 'Tis easy to ticket a bottle so ; 
 But what was the case in the cask, my friends ? 
 Cask ? Nay, the vat — where the maker mends 
 
EPILOGUE, 169 
 
 His strong with his sweet (you suppose) and blends 
 His rough with his smooth, till none can know 
 
 How it comes you may tipple, nothing loath, 
 Body and bouquet both. 
 
 7- 
 
 "You" being just — the world. 
 
 No poets — who turn, themselves, the winch 
 Of the press ; no critics — I'll even say, 
 (I am flustered and easy of faith, to-day) 
 Who for love of the work have learned the way 
 
 Till themselves produce home-made, at a pinch : 
 No ! You are the world, and wine ne'er purled 
 
 Except to please the world ! 
 
 8. 
 
 " For, oh the common heart ! 
 
 And, ah the irremissible sin 
 Of poets who please themselves, not us ! 
 Strong wine yet sweet wine pouring thus, 
 
170 . EPILOGUE, 
 
 How please still — Pindar and ^schylus ! — 
 Drink — dipt into by the bearded chin 
 
 Alike and the bloomy lip — no part 
 Denied the common heart ! 
 
 9- 
 
 "And might we get such grace, 
 
 And did you moderns but stock our vault 
 With the true half-brandy half-attar-gul, 
 How would seniors indulge at a hearty pull 
 While juniors tossed off their thimbleful ! 
 
 Our Shakespeare and Milton escaped your fault, 
 So, they reign supreme o'er the weaker race 
 That want the ancient grace ! " 
 
 lO. 
 
 If I paid myself with words 
 
 (As the French say well) I were dupe indeed ! 
 I were found in belief that you quaffed and bowsed 
 At your Shakespeare the whole day long, caroused 
 
EPILOGUE, 171 
 
 In your Milton pottle-deep nor drowsed 
 A moment of night — toped on, took heed 
 
 Of nothing like modern cream-and-curds 1 
 Pay me with deeds, not words ! 
 
 For — see your cellarage! 
 
 There are forty barrels with Shakespeare's brand. 
 Some five or six are abroach : the rest 
 Stand spigoted, fauceted. Try and test 
 What yourselves call best of the very best! 
 
 Why is it that still untouched they stand ? 
 Why don't you try tap, advance a stage 
 
 With the rest in cellarage ? 
 
 12. 
 
 For — see your cellarage ! 
 
 There are four big butts of Milton's brew. 
 How comes it you make old drips and drops 
 Do duty, and there devotion stops? 
 
172 EPILOGUE, 
 
 Leave such an abyss of malt and hops 
 Embellied in butts which bungs still glue ? 
 
 You hate your bard ! A fig for your rage ! 
 Free him from cellarage ! 
 
 13. 
 'Tis said I brew stiff drink, 
 
 But the deuce a flavor of grape is there. 
 Hardly a May-go-down, 'tis just 
 A sort of a gruff Go-down-it-must — 
 No Merry-go-down, no gracious gust 
 
 Commingles the racy with May, the rare ! 
 "What wonder," say you "we cough, and blink 
 
 October's heady drink?" 
 
 14. 
 
 Is it a fancy, friepds? 
 
 Mighty and mellow are never mixed. 
 Though mighty and mellow be born at once. 
 Sweet for the future, — strong for the nonce I 
 
EPILOGUE. 173 
 
 Stuff you should stow away, ensconce 
 
 In the deep and dark, to be found fast-fixed 
 
 At the century's close : such time strength spends 
 A-sweetening for my friends ! 
 
 IS- 
 
 And then — why, what you quaff 
 
 With a smack of lip and a cluck of tongue, 
 Is leakage and leavings — just what haps 
 From the tun some learned taster taps 
 With a promise " Prepare your watery chaps ! 
 
 Here's properest wine for old and young ! 
 Dispute its perfection — you make us laugh ! 
 
 Have faith, give thanks, but — quaff ! " 
 
 16. 
 
 Leakage, I say, or worse. 
 
 Leavings suffice pot-valiant souls. 
 Somebody, brimful, long ago, 
 Frothed flagon he drained to the dregs ; and lo, 
 
174 EPILOGUE. 
 
 Down whisker and beard what an overflow ! 
 
 Lick spilth that has trickled from classic jowls. 
 Sup the single scene, sip the only verse — 
 
 Old wine, not new and worse ! 
 
 17- 
 
 I grant you : worse by much ! 
 
 Renounce that new where you never gained 
 One glow at heart, one gleam at head, 
 And stick to the warrant of age instead ! 
 No dwarfs-lap ! Fatten, by giants fed ! 
 
 You fatten, with oceans of drink undrained? 
 You feed — who would choke did a cobweb smutch 
 
 The Age you love so much ? 
 
 i8. 
 
 A mine's beneath a moor: 
 
 Acres of moor roof fathoms of mine 
 Which diamonds dot where you please to dig : 
 Yet who plies spade for the bright and big ? 
 
EPILOGUE, 175 
 
 Your product is — truffles, you hunt with a pig ! 
 
 Since bright-and-big, when a man would dine, 
 Suite badly: and therefore the Koh-i-noor 
 
 May sleep in mine 'neath moor! 
 
 19. 
 
 Wine, pulse in might from me ! 
 
 It may never emerge in must from vat, 
 Never fill cask nor furnish can, 
 Never end sweet, which strong began — 
 God's gift to gladden the heart of man j 
 
 But spirit's at proof, I promise that ! 
 No sparing of juice spoils what should be 
 
 Fit brewage — mine for me. 
 
 20. 
 
 Man's thoughts and loves and hates ! 
 
 Earth is my vineyard, these grew there : 
 From grape of the ground, I made or marred 
 My vintage ; easy the task or hard, 
 
176 EPILOGUE. 
 
 Who set it — his praise be my reward ! 
 
 Earth's yield ! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea's 
 Let them "lay, pray, bray" — the addle-pates. 
 
 Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates ! 
 
 21. 
 
 But some one says " Good Sir ! " 
 
 ('Tis a worthy versed in what concerns 
 The making such labor turn out well) 
 "You don't suppose that the nosegay-smell 
 Needs always come from the grape ? Each bell 
 
 At your foot, each bud that your Honor spurns, 
 The very cowslip would act like myrrh 
 On the stiffest brew — good Sir ! 
 
 22. 
 
 " Cowslips, abundant birth 
 
 O'er meadow and hillside, vineyard too, 
 — Like a schoolboy's scrawlings in and out 
 Distasteful lesson-book — all about 
 
EPILOGUE, 177 
 
 Greece and Rome, victory and rout — 
 Love-verses instead of such vain ado I 
 
 So, fancies frolic it o'er the earth 
 Where thoughts have rightlier birth. 
 
 23. 
 
 " Nay, thoughtlings they themselves : 
 
 Loves, hates — in little and less and least! 
 Thoughts? * What is a man beside a mount I ^ 
 Loves ? * Absent — poor lovers the minutes count / * 
 Hates? ^Fie — Pope's letters to Martha Blount T 
 
 These furnish a wine for a children's-feast : 
 Insipid to man, they suit the elves 
 Like thoughts, loves, hates themselves." 
 
 24. 
 And, friends, beyond dispute 
 
 I too have the cowslips dewy and dear. 
 Punctual as Springtide forth peep they : 
 I leave them to make my meadow gay. 
 
178 EPILOGUE, 
 
 But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh ? 
 
 Not let them alone, but deftly shear 
 And shred and reduce to — what may suit 
 
 Children, beyond dispute? 
 
 25 
 
 And, here's May-month, all bloom, 
 
 All bounty : what if I sacrifice ? 
 If I out with shears and shear, nor stop 
 Shearing till prostrate, lo, the crop ? 
 And will you prefer it to ginger-pop 
 
 When I Ve made you wine of the memories 
 Which leave as bare as a churchyard tomb 
 
 My meadow, late all bloom ? 
 
 26. 
 
 Nay, what ingratitude 
 
 Should I hesitate to amuse the wits 
 That have pulled so long at my flask, nor grudged 
 The headache that paid their pains, nor budged 
 
EPILOGUE, 
 
 179 
 
 From bunghole before they sighed and judged 
 " Too rough for our taste, to-day, befits 
 
 The racy and right when the years conclude ! " 
 Out on ingratitude ! 
 
 27. 
 
 Grateful or ingrate — none, 
 
 No cowslip of all my fairy crew 
 Shall help to concoct what makes you wink, 
 And goes to your head till you think you think 
 I like them alive : the printer's ink 
 
 Would sensibly tell on the perfume too. 
 I may use up my nettles, ere IVe done ; 
 
 But of cowslips — friends get none! 
 
 28. 
 
 Don't nettles make a broth 
 
 Wholesome for blood grown lazy and thick ? 
 Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste. 
 My Thirty-four Port — no need to waste 
 
i8o EPILOGUE. 
 
 On a tongue that's fur and a palate — paste ! 
 
 A magnum for friends who are sound ! the sick- 
 I'U posset and cosset them, nothing loath, 
 
 Henceforward with nettle-broth! 
 
396725 
 
 H'/^.hi.. tiUC 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY