Florence in the Poetry of 
 the Brownings 
 
Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/florenceinpoetryOObrowrich 
 
LO/l VJ L. HJ 1 ■ 
 
 XXUliiU \Jl 
 
 X 
 
 Robert and Elizabeth Bar- 
 rett Browning from 1847 
 to 1861. Corner of Via 
 Magjjio and Via Mazzetta. 
 
 *' y lunnl Idtit iiit/hf <i /if/li- child tjo sini/in;/ 
 "* Neath C(ti«i (I'liidi iriii<i(nr.s, hi/ the rhurrh.^" 
 
 — Casft GiiitH Windows, p. 22. 
 
 " I ittcjtpcd out on fht iKirniir ftrnin , l>in/t 
 
 Over the street <ind ofi/mslfi' tin rhiirr/i. 
 
 And pared its loten(fe-l>rirkiri)rk s/irinkled ronl." 
 
 — The Ring and the Book, p. 181. 
 
Florence 
 
 in the 
 
 Poetry of the Brownings 
 
 Being a Selection of the Poems of 
 
 Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
 
 Which have to do with the History, the Scenery 
 and the Art of Florence 
 
 Edited by 
 Anna Benneson McMahan 
 
 With over Sixty Full-page Illustrations 
 from Photographs 
 
 > J , ^ J 3 
 > ^ , , ' , V 
 
 Chicago 
 A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 
 1904. 
 
^^s 
 
 ^y 
 
 Copyright 
 
 A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 
 1904 
 
 Published October 5, 1904 
 
 With four exceptions, the photographs reprmiuced in this work are 
 from the atelier of the Brothers Alinari, Florence, and are used by 
 special arrangement with their approval and consent. The " Casa 
 Guidi," the "Carmine Cloister," and the " Book-Stall in Piazza San 
 Lorenzo" are by ISIiss Una McMahan; the "Piazza and Church of 
 San Lorenzo" Is by Mauelli, Florence. 
 
 • • 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIRGE, D. S. A. 
 
f^p_ 
 
 r ^' 
 
 t- 
 
 TO 
 
 ANNIE HOWELL ANNIS 
 
 LOVER OF FLORENCE 
 AND OF 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 ivi89189 
 
\ h 
 
 y 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction 13 
 
 BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 Casa Guidi Windows 21 
 
 The Dance 99 
 
 BY ROBERT BRO WNING 
 
 Old Pictures in Florence 105 
 
 Fra Lippo Lippi 121 
 
 Andrea del Sarto 137 
 
 The Statue and the Bust 149 
 
 The Ring and the Book. Book I 163 
 
 One Word More 217 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Casa Guidi Windows Frontispiece 
 
 Bridges of the Amo To face page 24 
 
 Monument to Giuliano de' Medici „ »» 26 
 
 New Sacristy of San Lorenzo 
 
 Monument to Lorenzo de' Medici „ »> 28 
 
 New Sacristy of San Lorenzo 
 
 Martyrdom of Savonarola „ „ 30 
 
 Museum of San Marco 
 
 Statue of Savonarola „ » 32 
 
 Palazzo Vecchio 
 
 Cell of Savonarola „ n 34 
 
 Museum of San Marco 
 
 Church of Santa Maria Novella „ » 36 
 
 Fresco of Inferno, by Andrea Orcagna „ » 38 
 
 Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella 
 
 Madonna „ „ 40 
 
 Rucellai Chapel of Santa Maria Novella 
 
 Crucifixion, by Margheritone „ ,,42 
 
 Church of Santa Croce 
 
 Portrait of Pra Angelico „ „ 44 
 
 Academy of Fine Arts 
 
 The Pitti Palace „ „ 46 
 
 Loggia dei Lanzi „ » 48 
 
 Monument to Dante » « 50 
 
 Church of Santa Croce 
 
 [ix] 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Fresco of Dante To face page 53 
 
 Bargello Chapel 
 
 Gate of San Niccolb „ » 54 
 
 Gate of San Gallo „ „ 56 
 
 Bust of Brutus „ „ 58 
 
 Bargello 
 
 Piazza in the Cascine „ „ 60 
 
 View of Florence „ » 62 
 
 Campanile, with Cathedral and Baptistry . . . . „ „ 66 
 
 Portrait of Michel Angelo „ » 68 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 Portrait of Raphael Sanzio „ » 72 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci ,, » 74 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 Statue of Niobe , » 80 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 The Dying Alexander „ „ 84 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 Portraits of Cimabue, Giotto, and Taddeo Gaddi . . „ » 88 
 
 SpaDish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella 
 
 Statue of Niccola Pisano „ ,,92 
 
 Portico of Uffizi 
 
 Portrait of Ghiberti „ ,,94 
 
 Palazzo Vecchio 
 
 Portrait of Ghirlandajo „ ,,100 
 
 Santa Maria Novella 
 
 Portrait of Botticelli „ ,,102 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 Portrait of Filippino Lippi „ „ 106 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 Coronation of the Virgin, by Lorenzo Monaco . . „ ,. 108 
 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 [x] 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Madonna and Saints, by Baldovinetti .... To face 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 Church of San Spirito „ 
 
 The Cloisters of the Carmine „ 
 
 Portrait of Cosimo the Elder, by Pontormo . . . „ 
 Uffizi Gallery 
 
 St. Jerome, by Pra Pilippo Lippi „ 
 
 Academy of Fine Arts 
 
 Church of the Carmine „ 
 
 Group of Angels, by Giotto „ 
 
 Medici Chapel in Santa Croce 
 
 Portrait of Masaccio „ 
 
 Brancacci Chapel in Church of the Carmine 
 
 The Tribute Money, by Masaccio „ 
 
 Brancacci Chapel in Church of the Carmine 
 
 Coronation of the Virgin, by Pilippo Lippi . . . „ 
 Academy of Fine Arts 
 
 Portrait of Pilippo Lippi » 
 
 Academy of Fine Arts 
 
 Portrait of Andrea del Sarta and his Wife . . . „ 
 Pitti Gallery 
 
 View of Piesole „ 
 
 Madonna, by Andrea del Sarto „ 
 
 Pitti Gallery 
 
 Palace Riccardi-Mannelli » 
 
 Piazza dell' Annunziata 
 
 Villa Petraja „ 
 
 Statue of Ferdinand I. de' Medici „ 
 
 Piazza dell* Annimziata 
 
 Piazza and Church of San Lorenzo „ 
 
 Book-stall in Piazza San Lorenzo „ 
 
 Riccardi Palace ,j 
 
 [xi] 
 
 page 112 
 
 „ 114 
 ,, 116 
 „ 122 
 
 „ 124 
 
 
 126 
 
 
 130 
 
 
 132 
 
 
 134 
 
 
 138 
 
 
 142 
 
 
 144 
 
 
 150 
 
 
 152 
 
 „ 156 
 
 
 158 
 
 
 164 
 
 
 166 
 
 
 170 
 
 
 172 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Interior of San Lorenzo To face page 176 
 
 Strozzi Palace „ „ ISO 
 
 Piazza Santa Trinita „ „ 184 
 
 Bridge of Santa Trinita „ „ 188 
 
 Porta Romana „ „ IQ-i 
 
 Mrs. Browning's Tomb „ ,,200 
 
 Protestant Cemetery 
 
 Donna Velata „ „ 206 
 
 Pitti Gallery 
 
 Madonna del Granduca „ „ 210 
 
 Pitti Gallery 
 
 San Miniato „ „ 212 
 
 Galileo's Tower , ,,218 
 
 The Protestant Cemetery „ ,,224! 
 
 Piazza Donatello 
 
 [xii] 
 
Introduction 
 
 yl LTHOUGH English poets bj birth, the city of 
 /— % Florence, in Italy, was the home of P^obert and 
 "^ -^- Elizabeth Barrett Browning during the fifteen 
 years of their wedded life. Eor both, this was a period 
 not only of supreme happiness but of continual literary 
 production, most of which was profoundly and essentially 
 influenced by Italian conditions and Italian atmosphere. 
 The most distinctively lyrical poetry of Eobert Browning 
 belongs almost entirely to these years ; whoever would 
 see him as a singer, in distinction from the dramatist of 
 his earlier period or the philosophical and religious poet of 
 his later life, must turn to the poems written during this 
 time of " life, love, and Italy/' To both poets the history, 
 the scenery, the art of Florence, was a continual inspira- 
 tion; poems and correspondence alike show the supreme 
 place it held in their affections. "The most beautiful 
 of the cities devised by man,'' says Mrs. Browning, in one 
 of her letters ; " completing Florence as Florence Italy," 
 says Robert Browning, speaking of the campanile of the 
 cathedral. 
 
 Mrs. Browning's life-long interest in Italian politics 
 and in popular liberty are too well known to need further 
 
 [ 13] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 exposition; but the large part played by the local color 
 of the city, the multitude of allusions to the churches, 
 the piazzas, the pictures, tlie statues, the traditions of 
 Florence can be understood fully only by a somewhat 
 intimate knowledge of the city. 
 
 The same is true of many of Eobert Browning's poems. 
 For example, his " Old Pictures in Florence '' is counted 
 among the most obscure of his shorter poems ; but it is 
 obscure only because it assumes a larger amount of infor- 
 mation in the history of art than most readers possess. 
 It is true that nearly every line has some allusion to an 
 artist or an art-principle more or less unknown ; but there 
 is no obscurity either of thought or expression when we 
 are once as well informed as Browning presupposes us all 
 to be. Doubtless it was a mistake on his part. Himself 
 living among these things, which were a part of his daily 
 walk and thought, it was unwise to assume an equal amount 
 of interest and knowledge on the part of his reader. But 
 the error is both complimentary and inspiring. Yisiting 
 Florence, one of the first ambitions of a lover of Browning 
 is to go about with " Old Pictures in Florence,^' and other 
 poems, as a guide-book to some of the things best wortli 
 seeing. But even such a person finds no small difficulty 
 in locating the special picture, or statue, or scene. This 
 book is an attempt to aid liim and also the still larger 
 number of persons who may never see the city itself. 
 The poems of tlie Brownings already have been annotated 
 ably and sufficiently as far as words can serve ; the pres- 
 ent work aims to set before the eye pictures of the places 
 
 L It] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 or persons mentioned, so that each reader may see Flor- 
 ence for himself as nearly as possible as the two poets saw 
 it, may approach, as closely as ever is possible to an out- 
 sider, the sources of poetical inspiration. 
 
 Indeed, both poets at times seem to have invited us 
 into the inner sanctuary of their minds, by stating dis- 
 tinctly the circumstances which led to poetical creation. 
 Mrs. Browning tells how she heard a little child go sing- 
 ing underneath her windows, and how with it came the 
 thought how 
 
 " the heart of Italy must beat 
 While such a voice had leave to rise sereue 
 'Twixt church and palace of a Florence street." 
 
 Hence the poem, " Casa Guidi Windows.'^ 
 
 Nor is there in all literature so painstaking an effort on 
 the part of any writer to reveal precisely all the stages of 
 the birth and growth of a poem, as that made by Brown- 
 ing in the first book of " The Eing and the Book.'^ He 
 tells the time and the place where he found, and the price 
 that he paid for, a certain square old yellow book picked 
 out from amid the promiscuous rubbish of an old book- 
 stall ; how the story of it appealed to him from the very 
 moment he laid hands upon it, and how, absorbed in the 
 reading, he took his unconscious way through the familiar 
 streets, finishing it just as he reached the doorway, " where 
 the black begins with tlie first stone-slab of the staircase 
 cold '^ — an unmistakable description of the dreary en- 
 trance to Casa Guidi. It was the night after, he goes on 
 to tell us, " as I trod the terrace and breathed the beauty 
 
 [15] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 and the fearfulness of night/' that the tragic piece acted 
 itself over again, and he saw with his own eyes and heard 
 as if speaking with their own voices all the long-dead per- 
 sonages of the story, listened to their mutual accusations 
 and to the defences of each for his own share in it. How 
 such revelations come to the poetic soul no man will ever 
 be able really to communicate to another ; but along all 
 tlie list of writers who have attempted it, from Aristotle to 
 Matthew Arnold, is there anywhere a better description 
 of the nature of poetic inspiration than these passages 
 from " The Eing and the Book " ? — 
 
 " I fused my hve soul and that inert stuff 
 Before attempting suiitlicraft." 
 
 " The Hfe in me abolished 4lie death of things. 
 Deep calling unto deep." 
 
 Or this, of the rapture felt by the poet in the act of 
 creation : — 
 
 "Tlie Book! I turn its medicinable leaves 
 In London now till, as in Florence erst, 
 A spirit laughs and leaps through every limb. 
 And lights my eye, and lifts me by the hair. 
 Letting me liave my will again with these. 
 — How title I the dead, alive once more?" 
 
 It was four years before the poem was fully wrought 
 out and publislied in iiondon; but the whole conception 
 of " The Ring and the liook " was practically complete at 
 the close of those twenty-four hours which the author has 
 described so minutely. The scene of the story itself lies 
 chiefly in Eome and Arezzo, but the vivid picture of the 
 
 [ 16] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 sarroundings and atmosphere on that memorable June day, 
 the matchless description of the kindling of the poetic fire 
 belong solely to Florence. Shortly after occurred the death 
 of Mrs. Browning, the breaking up of the home, and 
 Mr. Browning's departure from the city, to which he never 
 afterwards returned. 
 
 No effort has been made to correct what many will re- 
 gard as misapprehensions on the part of the poets. What 
 is known as the "new criticism '^ denies that Cimabue 
 painted the " Madonna in Santa Maria Novella,''^ and gives 
 it to Duccio; the picture called " Andrea del Sarto and his 
 Wife, Painted by himself,^' is taken away from Andrea and 
 ascribed to an unknown artist of the Venetian school, and 
 the portraits are considered to be two unknown persons. 
 Whether right or wrong, no critical conclusion can ever 
 destroy the charm of the poem called '^ Andrea del Sarto .'' 
 By whatever name we call the picture, to whatever artist 
 we assign it, the story which Browning read between the 
 lines of the two faces looking out from the canvas is no 
 less eloquent, the monologue no less dramatically expres- 
 sive of that type of artist who just misses his place among 
 the very greatest by reason of his lack of spiritual power 
 and grace. For years, hundreds of persons daily had 
 passed unmoved before this picture in the Pitti Gallery ; 
 one day the man of supreme dramatic imagination, the 
 poet, paused, and to him the lips seemed to move and the 
 heart to throb with a tale of love and woe and resigned 
 despair. Since that time there are none who read the 
 poem who do not wish to see the picture itself, or, fail- 
 2 [17] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ing in that, some reproduction of it. With "Fra Lippo 
 
 Lippi " and other poems the case is the same. 
 
 To such persons is offered this book — a selection of 
 
 those poems of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
 
 which have to do with Florence, — in the belief that 
 
 with these two great poets as guides they will see with 
 
 a new vision some of the old glories of the fair city of 
 
 the Arno. 
 
 A. B. McM. 
 
 Florence, Italy, 1904. 
 
 [18] 
 
CAS A GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
FLORENCE in the 
 
 POErR Y Z BROWNINGS 
 
 CAS A GUIBl W^INnoWS 
 
 A POEM, IN TWO PARTS 
 
 ^^^^HIS poem contains the impressions of the writer 
 m upon events in Tuscany of which she was a wit- 
 •^ ness. '^^ From a window^'' the critic may demur. 
 She hows to the objection in the very title of her work. 
 No continucms narrative nor exposition of political phi- 
 losophy is attempted hy her. It is a simple story of 
 personal impressions, zvhose only value is in the intensity 
 with which they were received, as proving her warm 
 affection for a heaidiful and unfortunate country, and 
 the sincerity with rchich they are related, as indicating- 
 her own good faith and freedom from paHisanship. 
 
 Of the two parts of this poem, the first was written 
 nearly three years ago ; while the second resumes the 
 actual situation of 1851. The discrepancy between the 
 two parts is a sufficient guaranty to the public of 
 the truthfulness of the writer, who, though she certainly 
 escaped the epidemic ''falling sickness'''' of enthusiasm 
 for P'lo Nono, takes shame ujjon herself that she believed, 
 like a woman, some royal oaths, and lost sight of the 
 
 [21] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 probable consequences of so7?ie obvious popular defects. 
 If the discrepancy should be painful to the reader^ let 
 him understand that to the writer it has been 7nore so. 
 But such discrepancies we are called upon to accept at 
 everij hour hij the conditions of our nature, imphfing the 
 interval between asp>ir,aiion and performance, between 
 faith diid, (iisillvshn'^ Mtifjeen hope and fact, 
 
 0^ richest 'fortune wkrjyvrosst. 
 
 Born for the future, to the future lost/" 
 
 Nay, not lost to the future in this case. The future of 
 Italy shall not be disinherited. 
 Florence^ 1851. 
 
 part &nt 
 
 I HEARD last night a little child go singing 
 'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church, 
 " hella liberta, Bella ! '* stringing 
 
 The same words still on notes, he went in search 
 ^0 high for, you concluded the up-springing 
 Of such a nimble bird to sky from perch 
 Must leave the wliole busli in ii fremble green, 
 
 And that the heart of Italy must beat, 
 While sucli a voice liad leave to rise serene 
 
 ^Twixt cliurch and pnlace of a Florence street: 
 A little child, too, who not long had been 
 By mother's finger steadied on liis feet. 
 And still '' bella llherta " he sang. 
 [ 22 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Then I thought, musing, of the innumerous 
 
 Sweet songs which still for Italy outrang 
 From older singers^ lips, w^ho sang not thus 
 
 Exultingly and purely, yet, with pang 
 Fast sheathed in music, touched the heart of us 
 
 So finely, that the pity scarcely pained. 
 I thought how Filicaja led on others, 
 
 Bewailers for their Italy enchained. 
 And how they call her childless among mothers. 
 
 Widow of empires, ay, and scarce refrained 
 Cursing her beauty to her face, as brothers 
 
 Might a shamed sister^s, — " Had she been less fair, 
 She were less wretched,^^ — how, evoking so 
 
 From congregated wrong and heaped despair 
 Of men and women writhing under blow. 
 
 Harrowed and hideous in a filthy lair. 
 Some personating image wherein woe 
 
 Was wrapt in beauty from offending much. 
 They called it Cybele, or Niobe, 
 
 Or laid it corpse-like on a bier for such. 
 Where all the world might drop for Italy 
 
 Those cadenced tears which burn not where they 
 touch, — 
 " Juliet of nations, canst thou die as we ? 
 
 And was the violet crown that crowned thy head 
 So over-large, though new buds made it rough. 
 
 It slipped down, and across thine eyelids dead, 
 sweet, fair Juliet ? " Of such songs enough. 
 
 Too many of such complaints ! Behold, instead, 
 
 [23] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Yoid at Yerona, Juliet^s marble trough ; ^ 
 
 As void as that is, are all images 
 Men set between themselves and actual wrong 
 
 To catch the weight of pity, meet the stress 
 Of conscience ; since ''t is easier to gaze long 
 
 On mournful masks and sad effigies 
 Than on real, live, weak creatures crushed by strong. 
 
 For me, who stand in Italy to-day 
 XWhere worthier poets stood and sang before, 
 
 I kiss their footsteps, yet their words gainsay. 
 I can but muse in hope upon this shore 
 
 Of golden Arno as it shoots away 
 Through Florence' heart beneath her bridges four, — 
 
 Bent bridges seeming to strain off like bows. 
 And tremble while the arrowy undertide 
 
 Shoots on, and cleaves the marble as it goes, 
 And strikes up palace-walls on either side, 
 
 And froths the cornice out in glittering rows. 
 With doors and windows quaintly multiplied. 
 
 And terrace-sweeps, and gazers upon all. 
 By whom if flower or kerchief were tlirown out 
 
 From any lattice there, the same would fall 
 Into the river underneath, no doubt. 
 
 It runs so close and fast 'twixt wall and wall. 
 How beautiful ! The mountains from without 
 
 In silence listen for the word said next. 
 What word will men say, — here where Giotto planted 
 
 ^ They show at Verona, as the tomb of Juliet, aa empty trough of stone. 
 
 [24] 
 
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CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 His campanile like an unperplext 
 Fine question heavenward, touching the things granted 
 
 A noble people, who, being greatly vext 
 In act, in aspiration keep undaunted ? 
 
 What word will God say ? MicheFs Night and Day 
 And Dawn and Twilight wait in marble scorn, 
 
 Like dogs upon a dunghill, couched on clay 
 From whence the Medicean stamp^s outworn. 
 
 The final putting-off of all such sway 
 By all such hands, and freeing of the unborn 
 
 In Florence and the great world outside Florence. 
 Three hundred years his patient statues wait 
 
 In that small chapel of the dim St. Lawrence : 
 Day's eyes are breaking bold and passionate 
 
 Over his shoulder, and will flash abhorrence 
 On darkness, and with level looks meet fate. 
 
 When once loose from that marble film of theirs ; 
 The Night has wild dreams in her sleep, the Dawn 
 
 Is haggard as the sleepless. Twilight wears 
 A sort of horror ; as the veil withdrawn 
 
 ■'Twixt the artistes soul and works had left them heirs 
 Of speechless thoughts which would not quail nor fawn. 
 
 Of angers and contempts, of hope and love : 
 For not without a meaning did he place 
 
 The princely Urbino on the seat above 
 With everlasting shadow on his face. 
 
 While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove 
 The ashes of his long-extinguished race 
 
 Which never more shall clog the feet of men. 
 
 [26] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 I do believe, diviiiest Angelo, 
 
 That winter-hour in Yia Larga, when 
 They bade thee build a statue up in snow,^ 
 
 And straight that marvel of thine art again 
 Dissolved beneath the sun's Italian glow, 
 
 Tliine eyes, dilated with the plastic passion, 
 Thawing, too, in drops of wounded manhood, since. 
 
 To mock alike thine art and indignation. 
 Laughed at the palace-window the new prince, — 
 
 (" Aha ! this genius needs for exaltation. 
 When all 's said, and however the proud may wince, 
 
 A little marble from our princely mines ! ■") 
 I do believe that hour thou laughedst too 
 
 For the whole sad world, and for thy Florentines, 
 After those few tears, which were only few ! 
 
 That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines 
 Of thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew, — 
 
 The head, erect as Jove's, being palsied first, 
 The eyelids flattened, the full brow turned blank. 
 
 The right hand, raised but now as if it curst, 
 Dropt, a mere snowball (till the people sank 
 
 Tlieir voices, though a louder laughter burst 
 From the royal window) — thou couldst proudly thank 
 
 God and the prince for promise and presage. 
 And laugh the laugh back, I think verily. 
 
 Thine eyes being })urged by tears of righteous rage 
 To read a wrong into a prophecy, 
 
 * This mockinsf task was set by Pietro, the unworthy successor of 
 Loreuzo the Mai^nificeut. 
 
 [26] 
 
lyriCHEL ANGELO'S monument 
 to Giuliano de' Medici in the New 
 Sacristy of Church of San Lorenzo, 
 with statues of Day and Night. 
 
 " Michel's iSighl and l)ay " 
 
 And I)awn and Timl'ujht vxdt in marble scorn.'' 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 25. 
 
II 
 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 And measure a true great maii^s heritage 
 Against a mere great duke's posterity. 
 
 I think thy soul said then, ^^ I do not need 
 A princedom and its quarries, after all ; 
 
 For if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed. 
 On book, or board, or dust, on floor or wall. 
 
 The same is kept of God, who taketh heed 
 That not a letter of the meaning fall 
 
 Or ere it touch and teach his world's deep heart, 
 Outlasting, therefore, all your lordships, sir ! 
 
 So keep your stone, beseech you, for your part, 
 To cover up your grave-place, and refer 
 
 The proper titles : I live by my art. 
 The thought I threw into this snow shall stir 
 
 This gazing people when their gaze is done ; 
 And the tradition of your act and mine. 
 
 When all the snow is melted in the sun. 
 Shall gather up for unborn men a sign 
 
 Of what is the true princedom ; ay, and none 
 Shall laugh that day, except the drunk with wine. 
 
 Amen, great Angelo ! the day 's at hand. 
 If many laugh not on it, shall we weep ? 
 
 Much more we must not, let us understand. 
 Through rhymers sonneteering in their sleep, 
 
 And archaists mumbling dry bones up the land. 
 And sketches lauding ruined towns a-heap, — 
 
 Through all that drowsy hum of voices smooth. 
 The hopeful bird mounts carolling from brake, 
 [27] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 The liopeful child, with leaps to catch his growth. 
 Sings open-eyed for liberty's sweet sake ; 
 
 And I, a singer also from my youth. 
 Prefer to sing with these who are awake, 
 
 With birds, with babes, with men wlio will not fear 
 The baptism of the holy morning dew 
 
 (And many of such wakers now are here. 
 Complete in their anointed manhood, who 
 
 Will greatly dare, and greatlier persevere). 
 Than join those old thin voices with my new. 
 
 And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh 
 Cooped up in music 'twixt an oh and ah : 
 
 Nay, hand in hand with that young child will I 
 Go singing rather, " Bella liheria,'' 
 
 Than, with those poets, croon the dead, or cry 
 " Se tu men bellafosai, Italia ! " 
 
 " Less wretched if less fair/^ Perhaps a truth 
 Is so far plain in this, that Italy, 
 
 Long trammelled witli the purple of her youth 
 Against her age's ripe activity, 
 
 Sits still upon her tombs, without death's ruth. 
 But also without life's brave energy. 
 
 " Now tell us what is Italy ?" men ask ; 
 And others answer, " Virgil, Cicero, 
 
 Catullus, Ctcsar." Wliat beside, to task 
 The memory closer ? — '' Why, Boccaccio, 
 
 Dante, Petrarca," — and if still the llask 
 Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow, — 
 
 [28 J 
 
M 
 
 ICHEL ANGELO'S monument 
 to Lorenzo de' Medici in the New 
 Sacristy of Church of San Lorenzo, 
 with statues of Evenina: and Dawn. 
 
 " Three hundred years his patient statues wait 
 In that small chapel of the dim St. Lawrence.'''' 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 25. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 " Angelo, Raffael, Pergolese/" — all 
 Whose strong hearts beat through stoiie_, or charged again 
 
 The paints with fire of souls electrical^ 
 Or broke up heaven for music. What more then ? 
 
 Why, then, no more. The chaplefs last beads fall 
 In naming the last saintship within ken. 
 
 And, after that, none prayeth in the land. 
 Alas ! this Italy has too long swept 
 Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand ; 
 Of her own past, impassioned nympholept ! 
 
 Consenting to be nailed here by the hand 
 To the very bay-tree under which she stept 
 
 A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch ; 
 And, licensing the world too long indeed 
 
 To use her broad phylacteries to stanch 
 And stop her bloody lips, she takes no heed 
 
 How one clear word would draw an avalanche 
 Of living sons around her to succeed 
 
 The vanished generations. Can she count 
 These oil-eaters with large, live, mobile mouths 
 
 Agape for macaroni, in the amount 
 Of consecrated heroes of her south^s 
 
 Bright rosary ? The pitcher at the fount, 
 The gift of gods, being broken, she much loathes 
 
 To let the ground-leaves of the place confer 
 A natural bowl. So henceforth she would seem 
 
 No nation, but the poet^s pensioner. 
 With alms from every land of song and dream. 
 
 While aye her pipers sadly pipe of her 
 
 [29] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Until their proper breaths, in that extreme 
 
 Of sigliing, split the reed on which thej played ; 
 
 Of which, no more. But never say " No more *' 
 To Italy's life ! Her memories undismayed 
 
 StiU argue "evermore^'; her graves implore 
 Her future to be strong, and not afraid ; 
 
 Her very statues send their looks before. 
 
 We do not serve the dead : the past is past. 
 God lives, and lifts his glorious mornings up 
 
 Before the eyes of men awake at last. 
 Who put away the meats they used to sup. 
 
 And down upon the dust of earth outcast 
 The dregs remaining of the ancient cup. 
 
 Then turned to wakeful prayer and worthy act. 
 The dead, upon their awful vantage ground. 
 
 The sun not in their faces, shall abstract 
 No more our strength : we will not be discrowned 
 
 As guardians of their crowns, nor deign transact 
 A barter of the present, for a sound 
 
 Of good so counted in tlie foregone days. 
 O dead ! ye shall no longer cling to us 
 
 With rigid hands of desiccating praise, 
 And drag us backward by tlie garment thus. 
 
 To stand and laud you in long-drawn virelays. 
 We will not henceforth be oblivious 
 
 Of our own lives, because ye lived before. 
 Nor t)f our acts, because ye acted well. 
 
 We thank you that ye first unlatched the door, 
 [30 J 
 
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CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 But will not make it inaccessible 
 
 By thankings on the threshold any more. 
 We hurry onward to extinguish hell 
 « With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and God's 
 Maturity of purpose. Soon shall we 
 
 Die also, and, that then our periods 
 Of life may round themselves to memory 
 
 As smoothly as on our graves the burial-sods. 
 We now must look to it to excel as ye. 
 
 And bear our age as far, unlimited 
 By the last mind-mark ; so, to be invoked 
 
 By future generations, as their dead. 
 
 ■'T is true, that, when the dust of death has choked 
 
 A great man's voice, the common words he said 
 Turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked 
 . Like horses, draw like griffins : this is true 
 And acceptable. I, too, should desire. 
 
 When men make record with the flowers they strew, 
 " Savonarola's soul went out in fire 
 
 Upon our Grand-duke's piazza, and burned through 
 A moment first, or ere he did expire. 
 
 The veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed 
 How near God sate and judged the judges there,^^ — 
 
 Upon the self-same pavement over-strewed 
 To cast my violets with as reverent care, 
 
 And prove that all the winters which have snowed 
 Cannot snow out the scent from stones and air. 
 
 Of a sincere man's virtues. This was he, 
 [31] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Savonarola^ who, while Peter sank 
 
 With his whole boat-load, called courageously, 
 ^' Wake Christ, wake Christ ! " who, having tried the 
 tank 
 
 Of old church-waters used for baptistry 
 Ere Luther came to spill them, swore they stank ; 
 
 Who also by a princely death-bed cried, 
 " Loose Plorence, or God will not loose thy soul ! " 
 
 Then fell back the Magnificent, and died 
 Beneath the star-look shooting from the cowl. 
 
 Which turned to wormwood-bitterness the wide 
 Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul 
 
 To grudge Savonarola and the rest 
 Their violets : rather pay them quick and fresh. 
 
 The emphasis of death makes manifest 
 The eloquence of action in our flesli ; 
 
 And men who living were but dimly guessed. 
 When once free from their life's entangled mesh. 
 
 Show their full length in graves, or oft indeed 
 Exaggerate their stature, in the flat. 
 
 To noble admirations which exceed 
 Most nobly, yet will calculate in that 
 
 But accurately. We who are tlie seed 
 Of buried creatures, if we turned and spat 
 
 Upon our antecedents, we were vik^ 
 Bring viok'ts ratlier. If these had not walked 
 
 Their furlong, could we hope to walk our mile? 
 Therefore bring violets. Yet if we, self-balked. 
 
 Stand still a-strewing violets all the while, 
 
 [32] 
 
in the Great Hall of 
 the Palazzo Veeehio. 
 
 " This was he, 
 Savonarola. . . the star-look shooting from the cowl.'"' 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 These moved in vain, of whom we have vainly talked. 
 
 So rise up henceforth with a cheerful smile_, 
 And, having strewn the violets, reap the corn. 
 
 And, having reaped and garnered, bring the plough 
 And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn. 
 
 And plant the great Hereafter in this Now. 
 
 Of old 't was so. How step by step was worn. 
 
 As each man gained on each securely ! how 
 Each by his own strength sought his own Ideal, — 
 
 The ultimate Perfection leaning bright 
 From out the sun and stars to bless the leal 
 
 And earnest search of all for Pair and Eii?ht 
 Through doubtful forms by earth accounted real ! 
 
 Because old Jubal blew into delight 
 The souls of men with clear-piped melodies, 
 
 If youthful Asaph were content at most 
 To draw from Jubal's grave, with listening eyes. 
 
 Traditionary music^s floating ghost 
 Into the grass-grown silence, were it wise ? 
 
 And was 't not wiser, JubaFs breath being lost. 
 That Miriam clashed her cymbals to surprise 
 
 The sun between her white arms flung apart. 
 With new glad golden sounds ? that David^'s strings 
 
 Overflowed his hand with music from his heart ? 
 So harmony grows full from many springs. 
 
 And happy accident turns holy art. 
 
 You enter, in your Florence wanderings. 
 The Church of St. Maria Novella. Pass 
 3 [ 33 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 The left stair, where at plague-time Machiavel 
 
 Saw one with set fair face as in a glass. 
 Dressed out against the fear of death and hell, 
 
 E-ustling her silks in pauses of the mass 
 To keep the thought off how her husband fell. 
 
 When she left home, stark dead across her feet, — 
 The stair leads up to what the Orgagnas save 
 
 Of Dante^s demons ; you in passing it 
 Ascend the right stair from the farther nave 
 
 To muse in a small chapel scarcely lit 
 By Cimabue's Virgin. Bright and brave. 
 
 That picture was accounted, mark, of old : 
 A king stood bare before its sovraii grace, 
 
 A reverent people shouted to behold 
 The picture, not the king; and even the place 
 
 Containing such a miracle grew bold, 
 Named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face 
 
 Which thrilled the artist after work to think 
 Plis own ideal Mary-smile should stand 
 
 So very near liini, — lie, within the brink 
 Of all that glory, let in by his hand 
 
 With too divine a rashness ! Yet none shrink 
 Who come to gaze here now ; albeit ^t was planned 
 
 Sublimely in the thought's simplicity. 
 The Lady, throned in empyreal state. 
 
 Minds only the young liabe upon her knee, 
 While sidelong angels bear the royal weight. 
 
 Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly 
 Oblivion of their wings ; the child thereat 
 
 [ 3*] 
 
c 
 
 ELL of Savonarola iu San Marco. 
 
 " I'he emphasis of death makes' r an i ij as^ s.,, ■. .« 
 The eloquence of action in our Jfesh."' 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 32. 
 
it 9 ■ ■ » t 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Stretching its hand like God. If any should^ 
 Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints. 
 
 Gaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood 
 On Cimabue^s picture, Heaven anoints 
 
 The head of no such critic, and his blood 
 The poet'^s curse strikes full on, and appoints 
 
 To ague and cold spasms forevermore. 
 A noble picture ! worthy of the shout 
 
 Wherewith along the streets the people bore 
 Its cherub-faces which the sun threw out 
 
 Until they stooped, and entered the church-door. 
 Yet rightly was young Giotto talked about. 
 
 Whom Cimabue found among the sheep,^ 
 And knew, as gods know gods, and carried home 
 
 To paint the things he had painted, with a deep 
 And fuller insight, and so overcome 
 
 His Chapel-Lady with a heavenlier sweep 
 Of light; for thus we mount into the sum 
 
 Of great things known or acted. I hold, too. 
 That Cimabue smiled upon the lad 
 
 At the first stroke which passed what he could do, 
 Or else his Yirgin^s smile had never had 
 
 Such sweetness in 't. All great men who foreknew 
 Their heirs in art, for art''s sake have been glad. 
 
 And bent their old white heads as if uncrowned, 
 
 1 How Cimabue found Giotto, the shepherd-boy, sketching a ram of his 
 flock upon a stone, is prettily told by Vasari, who also relates that the 
 elder artist Margheritone died " infastidito " of the successes of the new 
 school. 
 
 [35] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Fanatics of their pure ideals still 
 
 Far more than of their triumphs, which were found 
 With some less vehement struggle of the will. 
 
 If old Margheritone trembled^ swooned. 
 And died despairing at the opeu sill 
 
 Of other men^s achievements (who achieved 
 By loving art beyond the master) he 
 
 Was old Margheritone, and conceived 
 Never, at first youth and most ecstasy, 
 
 A Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved 
 The death-sigh from his heart. If wistfully 
 
 Marglieritone sickened at the smell 
 Of Cimabue^s laurel, let him go ! 
 
 For Cimabue stood up very well 
 In spite of Giotto's, and Angelico 
 
 The artist-saint kept smiling in his cell 
 The smile with w^hicli he welcomed the sweet slow 
 
 Inbreak of angels (whitening througli the dim 
 That he might paint them) while the sudden sense 
 
 Of RafFacFs future was revealed to liim 
 By force of his own fair work's competence. 
 
 The same blue waters where the doljihins swim 
 Suggest the tritons. Tlirough tlie blue immense 
 
 Strike out, all swimmers ! cling not in the way 
 Of one another, so to sink, but learn 
 
 The strong man's impulse, catch the freshening spray 
 He tlirows up in his motions, and discern 
 
 By his clear westering eye, the time of day. 
 Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn 
 
 [36] 
 

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CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Besides thy heaven and thee ! and when I say 
 There ''s room here for the weakest man alive 
 
 To live and die, there ''s room, too_, I repeat, 
 For all the strongest to live well, and strive 
 
 Their own way by their individual heat, 
 Like some new bee-swarm leaving the old hive. 
 
 Despite the wax which tempts so violet-sweet. 
 Then let the living live, the dead retain 
 
 Their grave-cold flowers ! though honor ■'s best supplied 
 By bringing actions to prove theirs not vain. 
 
 Cold graves, we say? it shall be testified 
 That living men who burn in heart and brain. 
 
 Without the dead were colder. If we tried 
 To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure 
 
 The future would not stand. Precipitate 
 This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure. 
 
 The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate. 
 How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer ! 
 
 The tall green poplars grew no longer straight 
 Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight 
 
 For Athens, and not swear by Marathon ? 
 Who dared build temples, wathout tombs in sight ? 
 
 Or live, without some dead man's benison ? 
 Or seek truth, hope for good, and strive for right. 
 
 If, looking up, he saw not in the sun 
 Some angel of the martyrs all day long 
 
 Standing and waiting ? Your last rhythm will need 
 Your earliest keynote. Could I sing this song, 
 
 [37] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 If my dead masters had not taken heed 
 To help the heavens and earth to make me strong, 
 
 As the wind ever will find out some reed. 
 And touch it to such issues as belong 
 
 To such a frail thing ? None may grudge the dcnd 
 Libations from full cups. Unless we choose 
 
 To look back to the hills behind us spread, 
 The plains before us sadden and confuse : 
 
 If orphaned, we are disinherited. 
 
 I would but turn these lachrymals to use. 
 
 And pour fresh oil in from the olive-grove, 
 To furnish them as new lamps. Shall I say 
 
 What made my heart beat with exulting love 
 A few days back ? — 
 
 The day was such a day 
 
 As Florence owes the sun. The sky above. 
 Its weight upon the mountains seemed to lay. 
 
 And palpitate in glory, like a dove 
 Who has flown too fast, full-hearted — take away 
 
 The image ! for tlie heart of man beat higher 
 That day in Florence, flooding all her streets 
 
 And piazzas Avitli a tumult and desire. 
 The people, with accumulated heats. 
 
 And faces turned one way, as if one fire 
 Both drew and flushed them, left their ancient beats. 
 
 And went up toward the palace-Pitti wall 
 To thank their Grand-duke, who, not quite of course. 
 
 Had graciously permitted, at their call, 
 [38] 
 
A NDllEA ORCAGNA'S fresco of 
 
 '^Dante's Inferno in the Strozzi 
 
 Chapel of Santa Maria Novella. 
 
 " The stair leads up to what the Orgagnas save 
 Of Dante's demons. " .'..,, 
 
 — 'iasr ('^i'iii'"VV^indo.rs, p. 3t. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 The citizens to use their civic force 
 
 To guard their civic homes. So^ one and all, 
 The Tuscan cities streamed up to the source 
 
 Of this new good at Florence, taking it 
 As good so far, presageful of more good, — 
 
 The first torch of Italian freedom, lit 
 To toss in the next tiger's face who should 
 
 Approach too near them in a greedy fit, ^- 
 The first pulse of an even flow of blood 
 
 To prove the level of Italian veins 
 Towards rights perceived and granted. How we gazed 
 
 From Casa Guidi windows, while, in trains 
 Of orderly procession — banners raised, 
 
 And intermittent bursts of martial strains 
 Which died upon the shout, as if amazed 
 
 By gladness beyond music — they passed on ! 
 The Magistracy, with insignia, passed, 
 
 And all the people shouted in the sun. 
 And all the thousand vrindows which had cast 
 
 A ripple of silks in blue and scarlet down, 
 (As if the houses overflowed at last,) 
 
 Seemed growing larger with fair heads and eyes. 
 The Lawyers passed, and still arose the shout. 
 
 And hands broke from the windows to surprise 
 Those grave, calm brows with bay-tree leaves thrown out. 
 
 The Priesthood passed, the friars with worldly-wise 
 Keen, sidelong glances from their beards about 
 
 The street to see who shouted ; many a monk 
 Who takes a long rope in tlie waist was there ; 
 
 [39] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Whereat the popular exultation drunk 
 With indrawn " vivas " the whole sunny air. 
 
 While through the murmuring windows rose and sunk 
 A cloud of kerchiefed hands, — '' The Church makes fair 
 
 Her welcome in the new Pope's name." Ensued 
 The black sign of the " Martyrs '' — (name no name, 
 
 But count the graves in silence). Next were viewed 
 The Artists ; next the Trades ; and after came 
 
 The People, — flag and sign, and rights as good, — 
 And very loud the shout was for that same 
 
 Motto, " II popolo.'' Il Popolo, — 
 The word means dukedom, empire, majesty, 
 
 And kings in such an hour might read it so. 
 And next, with banners, each in his degree. 
 
 Deputed representatives a-row 
 Of every separate state of Tuscany : 
 
 Siena's she-wolf, bristling on the fold 
 Of the first flag, preceded Pisa's hare ; 
 
 And Massa's lion floated calm in gold, 
 Pienza's following with his silver stare ; 
 
 Arezzo's steed pranced clear from bridle-hold, — 
 And well might shout our Florence, greeting there 
 
 These, and more brethren. Last, the world liad sent 
 The various chiklren of her teeming flanks — 
 
 Greeks, English, French — as if to a parliament 
 Of lovers of her Italy in ranks. 
 
 Each bearing its land's symbol reverent; 
 At which the stones seemed breaking into thanks, 
 
 And rattling up the sky, such sounds in proof 
 
 [ 40] 
 
IVTADONNA in Rucellai Chapel 
 -'-'-'-of Santa :\raria Novella. 
 
 " Ascend the rk/ht stair from the farther nave 
 To muse hi a small chapel scarcely lit 
 By Cimahue's Virgin.'''' 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 34. 
 
' « « f 
 
 \r. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 iVrose, the very house- walls seemed to bend ; 
 
 The very windows, up from door to roof, 
 Plashed out a rapture of bright heads, to mend 
 
 With passionate looks the gesture^s whirling off 
 A hurricane of leaves. Three hours did end 
 
 While all these passed ; and ever, in the crowd, 
 Eude men, unconscious of the tears that kept 
 
 Their beards moist, shouted; some few laughed aloud, 
 And none asked any why they laughed and wept : 
 
 Friends kissed each other's cheeks, and foes long 
 vowed 
 More warmly did it ; two-months babies leapt 
 
 Eight upward in their mother's arms, whose black, 
 Wide, glittering eyes looked elsewhere ; lovers pressed 
 
 Each before either, neither glancing back ; 
 And peasant maidens smoothly ''tired and tressed 
 
 Forgot to finger on their throats the slack 
 Great pearl-strings ; while old blind men would not 
 rest. 
 
 But pattered with their staves, and slid their shoes 
 Along the stones, and smiled as if they saw. 
 
 O Heaven, I think that day had noble use 
 Among God's days ! So near stood Eight and Law, 
 
 Both mutually forborne ! Law Avould not bruise, 
 Nor Eight deny ; and each in reverent aAve 
 
 Honored the other. And if, nevertheless. 
 That good day's sun delivered to the vines 
 
 No charta, and the liberal Duke's excess 
 Did scarce exceed a Guelf s or Ghibelline's 
 
 [41] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 In any special actual righteousness 
 Of what that day lie granted, still the signs 
 
 Are good and full of promise, we must say, 
 When multitudes approach their kings with prayers, 
 
 And kings coucede their people^s right to pray. 
 Both in one sunshhie. Griefs are not despairs, 
 
 So uttered ; nor can royal claims dismay 
 When men from humble homes and ducal chairs. 
 
 Hate wrong together. It was well to view 
 Those baimers ruffled in a ruler's face 
 
 Inscribed, " Live, freedom, union, and all true 
 Brave patriots who are aided by God's grace ! " 
 
 Nor was it ill when Leopoldo drew 
 His little children to the window-place 
 
 He stood in at the Pitti to suggest 
 Theij, too, should govern as the people willed. 
 
 What a cry rose then ! Some, who saw the best. 
 Declared his eyes filled up and overfilled 
 
 With good, warm human tears, wliich unrepressed 
 Ean down. I like his face : the forehead's build 
 
 Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps 
 Sufficient comprehension ; mild and sad, 
 
 And careful nobly, not with care that wraps 
 Self-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad. 
 
 But careful with the care that shuns a lapse 
 Of faith and duty ; studious not to add 
 
 A burden in the gathering of a gain. 
 And so, God save the Duke, I say with those 
 
 Who that day shouted it ; and, while dukes reign, 
 [42] 
 
IVTARGHERITONE'S Crucifixion 
 with Madonna and St. John. In 
 Church of Santa Croce. 
 
 Was old Margheritone, and cOncehed 
 Never ^ at first youth and most ecstasy^ - 
 A Virgin like that dream of one ^ ivhich heaved 
 The death-sigh from his heart.'''' 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 36. 
 " Margheritone of Arezzo, 
 • . . a poor glimmering Crucifixion. " 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, pp. 114, 115. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 May all wear in the visible overflows 
 
 Of spirit such a look of careful pain ! 
 For God must love it better than repose. 
 
 And all the people who went up to let 
 
 Their hearts out to that Duke, as has been told — 
 Where guess ye that the living people met, 
 
 Kept tryst, formed ranks, chose leaders, first unrolled 
 Their banners ? 
 
 In the Loggia ? where is set 
 
 Cellini's godlike Perseus, bronze or gold, 
 (How name the metal, when the statue flings 
 
 Its soul so in your eyes ?) with brow and sword 
 Superbly calm, as all opposing things. 
 
 Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred 
 Since ended ? 
 
 No, the people sought no wings 
 
 From Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored 
 An inspiration in the place beside 
 
 From that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand. 
 Where Buonarroti passionately tried 
 
 From out the close-clenched marble to demand 
 The head of Rome's sublimest homicide. 
 
 Then dropt the quivering mallet from his hand. 
 Despairing he could find no model-stuft* 
 
 Of Brutus in all Florence, where he found 
 The gods and gladiators thick enough. 
 
 Nor there ! the people chose still holier ground : 
 The people, who are simple, blind, and rough, 
 
 [43] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Know their own angels^ after looking round. 
 Whom chose thej then ? where met they ? 
 
 On the stone 
 
 Called Dante's, — a plain flat stone scarce discerned 
 From others in the pavement, — whereupon 
 
 He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned 
 To Brunelleschi^s church, and pour alone 
 
 The lava of his spirit when it burned : 
 It is not cold to-day. O passionate 
 
 Poor Dante, who, a banished Florentine, 
 Didst sit austere at banquets of the great. 
 
 And muse upon this far-off stone of thine. 
 And think how oft some passer used to wait 
 
 A moment, in the golden day's decline, 
 With ^' Good-night, dearest Dante ! " — well, good-night ! 
 
 I muse now, Dante, and think verily, 
 Though chapelled in the by-way, out of sight, 
 
 Ravenna's bones would thrill with ecstasy, 
 Couldst know thy favorite stone's elected right 
 
 As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee 
 Their earliest chartas from. Good-night, good-mom. 
 
 Henceforward, Dante ! now my soul is sure 
 That tliine is better comforted of scorn. 
 
 And looks down earthward in completer cure 
 Than when, in Santa Croce Church forlorn 
 
 Of any corpse, the architect and hewer 
 Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb. 
 
 For now thou art no longer exiled, now 
 
 [ 44 ] 
 
(^ARLO BOLCrS portrait of 
 Fra Angelico 
 of Fine Arts. 
 
 Fra Anselico in the Academv 
 
 The artist saint kept smllini/ in hi.s- ceil.^'' " 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 30. 
 
 " A scrap of Fra Anf/eJico^s.'''' 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114. 
 
 " Brother Angelico "s the man, you lljrnd/' 
 
 — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 129. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Best honored : we salute thee who art come 
 
 Back to the old stone with a softer brow 
 Than Giotto drew upon the wall, for some 
 
 Good lovers of our age to track and plough 
 Their way to, through timers ordures stratified, 
 
 And startle broad awake into the dull 
 Bargello chamber : now thou 'rt milder-eyed, — 
 
 Now Beatrix may leap up glad to cull 
 Thy first smile, even in heaven and at her side, 
 
 Like that which, nine years old, looked beautiful 
 At May-game. What do I say ? I only meant 
 
 That tender Dante loved his Florence well. 
 While Florence, now, to love him is content ; 
 
 And mark ye, that the piercingest sweet smell 
 Of love's dear incense by the living sent 
 
 To find the dead is not accessible 
 To lazy livers, no narcotic, not 
 
 Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune. 
 But trod out in the morning air by hot. 
 
 Quick spirits who tread firm to ends foreshown. 
 And use the name of greatness unforgot. 
 
 To meditate what greatness may be done. 
 For Dante sits in heaven, and ye stand here. 
 
 And more remains for doing, all must feel. 
 Than try sting on his stone from year to year , 
 
 To shift processions, civic toe to heel, 
 The town's thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer 
 
 For what was felt that day ? A chariot-wheel 
 May spin fast, yet the chariot never roll ; 
 
 [45] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 But if that (lay suggested something good, 
 And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul — 
 
 Better means freer. A land's brotherhood 
 Is most puissant : men, upon the whole, 
 A.re what tliey can be ; nations, what they would. 
 
 Will, therefore, to be strong, thou Italy ! 
 
 Will to be noble ! Austrian Metternich 
 Can fix no yoke, uidess the neck agree ; 
 
 And thine is like the lion's when the thick 
 Dews shudder from it, and no man would be 
 
 The stroker of his mane, much less would prick 
 His nostril with a reed. When nations roar 
 
 Like lions, who shall tame them, and defraud 
 Of the due pasture by the river-shore ? 
 
 Eoar, therefore ! shake your dew-laps dry abroad 
 The amphitheatre with open door 
 
 Leads back upon the benches who applaud 
 The last spear-thruster. 
 
 Yet the heavens forbid 
 
 That we should call on passion to confront 
 The brutal with the brutal, and, amid 
 
 This ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt 
 And lion's vengeance for the wrongs men did 
 
 And do now, though the spears are getting bhnit. 
 We only call, because the sight and proof 
 
 Of lion-strength hurts nothing ; and to show 
 A lion -heart, and measure paw with hoof, 
 
 [46] 
 
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CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Helps something, even, and will instruct a foe, 
 As well as the onslaught, how to stand aloof : 
 
 Or else the world gets past the mere brute blow. 
 Or given or taken. Children use the fist 
 
 Until thej are of age to use the brain ; 
 And so we needed Csesars to assist 
 
 Man^s justice, and Napoleons to explain 
 God^s counsel, when a point was nearly missed. 
 
 Until our generations should attain 
 Christ''s stature nearer. Not that we, alas ! 
 
 Attain already ; but a single inch 
 Will raise to look down on the swordsman^s pass. 
 
 As knightly Eoland on the coward^'s flinch : 
 And, after chloroform and ether-gas. 
 
 We find out slowly what the bee and finch 
 Have ready found, through Nature^s lamp in each, — 
 
 How to our races we may justify 
 Our individual claims, and, as we reach 
 Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply 
 The children''s uses, — how to fill a breach 
 
 With olive-branches, — how to quench a lie 
 With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek 
 
 With Christ^s most conquering kiss. Why, these are 
 things 
 Worth a great nation^s finding, to prove weak 
 
 The *' glorious arms '^ of military kings. 
 And so, wdth wide embrace, my England, seek 
 
 To stifle the bad heat and flickerings 
 Of this world^s false and nearly expended fire. 
 
 [47] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Draw palpitating arrows to the wood, 
 And twang abroad thj high hopes and thy higher 
 
 Eesolves from that most virtuous ahitude. 
 Till nations shall unconsciously aspire 
 
 By looking up to thee, and learn that good 
 And glory are not different. Announce law 
 
 By freedom ; exalt chivalry by peace ; 
 Instruct how clear, calm eyes can overawe. 
 
 And how pure hands, stretched simply to release 
 A bond-slave, will not need a sword to draw 
 
 To be held dreadful. O my England, crease 
 Thy purple with no alien agonies, 
 
 No struggles toward encroachment, no vile war ! 
 Disband thy captains, change thy victories ; 
 
 Be henceforth prosperous, as the angels are. 
 Helping, not humbling. 
 
 Drums and battle-cries 
 
 Go out in music of the morning-star; 
 And soon we shall have thinkers in the place 
 
 Of fighters, each found able as a man 
 To strike electric influence througli a race. 
 
 Unstayed by city-wall and barbican. 
 The poet shall look grander in the face 
 
 Than even of old (when he of Greece began 
 To shig " that Achillean wrath which slew 
 
 So many heroes ''), seeing he shall treat 
 The deeds of souls heroic toward the true. 
 
 The oracles of life, previsions sweet 
 [48] 
 
I— ^ 
 
 9?. ^ 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 And awful, like divine swans gliding through 
 
 White arms of Ledas, which will leave the heat 
 Of their escaping godship to endue 
 
 The human medium with a heavenly flush. 
 Meanwhile, in this same Italy we want 
 
 Not popular passion, to arise and crush. 
 But popular conscience, which may covenant 
 
 For what it knows. Concede without a blush. 
 To grant the " civic guard "'' is not to grant 
 
 The civic spirit, living and awake : 
 Those lappets on your shoulders, citizens. 
 
 Your eyes strain after sideways till they ache 
 (While still, in admirations and amens. 
 
 The crowd comes up on festa-days to take 
 The great sight in) are not intelligeiice. 
 
 Not courage even : alas ! if not the sign 
 Of something very noble, they are nought ; 
 
 For every day ye dress your sallow kiue 
 With fringes down their cheeks, though unbesought 
 
 They loll their heavy heads, and drag the wine. 
 And bear the wooden yoke as they w^ere taught 
 
 The first day. What ye want is hght ; indeed 
 Not sunlight (ye may well look up surprised 
 
 To those unfathomable heavens that feed 
 Your purple hills), but God^s light organized 
 
 In some high soul crowned capable to lead 
 The conscious people, conscious and advised ; 
 
 For, if we lift a people like mere clay. 
 It falls the same. We want thee, O unfound 
 
 4 [ 49 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 And sovran teacher ! if thy beard be gray 
 Or black, we bid thee rise up from the ground. 
 
 And speak the word God giveth thee to say, 
 Inspiring into all this people round, 
 
 Instead of passion, thought, which pioneers 
 All generous passion, purifies from sin. 
 
 And strikes the hour for. Eise up, teacher ! here ^s 
 A crowd to make a nation ! best begin 
 
 By making each a man, till all be peers 
 Of earth^s true patriots and pure martyrs in 
 
 Knowing and daring. Best unbar the doors 
 Which Peter^s heirs kept locked so overdose 
 
 They only let the mice across the floors. 
 While every churchman dangles, as he goes. 
 
 The great key at his girdle, and abhors 
 In Christ's name meekly. Open wide the house, 
 
 Concede the entrance with Christ^s liberal mind. 
 And set the tables with his wine and bread. 
 
 What ! " Commune in both kinds ? '' In every kind — 
 Wine, wafer, love, hope, truth, unlimited. 
 
 Nothing kept back. For, when a man is blind 
 To starlight, will he see the rose is red ? 
 
 A bondsmnn shivering at a Jesuit's foot — 
 " Vsc ! mea culpa ! '' — is not like to stand 
 
 A freedman at a despot's, and dispute 
 His titles by the balance in his hand. 
 
 Weighing tliem "suo jure." Tend tlir root. 
 If careful of the branches, and expand 
 
 The inner souls of men before you strive 
 
 For civic heroes. 
 
 [50] 
 
ly/rONUMENT to Dante (buried 
 at llavenna) in Church of 
 Santa Croce. 
 
 " The architect cnui hcioeri ; 
 Did pile the empty marbles as thj to^nh.'''' 
 
 — Casa Giiidi Windows, p. 44. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 But the teacher, w^here ? 
 
 From all these crowded faces, all alive. 
 Eyes, of their own lids flashing themselves bare, 
 
 And brows that with a mobile life contrive 
 A deeper shadow, — may we in no wise dare 
 
 To put a finger out, and touch a man. 
 And cry, " This is the leader " ? What, all these ! 
 
 Broad heads, black eyes, yet not a soul that ran 
 From God down with a message ? all, to please 
 
 The donna waving measures with her fan. 
 And not the judgment- angel on his knees, 
 
 (The trumpet just an inch off from his lips,) 
 Who, when he breathes next, will put out the sun ? 
 
 Yet mankind's self were foundered in eclipse. 
 If lacking doers, with great works to be done ; 
 
 And lo, the startled earth already dips 
 Back into light ; a better day 's begun ; 
 
 And soon this leader, teacher, will stand plain. 
 And build the golden pipes and synthesize 
 
 This people-organ for a holy strain. 
 We hold this hope, and still in all these eyes 
 
 Go sounding for the deep look which shall drain 
 Suffused thought into channelled enterprise. 
 
 Where is the teacher? What now may he do 
 Who shall do greatly ? Doth he gird his waist 
 
 With a monk's rope, like Luther? or pursue 
 The goat, like Tell ? or dry his nets in haste, 
 
 Like Masaniello when tlie sky was blue ? 
 [51 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI AVINDOWS 
 
 Keep house, like other peasants, with inlaced 
 
 Bare brawny arms about a favorite child. 
 And meditative looks beyond the door 
 
 (But not to mark the kidling^s teeth have filed 
 The green shoots of his vine which last year bore 
 
 Full twenty bunches), or on triple-piled 
 Throne-velvets sit at ease to bless the poor. 
 
 Like other pontiffs, in the Poorest^s name? 
 The old tiara keeps itself aslope 
 
 Upon his steady brows, which, all the same. 
 Bend mildly to permit the people^s hope ? 
 
 Whatever hand shall grasp this oriflamme 
 Whatever man (last peasant or first pope 
 
 Seeking to free his country) shall appear. 
 Teach, lead, strike fire into the masses, fill 
 
 These empty bladders with fine air, insphere 
 These wills into a unity of will. 
 
 And make of Italy a nation — dear 
 And blessed be that man ! the heavens shall kill 
 
 No leaf the earth lets grow for him, and Death 
 
 Shall cast him back upon the lap of Life 
 
 To live more surely in a clarion-breath 
 Of hero-music. Brutus with the knife, 
 
 Rienzi with the fasces, throb beneath 
 Eome^s stones, — and more who threw away joy's fife 
 
 Like Pallas, that the beauty of tlieir souls 
 Might ever shine untroubled and entire : 
 
 But if it can be true that he who rolls 
 [52 J 
 
G 
 
 ITOTTO S Portrait of Dante in 
 Ch.ipel of the Bargello. Dis- 
 closed in 1850 by removal of 
 whitewash which had covered it 
 for centuries. 
 
 " We salute thee who art cowe 
 Back to the old stone with a softer Irroio 
 Than Giotto drew upon the wall.'''' 
 
 — Casa 6uidi Windows, p. 45. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 The Church^'s thunders will reserve her fire 
 
 For only lights — from eucharistic bowls 
 Will pour new life for nations that expire,, 
 
 And rend the scarlet of his papal vest 
 To gird the weak loins of his countrymen, — 
 
 I hold that he surpasses all the rest 
 Of Eomans, heroes, patriots ; and that when 
 
 He sat down on the throne, he dispossessed 
 The first graves of some glory. See again. 
 
 This country-saving is a glorious thing ! 
 And if a common man achieved it? Well. 
 
 Say, a rich man did ? Excellent. A king ? 
 That grows sublime ? A priest ? Improbable. 
 
 A pope ? Ah, there we stop, and cannot bring 
 Our faith up to the leap, with history^s bell 
 
 So heavy round the neck of it, albeit 
 We fain would grant the possibility 
 
 Eor thy sake, Pio Nono ! 
 
 Stretch thy feet 
 In that case : I w' ill kiss them reverently 
 
 As any pilgrim to the papal seat : 
 And, such proved possible, thy throne to me 
 
 Shall seem as holy a place as Pellico^s 
 Venetian dungeon, or as Spielberg's grate. 
 
 At which the Lombard woman hung the rose 
 Of her sweet soul by its own dewy weight. 
 
 To feel the dungeon round her sunshine close. 
 And, pining so, died early, yet too late 
 [53] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 For what she suffered. Yea, I will not choose 
 Betwixt thy throne, Pope Pius, and the spot 
 
 Marked red forever, spite of rains and dews. 
 Where two fell riddled by the Austrian's shot, — 
 
 The brothers Bandiera, who accuse. 
 With one same mother-voice and face (that what 
 
 They speak may be invincible) the sins 
 Of earth's tormentors before God the just, 
 
 Until the unconscious thunder-bolt begins 
 To loosen in his grasp. 
 
 And yet we must 
 
 BewarC; and mark the natural kiths and kins 
 Of circumstance and office, and distrust 
 
 The rich man reasoning in a poor man's hut. 
 The poet who neglects pure truth to prove 
 
 Statistic fact, the child who leaves a rut 
 For a smoother road, the priest who vows his glove 
 
 Exhales no grace, the prince who walks afoot. 
 The woman wlio lias sworn she will not love. 
 
 And this Ninth Pius in Scvontli Gregory's chair, 
 With Andrea Doria's forehead. 
 
 Count wliat goes 
 To making up a pope, before he wear 
 That triple crown. We pass the world-wide throes 
 Which went lo ni;ik(^ the p()])cdom, — the despair 
 Of free men, gootl men, wise men; the dread shows 
 
 Of women's faces, by the fagot's flash 
 Tossed out, to the miimtest stir and throb 
 
 [54] 
 
G 
 
 ATE of San Niccolo 
 (14th century). 
 
 ''* And Petrarch looks no mori' from Niccolo 
 Toioard dear Arezzo, "tioixt the acacia trees." 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 60. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 0^ the white lips ; the least tremble of a lash. 
 To glut the red stare of a licensed mob ; 
 
 The short mad cries down oubliettes, and plash 
 So horribly far off; priests trained to rob. 
 
 And kings, that, like encouraged nightmares, sate 
 On nations^ hearts most heavily distressed 
 
 With monstrous sights and apothegms of fate — 
 We pass these things, because " the times " are prest 
 
 With necessary charges of the weight 
 Of all this sin, and " Calvin, for the rest. 
 
 Made bold to burn Servetus. Ah, men err!^^ — 
 And so do churches ! which is all we mean 
 
 To bring to proof in any register 
 Of theological fat kine and lean : 
 
 So drive them back into the pens! refer 
 Old sins (with pourpoint, "quotha" and "I ween") 
 
 Entirely to the old times, the old times ; 
 Nor ever ask why this preponderant 
 
 Infallible pure Church could set her chimes 
 Most loudly then, just then, — most jubilant. 
 
 Precisely then, when mankind stood in crimes 
 Full heart-deep, and Heaven's judgments were not scant. 
 
 Inquire still less what signifies a church 
 Of perfect inspiration and pure laws 
 
 Who burns the first man with a brimstone-torch. 
 And grinds the second, bone by bone, because 
 
 The times, forsooth, are used to rack and scorch ! 
 What is a holy Church unless she awes 
 
 The times down from their sins ? Did Christ select 
 
 [55] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Such amiable times to come and teach 
 
 Love to, and mercy ? The whole world were wrecked 
 If every mere great man, who lives to reach 
 
 A little leaf of popular respect, 
 Attained not simply by some special breach 
 
 In the age's customs, by some precedence 
 In thought and act, which, having proved him higher 
 
 Than those he lived w^ith, proved his competence 
 In lielping them to wonder and aspire. 
 
 My words are guiltless of the bigot's sense. 
 My soul has fire to mingle with the fire 
 
 Of all these souls, within or out of doors 
 Of Eome's church or another. I believe 
 
 In one Priest, and one temple, with its floors 
 Of shining jasper gloomed at morn and eve 
 
 By countless knees of earnest auditors. 
 And crystal walls too lucid to perceive, 
 
 That none may take the measure of the place 
 And say, " So far the porphyry, then the flint ; 
 
 To this mark mercy goes, and there ends grace,'' 
 Though still the permeable crystals hint 
 
 At some white starry distance, bathed in space. 
 I feel liow Nature's ice-crusts keep the dint 
 
 Of undersprings of silent Deity. 
 I hold the articulated gospels which 
 
 Show Christ among us crucified on tree. 
 I love all who love truth, if poor or ricli 
 In what they have won of truth possessively. 
 
 [ 56 ] 
 

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CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 No altars_, and no hands defiled with pitch, 
 Shall scare me off; but I will pray and eat 
 
 With all these, taking leave to choose my ewers, 
 And say at last, " Your visible churches cheat 
 
 Their inward types ; and, if a church assures 
 
 Of standing ivithout failure and defeat. 
 
 The same both fails and lies/^ 
 
 To leave which lures 
 
 Of wider subject through past years, — behold. 
 We come back from the popedom to the pope. 
 
 To ponder what he 7)iust be, ere we are bold 
 For what he mai/ be, with our heavy hope 
 
 To trust upon his soul. So, fold by fold. 
 Explore this mummy in the priestly cope. 
 
 Transmitted through the darks of time, to catch 
 The man within the wrappage, and discern 
 
 How he, an honest man, upon the watch 
 Full fifty years for what a man may learn, 
 
 Contrived to get just there; with what a snatch 
 Of old-world oboli he had to earn 
 
 The passage through ; with what a drowsy sop. 
 To drench the busy barkings of his brain ; 
 
 What ghosts of j^ale tradition, wreathed with hop 
 ^Gainst wakeful thouglit, he had to entertain 
 
 For heavenly visions ; and consent to stop 
 The clock at noon, and let the hour remain 
 
 (AYithout vain windings-up) inviolate 
 Agahist all chimings from the belfry. Lo, 
 
 [57] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 From every given pope you must abate. 
 Albeit you love him, some things — good, you know 
 
 Which every given heretic you hate, 
 Assumes for his, as being plainly so. 
 
 A pope must hold by popes a little, — yes. 
 By councils, from Nicsea up to Trent, — 
 
 By hierocratic empire, more or less 
 Irresponsible to men, — ■ he must resent 
 
 Each man^s particular conscience, and repress 
 Inquiry, meditation, argument. 
 
 As tyrants faction. Also, he must not 
 Love truth too dangerously, but prefer 
 
 " The interests of the Church " (because a blot 
 Is better than a rent, in miniver) ; 
 
 Submit to see the people swallow hot 
 Husk-porridge, wdiich his chartered churchmen stir 
 
 Quoting the only true God's epigraph, 
 " Feed my lambs, Peter ! " must consent to sit 
 
 Attesting with his pastoral ring and stall* 
 To such a picture of our Lady, hit 
 
 Off wtII by artist-angels (though not half 
 As fair as Giotto would have painted it) ; 
 
 To such a vial, where a dead man's blood 
 Runs yearly warm beneath a churchman's linger; 
 
 To such a holy house of stone and wood. 
 Whereof a cloud of angels was the bringer 
 
 From Betlilehem to Loreto. AVere it good 
 For any pope on earth to be a flinger 
 
 Of stones against these high-niched counterfeits ? 
 [58] 
 
TTNFINISHED bust of 
 Brutus by Michel Angelo 
 in Bargello. 
 
 " Where Buonarroti passionate^,/ tried . 
 From out the close-clenched marble to demand 
 The head of Rome's sublimest hoTuieide." 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, p. 43. 
 
 " Straight his plastic hand 
 Fell back before his prophet-soul, and left 
 A fragment, a maimed Brutus. " 
 
 — Taaa rtiiiHi Winflows. n 87. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Apostates only are iconoclasts. 
 
 He dares not say, while this false thing abets 
 That true thing, " This is false/' He keeps his fasts 
 
 And prayers, as prayer and fast were silver frets 
 To change a note upon a string that lasts. 
 
 And make a lie a virtue. Now, if he 
 Did more than this, higher hoped, and braver dared, 
 
 I think he were a pope in jeopardy, 
 Or no pope rather, for his truth had barred 
 
 The vaulting of his life ; and certainly. 
 If he do only this, mankind's regard 
 
 Moves on from him at once to seek some new 
 Teacher and leader. He is good and great 
 
 According to the deeds a pope can do ; 
 Most liberal, save those bonds ; affectionate. 
 
 As princes may be, and, as priests are, true. 
 But only the Ninth Pius after eight. 
 
 When all 's praised most. At best and hopefullest. 
 He 's pope : we want a man ! His heart beats warm ; 
 
 But, like the prince enchanted to the waist. 
 He sits in stone, and hardens by a charm 
 
 Into the marble of his throne high-placed. 
 Mild benediction waves his saintly arm — 
 
 So, good ! But what we want 's a perfect man. 
 Complete and all alive : half travertine 
 
 Half suits our need, and ill subserves our plan. 
 Peet, knees, nerves, sinews, energies divine. 
 
 Were never yet too much for men who ran 
 In such hard ways as must be this of thine, 
 
 [59] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Deliverer whom we seek, whoe'er thou art, 
 Pope, prince, or peasant ! If, indeed, the first. 
 
 The noblest, therefore ! since the heroic heart 
 Within thee must be great enough to burst 
 
 Those trammels buckling to the baser part 
 Thy saintly peers in Rome, who crossed and cursed 
 
 With the same finger. 
 
 Come, appear, be found. 
 If pope or peasant, come ! we hear the cock. 
 
 The courtier of the mountains when first crowned 
 With golden dawn ; and orient glories flock 
 
 To meet the sun upon the highest ground. 
 Take voice, and work ! we wait to hear thee knock 
 
 At some one of our Florentine nine gates. 
 On each of which was imaged a sublime 
 
 Face of a Tuscan genius, which, for hate's 
 And love's sake both, our Florence in her prime 
 
 Turned boldly on all comers to her states, 
 As heroes turned their shields in antique time 
 
 Emblazoned with honorable acts. And thoudi 
 The gates are blank now of such images, 
 
 And Petrarch looks no more from Niccolo 
 Toward dear Arezzo, 'twixt the acacia-trees. 
 
 Nor Dante, from gate Gallo — still we know. 
 Despite the razing of the blazonries, 
 
 Eemains the consecration of the shield : 
 The dead heroic faces will start out 
 
 On all these gates, if foes should take the field, 
 [ 60 ] 
 
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CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 And blend sublimely, at the earliest shout, 
 
 With living heroes who will scorn to yield 
 A hair's-breadth even, when, gazing round about. 
 
 They find in what a glorious company 
 They fight the foes of Florence. Who will grudge 
 
 His one poor life, when that great man we see 
 Has given five hundred years, the world being judge, 
 
 To help the glory of his Italy ? 
 Who, born the fair side of the Alps, will budge, 
 
 When Dante stays, when Ariosto stays. 
 When Petrarch stays for ever ? Ye bring swords, 
 
 My Tuscans ? Ay, if wanted in this haze. 
 Bring swords, but first bring souls, — bring thoughts and 
 words, 
 
 Unrusted by a tear of yesterday^s. 
 Yet awful by its wrong, — and cut these cords. 
 
 And mow this green, lush falseness to the roots. 
 And shut the mouth of hell below the swathe ! 
 
 And, if ye can bring songs too, let the Intel's 
 Recoverable music softly bathe 
 
 Some poet's hand, that, through all bursts and bruits 
 Of popular passion, all unripe and rathe 
 
 Convictions of the popular intellect. 
 Ye may not lack a finger up the air, 
 
 Annunciative, reproving, pure, erect. 
 To show which way your first ideal bare 
 
 The whiteness of its wings when (sorely pecked 
 By falcons on your wrists) it unaware 
 
 Arose up overhead and out of sight. 
 
 [61 ] 
 
» CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Meanwhile^ let all the far ends of the world 
 
 Breathe back the deep breath of their old delight, 
 To swell the Italian banner just unfurled. 
 
 Help, lands of Europe ! for, if Austria fight. 
 The drums will bar your slumber. Had ye curled 
 
 The laurel for your thousand artists' brows. 
 If these Italian hands had planted none ? 
 
 Can any sit down idle in the house. 
 Nor hear appeals from Buonarroti's stone 
 
 And RaffaeFs canvas, rousing and to rouse ? 
 Where 's Poussin's master ? Gallic Avignon 
 
 Bred Laura, and Vaucluse's fount has stirred 
 The heart of France too strongly, as it lets 
 
 Its little stream out (like a wizard's bird 
 Which bounds upon its emerald wing, and wets 
 
 The rocks on each side), that she should not gird 
 Her loins with Charlemagne's sword when foes beset 
 
 The country of her Petrarch. Spain may well 
 Be minded how from Italy she caught. 
 
 To mingle with her tinkling Moorish bell, 
 A fuller cadence and a subtler thought. 
 
 And even the New World, the receptacle 
 Of freemen, may send glad men, as it ought, 
 
 To greet Vespucci Amerigo's door. 
 While England claims, by trump of poetry, 
 
 Verona, Venice, the Raveniia-shore, 
 And dearer holds John Milton's Fiesole 
 
 Than Lauglande's Malvern with the stars in flower. 
 
 [62] 
 
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CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 And Vallombrosaj we two went to see 
 
 Last June^ beloved companion^ where sublime 
 The mountains live in holy families, 
 
 And the slow pine-woods ever climb and climb 
 Half up their breasts, just stagger as they seize 
 
 Some gray crag, drop back with it many a time, 
 And straggle blindly down the precipice. 
 
 The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick 
 That June day, knee-deep with dead beechen leaves. 
 
 As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick. 
 And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves 
 
 Are all the same too : scarce have they changed the wick 
 On good St. Gualbert's altar which receives 
 
 The convent's pilgrims ; and the pool in front 
 (Wherein the hill-stream trout are cast, to wait 
 
 The beatific vision and the grunt 
 Used at refectory) keeps its weedy state. 
 
 To baffle saintly abbots who would count 
 The fish across their breviary, nor ''bate 
 
 The measure of their steps. waterfalls 
 And forests ! sound and silence ! mountains bare. 
 
 That leap up peak by peak, and catch the palls 
 Of purple and silver mist to rend and share 
 
 With one another, at electric calls 
 Of life in the sunbeams, — till we cannot dare 
 
 Fix your shapes, count your number ! we must think 
 Your beauty and your glory helped to fill 
 
 The cup of Milton's soul so to the brink. 
 He nevermore was thirsty when God's will 
 
 [63] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Had shattered to his sense the last chain-link 
 By which he had drawn from Nature's visible 
 
 The fresh well-water. Satisfied by this. 
 He sang of Adam's paradise, and smiled, 
 
 Eemembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is 
 The place divine to English man and child. 
 
 And pilgrims leave their souls here m a kiss. 
 
 For Italy 's the whole earth's treasury, piled 
 
 With reveries of gentle ladies. Hung 
 Aside, like ravelled silk, from life's worn stuff; 
 
 With coins of scholars' fancy, which, being rung 
 On workday counter, still sound silver-proof : 
 
 In short, with all the dreams of dreamers young, 
 Before their heads have time for slipping off 
 
 Hope's pillow to the ground. How oft, indeed, 
 We 've sent our souls out from the rigid north, 
 
 On bare white feet which would not print nor bleed, 
 To climb the Alpine passes, and look forth. 
 
 Where booming low the Lombard rivers lead 
 To gardens, vineyards, all a dream is worth, — 
 
 Sights thou and I, love, have seen afterward 
 From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide awake,^ 
 
 When, standing on the actual blessed sward 
 Where Galileo stood at nights to take 
 
 The vision of the stars, we have found it hard, 
 Gazing upon the earth and heaven, to make 
 
 A choice of beauty. 
 
 1 Galileo's villa, close to Floreuce, is built on au emiucuce called 
 Bellosguardo. 
 
 [64] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Therefore let us all 
 Refreshed in England or in other land, 
 
 Bj visions, with their fountain rise and fall, 
 Of this earth^s darling, — we, who understand 
 
 A little how the Tuscan musical 
 Vowels do round themselves as if they planned 
 
 Eternities of separate sweetness, — we. 
 Who loved Sorrento vines in picture-book. 
 
 Or ere in mnecup we pledged faith or glee, — 
 Who loved Rome's wolf with demigods at suck, 
 
 Or ere we loved truth's own divinity, — 
 Who loved, in brief, the classic hill and brook. 
 
 And Ovid's dreaming tales and Petrarch's song. 
 Or ere we loved Love's self even, — let us give 
 
 The blessing of our souls (and wish them strong 
 To bear it to the height where prayers arrive. 
 
 When faithful spirits pray against a wrong,) 
 To this great cause of southern men who strive 
 
 In God's name for man's rights, and shall not fail ! 
 
 Behold, they shall not fail. The shouts ascend 
 
 Above the shrieks, in Naples, and prevail. 
 Rows of shot corpses, waiting for the end 
 
 Of burial, seem to smile up straight and pale 
 Into the azure air, and apprehend 
 
 That final gun-flash from Palermo's coast 
 Which lightens their apocalypse of death. * 
 
 So let them die ! The world shows nothing lost ; 
 Therefore not blood. Above or underneath, 
 
 5 [65 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 What matter, brothers, if ye keep your post 
 On duty's side ? As sword returns to sheath. 
 
 So dust to grave ; but souls find place in heaven. 
 Heroic daring is the true success, 
 
 The eucharistic bread requires no leaven ; 
 And, though your ends were hopeless, we should bless 
 
 Your cause as holy. Strive — and, having striven, 
 Take for God's recompense that righteousness ! 
 
 [66] 
 
c 
 
 AMPANILE, with Cathedral 
 and Baptistry. 
 
 " The startling bell-toicer Giotto rriised.^ 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 105, 
 
 " Thy great campanile is still to finish.'''' 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 111. 
 
 *' Here xohere Giotto 2>lanted 
 His campanile like an nnperplext 
 Fine question heavenward.''^ 
 
 — Casa Guidi Windows, pp. 24, 25. 
 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 part 3rh30 
 
 I WROTE a meditation and a dream, 
 
 Hearing a little child sing in the street : 
 I leant upon his music as a theme. 
 
 Till it gave way beneath my heart's full beat 
 Which tried at an exultant prophecy, 
 
 But dropped before the measure was complete — 
 Alas for songs and hearts ! O Tuscany, 
 
 O Dante's Florence, is the type too plain? 
 Didst thou, too, only sing of liberty. 
 
 As little children take up a high strain 
 With unintentioned voices, and break off 
 
 To sleep upon their mothers' knees again ? 
 Couldst thou not watch one hour ? then sleep enough, 
 
 That sleep may hasten manhood, and sustain 
 The faint, pale spirit with some muscular stuff. 
 
 But we who cannot slumber as thou dost ; 
 We thinkers, who have thought for thee, and failed ; 
 
 We hopers, who have hoped for thee, and lost ; 
 We poets, wandered round by dreams,^ who hailed 
 
 From this Atrides' roof (with lintel-post 
 Which still drips blood, — the worse part hath prevailed) 
 
 The fire-voice of the beacons to declare 
 
 1 See the opening passage of the Agamemnon of ^schylus. 
 
 [67] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Troy taken, sorrow ended, — cozened through 
 
 A crimson sunset in a misty air, 
 "What now remains for such as we to do ? 
 
 God's judgments, perad venture, will he bare 
 To the roots of thunder, if we kneel and sue ? 
 
 From Casa Guidi windows I looked fortli. 
 And saw ten thousand eyes of Florentines 
 
 Flash back the triumph of the Lombard north, — 
 Saw fifty banners, freighted with the signs 
 
 And exultations of the awakened earth, 
 Float on above the multitude in lines. 
 
 Straight to the Pitti. So, the vision went. 
 And so, between those populous rough hands 
 
 Raised in the sun, Duke Leopold outleant. 
 And took the patriot's oath which henceforth stands 
 
 Among tlie oaths of perjurers, eminent 
 To catch the lightnings ripened for these lands. 
 
 Why swear at all, thou false Duke Leopold ? 
 
 What need to swear ? AVhat need to boast thy blood 
 
 Unspoilt of Austria, and thy heart unsold 
 Away from Florence ? It was understood 
 
 God made thee not too vigorous or too bold ; 
 And moil had ])atience with thy quiet mood, 
 
 And women pity, as they saw thee pace 
 Their festive streets with premature gray hairs. 
 
 We turned tlic mild dejection of tliy face 
 To princely meanings, took tliy wrinkling cares 
 
 [68] 
 
>ORTRAIT of Michel Aiigelo 
 Buonarroti, painted by him- 
 self. Uffizi Gallery. 
 
 " They are safe in heaven .... 
 
 The Michaela and Rafaels, you hum and buzz 
 
 Rmind the works of^ you of the little mit.^" 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 107, 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 For ruffling hopes_, and called thee weak^ not base. 
 Nay, better light the torches for more prayers, 
 
 And smoke the pale Madonnas at the shrine, — 
 Being still " our poor Grand-duke, our good Grand-duke, 
 
 Who cannot help the Austrian in his line,''^ — 
 Than write an oath upon a nation's book 
 
 For men to spit at with scorn^s blurring brine ! 
 Who dares forgive what none can overlook ? 
 
 For me, I do repent me in this dust 
 Of towns and temples which makes Italy ; 
 
 I sigh amid the sighs which breathe a gust 
 Of dying century to century 
 
 Around us on the uneven crater-crust 
 Of these old worlds ; I bow my soul and knee. 
 
 Absolve me, patriots, of my woman^s fault 
 That ever I believed the man was true ! 
 
 These sceptred strangers shun the common salt, 
 And therefore, when the general board '?, in view, 
 
 And they stand up to carve for blind and halt. 
 The wise suspect the viands which ensue. 
 
 I much repent, that in this time and place, 
 Where many corpse-lights of experience bum 
 
 From Csesar^s and Lorenzo^s festering race, 
 To enlighten groping reasoners, I could learn 
 
 No better counsel for a simple case 
 Than to put faith in princes, in my turn. 
 
 Had all the death-piles of the ancient years 
 Flared up in vain before me ? knew I not 
 
 [69] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 What stench arises from some purple gears ? 
 And how the sceptres witness whence they got 
 
 Their brier-wood^ crackling through the atmosphere^s 
 Eoul smoke, by princely perjuries kept hot? 
 
 Forgive me, ghosts of patriots, — Brutus, thou 
 Who trailest down hill into life again 
 
 Thy blood-weighed cloak, to indict me with thy slow, 
 Eeproachful eyes ! — for being taught in vain. 
 
 That, while the illegitimate Caesars show 
 Of meaner stature than the first full strain 
 
 (Confessed incompetent to conquer Gaul,) 
 They swoon as feebly, and cross Rubicons 
 
 As rashly, as any Julius of them all ! 
 Forgive, that I forgot the mind which runs 
 
 Through absolute races, too unsceptical ! 
 I saw the man among his little sons. 
 
 His lips were warm with kisses while he swore; 
 And I, because I am a woman, I, 
 
 Who felt my own child's coming life before 
 The prescience of my soul, and held faith high, — 
 
 I could not bear to tliink, whoever bore, 
 That lips so warmed could shape so cold a lie. 
 
 From Casa Guidi windows I looked out. 
 Again looked, and beheld a different sight. 
 
 The Duke had fled before the people's shout 
 " Long live the Duke ! '' A people, to speak right. 
 
 Must speak as soft as courtiers, lest a doubt 
 Should curdle brows of gracious sovereigns white. 
 
 [70] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Moreover, that same dangerous shouting meant 
 Some gratitude for future favors which 
 
 Were only promised, the Constituent 
 Implied ; the whole being subject to the hitch 
 
 In " motu proprios/^ very incident 
 To all these Czars, from Paul to Paulovitch. 
 
 Whereat the people rose up in the dust 
 Of the ruler's flying feet, and shouted still 
 
 And loudly ; only, this time, as was just. 
 Not " Live the Duke ! " who had fled for good or ill. 
 
 But " Live the People ! '' who remained and must, 
 The unrenounced and unrenounceable. 
 
 Long live the people ! How they lived ! and boiled 
 And bubbled in the caldron of the street ! 
 
 How the young blustered, nor the old recoiled ! 
 And what a thunderous stir of tongues and feet 
 
 Trod flat the palpitating bells, and foiled 
 The joy-guns of their echo, shattering it ! 
 
 How down they pulled the Duke's arms everywhere ! 
 How up they set new cafe-signs, to show 
 
 Where patriots might sip ices in pure air — 
 (The fresh paint smelling somewhat) ! To and fro 
 
 How marched the civic guard, and stopped to stare 
 When boys broke windows in a civic glow ! 
 
 How rebel songs were sung to loyal tunes. 
 And bishops cursed in ecclesiastic metres ! 
 
 How all the Circoli grew large as moons. 
 And all the speakers, moonstruck, — thankful greeters 
 
 [71] 
 
CASA GUIDI AVINDOWS 
 
 Of prospects which struck poor the ducal boons, 
 A mere free Press and Chambers ! frank repeaters 
 
 Of great Guerazzi^s praises — " There ^s a man^ 
 The father of the land, who, truly great. 
 
 Takes off that national disgrace and ban. 
 The farthing-tax upon our Florence-gate, 
 
 And saves Italia as he only can ! " 
 How all tlie nobles fled, and would not wait. 
 
 Because they were most noble! which being so. 
 How Liberals vowed to burn their palaces. 
 
 Because free Tuscans were not free to go ! 
 How grown men raged at Austria's wickedness. 
 
 And smoked, while fifty striplings in a row 
 Marched straight to Piedmont for the wrong's redress ! 
 
 You say we failed in duty, — we who wore 
 Black velvet like Italian democrats, 
 
 Who slashed our sleeves like patriots, nor forswore 
 The true republic in the form of hats ? 
 
 We chased the archbishop from the Duomo door. 
 We chalked the walls with bloody caveats 
 
 Against all tyrants. If we did not fight 
 Exactly, we fired muskets up the air 
 
 To show that victory was ours of right. 
 We met, had free discussion everywhere 
 (Except, perhaps, i' the Chambers) day and night. 
 We proved the poor should be employed . . . that's fair,- 
 
 And yet tlie rich not worked for anywise, — 
 Pay certified, yet payers abrogated. 
 
 Full work secured, yet liabilities 
 
 [72] 
 
)ORTUAIT of Raphael Sanzio, 
 painted by himself. lu Uffizi 
 Gallery. 
 
 " Do their eyes contract to the earth's old'sdope. 
 Now that they see God face to face ? " 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 107. 
 
»>••«• 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 To overwork excluded, — not one bated 
 
 Of all our holidays, that still, at twice 
 Or thrice a week, are moderately rated. 
 
 We proved that Austria was dislodged, or would 
 Or should be, and that Tuscany in arms 
 
 Should, would, dislodge her, ending the old feud ; 
 And yet to leave our piazzas, shops, and farms. 
 
 For the simple sake of figliting, was not good — 
 We proved that also. "Did we carry charms 
 
 Against being killed ourselves, that we should rush 
 On killing others? what, desert herewith 
 
 Our wives and mothers? — was that duty? Tush!" 
 At which we shook the sword within the sheath 
 
 Like heroes, only louder; and the flush 
 E/an up the cheek to meet the future wreath. 
 
 Nay, what we proved, we shouted — how we shouted ! 
 (Especially the boys did), boldly planting 
 
 That tree of liberty, whose fruit is doubted. 
 Because the roots are not of Nature's granting. 
 
 A tree of good and evil : none, without it, 
 Grow gods ; alas ! and, with it, men are wanting. 
 
 holy knowledge, holy liberty ! 
 O holy rights of nations ! If I speak 
 
 These bitter things against the jugglery 
 Of days that in your names proved blind and weak, 
 
 It is that tears are bitter. When we see 
 The brown skulls grin at death in churchyards bleak. 
 
 We do not cry, " This Yorick is too light,'' 
 
 [73] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Por death grows deatlilier with that mouth he makes. 
 
 So with my mocking. Bitter things I write 
 Because my soul is bitter for your sakes, 
 
 O freedom ! my Florence ! 
 
 Men who might 
 Do greatly in a universe that breaks 
 
 And burns, must ever knoio before they do. 
 Courage and patience are but sacrifice ; 
 
 And sacrifice is ofi'ered for and to 
 Something conceived of. Each man pays a price 
 
 Tor what himself counts precious, whether true 
 Or false the appreciation it implies. 
 
 But here, — no knowledge, no conception, nought ! 
 Desire was absent, that provides great deeds 
 
 From out the greatness of prevenient tliouglit ; 
 And action, action, like a flame that needs 
 
 A steady breath and fuel, being caught 
 Up, like a burning reed from other reeds. 
 
 Flashed in the empty and uncertain air. 
 Then wavered, then went out. Behold, who blames 
 
 A crooked course, when not a goal is there 
 To round the fervid striving of tlie games ? 
 
 An ignorance of means may minister 
 To greatness ; but an ignorance of aims 
 
 Makes it impossible to be great at all. 
 So with our Tuscans. Let none dare to say, 
 
 " Here virtue never can be national ; 
 Here fortitude can never cut a way 
 
 [74] 
 
K)RTRAIT of Leonardo da 
 Vinci, painted by himself. 
 In Uffizi Gallery. 
 
 " A younger succeeds to an elder brother, 
 iJa Vincis derive in good time from DeUos.^^ 
 
 — Old Pictures in Floreuce, p. 108. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Between the Austrian muskets^ out of thrall : 
 I tell you rather, that whoever may 
 
 Discern true ends here shall grow pure enough 
 To love them, brave enough to strive for them. 
 
 And strong to reach them, though the roads be rough ; 
 That, having learnt — by no mere apothegm — 
 
 Not just the draping of a graceful stuff 
 About a statue, broidered at the hem, — 
 
 Not just the trilling on an opera-stage, 
 Of " liberta "'■' to bravos — (a fair word. 
 
 Yet too allied to inarticulate rage 
 And breathless sobs, for singing, though the chord 
 
 Were deeper than they struck it) but the gauge 
 Of civil wants sustained, and wrongs abhorred. 
 
 The serious, sacred meaning and full use 
 Of freedom for a nation, — then, indeed. 
 
 Our Tuscans, underneath the bloody dews 
 Of some new morning, rising up agreed 
 
 And bold, will want no Saxon souls or thews 
 To sweep their piazzas clear of Austria^s breed. 
 
 Alas, alas ! it was not so this time. 
 Conviction was not, courage failed, and truth 
 
 Was something to be doubted of. The mime 
 Changed masks, because a mime. The tide as smooth 
 
 In running in as out, no sense of crime 
 Because no sense of virtue. Sudden ruth 
 
 Seized on the people : they would have again 
 Their good Grand-duke, and leave Guerazzi, though 
 
 [75] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 He took tliat tax from Florence. " Much in vain 
 He takes it from the market-carts^ we trow. 
 
 While urgent that no market-men remain, 
 But all march off, and leave the spade and plough 
 
 To die among the Lombards. Was it thus 
 The dear j^aternal Duke did ? Live the Duke ! " 
 
 At which the joy-bells multitudinous. 
 Swept by an opposite wind, as loudly shook. 
 
 Call back the mild archbishop to his house. 
 To bless the people with his frightened look, — 
 
 He shall not yet be hanged, you comprehend ! 
 Seize on Guerazzi ; guard him in full view. 
 
 Or else we stab him in the back to end ! 
 Eub out those chalked devices, set up new 
 
 The Duke's arms, dofP your Phrygian caps, and mend 
 The pavement of the piazzas broke into 
 
 By barren poles of freedom : smooth the way 
 For the ducal carriage, lest his Highness sigh, 
 
 " Here trees of liberty grew yesterday ! '' 
 " Long live the Duke ! ^' How roared the cannonry ! 
 
 How rocked the bell-towers ! and through thickening 
 spray 
 Of nosegays, wreaths, and kerchiefs tossed on high. 
 
 How marched the civic guard, the people still 
 Being good at sliouts, especially the boys ! 
 
 Alas, poor people, of an uniledged will 
 Most fitly expressed by such a callow voice ! 
 
 Alas, still poorer Duke, incapable 
 Of being worthy even of so much noise ! 
 
 [ ^G ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 You think he came back instantly _, with thanks^ 
 And tears in his faint eyes, and hands extended 
 
 To stretch the franchise through their utmost ranks ? 
 That having, like a father apprehended. 
 
 He came to pardon fatherly those pranks 
 Played out, and now in filial service ended ? 
 
 That some love-token, like a prince, he threw 
 To meet the people^s love-call in return ? 
 
 Well, how he came I will relate to you ; 
 And if your hearts should burn — wliy, hearts ?nnst burn. 
 
 To make the ashes which things old and new 
 Shall be washed clean in — as this Duke will learn. 
 
 From Casa Guidi windows gazing then, 
 I saw and witness how the Duke came back. 
 
 The regular tramp of horse, and tread of men. 
 Did smite the silence like an anvil black 
 
 And sparkless. With her wide eyes at full strain. 
 Our Tuscan nurse exclaimed, '' Alack, alack, 
 
 Signora ! these shall be the Austrians.^^ — ^^ Nay, 
 Be still,''^ I answered ; "do not wake the child ! '' 
 
 — For so, my two-months' baby sleeping lay 
 In milky dreams upon the bed, and smiled. 
 
 And I thought, " He shall sleep on, while he may, 
 Through the world's baseness : not being yet defiled. 
 
 Why should he be disturbed by what is done ? " 
 Then, gazing, I beheld the long-drawn street 
 
 Live out, from end to end, full in the sun, 
 With Austria^s thousand ; sword and bayonet, 
 
 [ 77 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Horse, foot, artillery, cannons rolling on 
 Like blind, slow storm-clouds gestant with the heat 
 
 Of undeveloped lightnings, each bestrode 
 By a single man, dust-white from head to heel, 
 
 Indifferent as the dreadful thing he rode. 
 Like a sculptured Fate serene and terrible. 
 
 As some smooth river which has overflowed, 
 Will slow and silent down its current wheel 
 
 A loosened forest, aU the pines erect. 
 So swept, in mute significance of storm. 
 
 The marshalled thousands ; not an eye deflect 
 To left or right, to catch a novel form 
 
 Of Florence city adorned by architect 
 A nd carver, or of beauties live and warm 
 
 Scared at the casements, — all, straightforward eyes 
 And faces, held as steadfast as their swords. 
 
 And cognizant of acts, not imageries. 
 The key, Tuscans, too well fits the wards ! 
 
 Ye asked for mimes, — these bring you tragedies; 
 For purple, — these shall wear it as your lords. 
 
 Ye played like children, — die like innocents. 
 Ye mimicked lightnings with a torch, — the crack 
 
 Of the actual bolt, your pastime circumvents. 
 Ye called up ghosts, believing they were slack 
 
 To follow any voice from Gilboa's tents . . . 
 Here 's Samuel ! — and so. Grand-dukes come back ! 
 
 And yet they are no prophets, though they come : 
 That awful mantle they are drawing close 
 
 [78 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Shall be searched one day by the shafts of doom 
 Through double folds now hoodwinking the brows. 
 
 Eesuscitated monarchs disentomb 
 Grave-reptiles with them in their new life-throes. 
 
 Let such beware. Behold, the people waits, 
 Like God : as he, in his serene of might, 
 
 So they, in their endurance of long straits. 
 Ye stamp no nation out, though day and night 
 
 Ye tread them with that absolute heel which grates 
 And grinds them flat from all attempted height. 
 
 You kill worms sooner with a garden spade 
 Than you kill peoples ; peoples will not die ; 
 
 The tail curls stronger when you lop the head : 
 They writhe at every wound, and multiply 
 
 And shudder into a heap of life that 's made 
 Thus vital from God's own vitality. 
 
 'T is hard to shrivel back a day of God^s 
 Once fixed for judgment ; 't is as hard to change 
 
 The peoples when they rise beneath their loads. 
 And heave them from their backs with violent wrench 
 
 To crush the oppressor : for that judgment rod^s 
 The measure of this popular revenge. 
 
 Meanwhile, from Casa Guidi windows, we 
 Beheld the armament of Austria flow 
 
 Into the drowning heart of Tuscany ; 
 And yet none wept, none cursed, or, if 't was so, 
 
 They wept and cursed in silence. Silently 
 Our noisy Tuscans watched the invading foe ; 
 
 [79 ] 
 
'* CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 They had learnt silence. Pressed against the wall. 
 And grouped upon the church-steps opposite, 
 
 A few pale men and women stared at all. 
 God knows what they were feeling, with their white 
 
 Constrained faces, — they so prodigal 
 Of cry and gesture when the world goes right, 
 
 Or wrong indeed. But here was depth of wrong, 
 And here, still water : they were silent here ; 
 
 And through that sentient silence struck along 
 That measured tramp from which it stood out clear. 
 
 Distinct the sound and silence, like a gong 
 At midnight, each by the other awfuUer, — 
 
 While every soldier in liis cap displayed 
 A leaf of olive. Dusty, bitter thing ! 
 
 Was such plucked at Novara, is it said ? 
 
 A cry is up in England, which doth ring 
 
 The hollow world through, that for ends of trade 
 And virtue, and God's better worshipping, 
 
 We henceforth should exalt the name of Peace, 
 And leave those rusty wars that eat the soul, — 
 
 Besides their clippings at our golden fleece. 
 I, too, have loved peace, and from bole to bole 
 
 Of immemorial undcciduous trees 
 Would write, as lovers use upon a scroll. 
 
 The holy name of Peace, and set it higli 
 Where none could pluck it down. On trees, I say, 
 
 Not upon gibbets ! — With the greenery 
 Of dewy branches and the flowery May, 
 
 [80] 
 
N 
 
 10 BE and her Daughter. 
 Statue in Uffizi Gallery. 
 
 " You 're grieved 
 
 still Niohe '* the f/rander ! " 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 109. 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Sweet mediation betwixt earth and sky 
 Providing, for tlie shepherd^s holiday. 
 
 Not upon gibbets ! though the vulture leaves 
 The bones to quiet,, which he first picked bare. 
 
 Not upon dungeons ! though the wretch who grieves 
 And groans within, less stirs the outer air 
 
 Than any little field-mouse stirs the sheaves. 
 Not upon chain-bolts ! though the slave's despair 
 
 Has dulled his helpless miserable brain, 
 And left him blank beneath the freeman's whip 
 
 To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain. 
 Nor yet on starving homes ! where many a lip 
 
 Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain. 
 I love no peace which is not fellowship. 
 
 And which includes not mercy. I would have 
 Bather the raking of the guns across 
 
 The world, and shrieks against heaven's architrave ; 
 Kather the struggle in the slippery fosse 
 
 Of dying men and horses, and the wave 
 Blood-bubbling. . . . Enough said ! — by Christy's own 
 cross, 
 
 And by this faint heart of my womanhood. 
 Such things are better than a Peace that sits 
 
 Beside a hearth in self-commended mood. 
 And takes no thought how wind and rain bv fits 
 
 Are howling out of doors against the good 
 Of the poor wanderer. "What ! your peace admits 
 
 Of outside anguish while it keeps at home ? 
 I loathe to take its name upon my tongue. 
 6 [81 ] 
 
" CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 ^T is nowise peace : ^t is treason, stiff with doom ; 
 ■'T is gagged despair, and inarticulate wrong, 
 
 Annihilated Poland, stifled Eome, 
 Dazed Naples, Hungary fainting ^neath the thong, 
 
 And Austria wearing a sraootli olive-leaf 
 On her brute forehead, while her hoofs outpress 
 
 The life from these Italian souls in brief. 
 Lord of peace, who art Lord of righteousness, 
 
 Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief. 
 Pierce them with conscience, purge them with redress. 
 
 And give us peace which is no counterfeit ! 
 But wherefore should we look out any more 
 
 From Casa Guidi windows? Shut them straight. 
 And let us sit down by the folded door. 
 
 And veil our saddened faces, and so wait 
 What next the judgment-heavens make ready for. 
 
 I have grown too weary of these windows. Sights 
 Come tliick enougli and clear cnougli in thought. 
 
 Without the sunshine : souls have inner lidits. 
 And since the Grand-duke lias come back, and brouglit 
 
 This army of the North which thus requites 
 His filial South, we leave liim to be taught. 
 
 His Soudi, too, has learnt something certainl}''. 
 Whereof the practice will bring profit soon ; 
 
 And peradventure ofher eyes may see. 
 From Casa Guidi windows, what is done 
 
 Or undone. Wiiatsoevcr deeds they be. 
 Pope Pius will be glorified in none. 
 
 [83] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Eecord that gain, Mazzini ! It shall top 
 Some heights of sorrow. Peter^s rock, so named. 
 
 Shall lure no vessel any more to drop 
 Among the breakers. Peter's chair is shamed. 
 
 Like any vulgar throne the nations lop 
 To pieces for their firewood unreclaimed ; 
 
 And when it burns, too, we shall see as well 
 In Italy as elsewhere. Let it burn. 
 
 The cross accounted still adorable 
 Is Christ's cross only ! If the thief s would earn 
 
 Some stealthy genuflexions, we rebel ; 
 And here the impenitent thief s has had its turn. 
 
 As God knows; and the people on their knees 
 Scoff, and toss back the crosiers stretched like yokes 
 
 To press their heads down lower by degrees. 
 So Italy, by means of these last strokes. 
 
 Escapes the danger which preceded these. 
 Of leaving captured hands in cloven oaks, — 
 
 Of leaving very souls within the buckle 
 Whence bodies struggled outward, — of supposing 
 
 That free men may like bondsmen kneel and truckle, 
 And then stand up as usual, without losing 
 
 An inch of stature. 
 
 Those whom she- wolves suckle 
 Will bite as wolves do in the grapple-closing 
 
 Of adverse interests. This at last is known 
 (Thank Pius for the lesson), that albeit 
 
 Among the Popedom's hundred heads of stone 
 Which blink down on you from the roofs retreat 
 
 [83] 
 
" CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 In Siena^s tiger-striped cathedral^ Joan 
 And Borgia ^mid their fellows you may greet, 
 
 A harlot and a devil, — you will see 
 Not a man, still less angel, grandly set 
 
 With open soul to render man more free. 
 The fishers are still thinking of the net. 
 
 And, if not thinking of the hook too, we 
 Are counted somewhat deeply in their debt ; 
 
 But that 's a rare case — so, by hook and crook. 
 They take the advantage, agonizing Christ 
 
 By rustier nails than those of Cedron^s brook, 
 V the people's body very cheaply priced, — 
 
 And quote high priesthood out of Holy book. 
 While buying death-fields with the sacrificed. 
 
 Priests, priests, — there 's no such name ! — God's own, 
 except 
 Ye take most vainly. Through heaven's lifted gate 
 
 The priestly cphod in sole glory swept 
 When Christ ascended, entered in, and sate 
 
 (With victor face sublimely overwept) 
 At Deity's right hand to mediate. 
 
 He alono, he forever. On his breast 
 The Urim and tlie Thummim, fed with fire 
 
 From the full Godlicad, flicker with the unrest 
 Of human pitiful heart beats. Come up higher. 
 
 All Christians. Levi's tribe is dispossest. 
 That solitary alb ye shall admire. 
 
 But not cast lots for. The last chrism, poured right, 
 
 [84] 
 
nnHE Dyinj; Alexander, in 
 ■*- the Utiizi Gallery. 
 
 '• There V the dyimf Alexander.'''' 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 109. 
 
C a I I' ir t 
 
 < t » L » «. (t 
 
 J C . C let t 
 
 c e f < 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 "Was on that Head, and poured for burial, 
 
 And not for domination in men^s sight. 
 What are these churches ? The old temple wall 
 
 Doth overlook them juggling with the sleight 
 Of surplice, candlestick, and altar-pall ; 
 
 East church and west church, ay, north church and 
 south, 
 Eome^s church and England^s — let them all repent. 
 
 And make concordats ^twixt their soul and mouth. 
 Succeed St. Paul by working at the tent. 
 
 Become infallible guides by speaking truth. 
 And excommunicate their pride that bent 
 
 And cramped the souls of men. 
 
 Why, even here. 
 Priestcraft burns out, the twined linen blazes ; 
 
 Not, like asbestos, to grow white and clear. 
 But all to perish ! while the fire- smell raises 
 
 To life some swooning spirits, who last year 
 Lost breath and heart in these church-stifled places. 
 
 Why, almost through this Pius, we believed 
 The priesthood could be an honest thing, he smiled 
 
 So saintly while our corn was being sheaved 
 For his own granaries ! Showing now defiled 
 
 His hireling hands, a better help^s achieved 
 Than if they blessed us shepherd-like and mild. 
 
 False doctrine, strangled by its own amen. 
 Dies in the throat of all this nation. Who 
 
 Will speak a pope^s name as they rise again ? 
 What woman or what child will count him true ? 
 
 [85] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 What dreamer praise him with the voice or pen ? 
 What man fight for him ? — Pius takes his due. 
 
 Record that gain, Mazzini ! — Yes_, but first 
 Set down thy people^s faults ; set down the want 
 
 Of soul-conviction ; set down aims dispersed. 
 And incoherent means, and valor scant 
 
 Because of scanty faith, and schisms accursed 
 That wrench these brother-hearts from covenant 
 
 With freedom and each other. Set down this, 
 And this, and see to overcome it when 
 
 The seasons bring the fruits thou wilt not miss 
 If wary. Let no cry of patriot men 
 
 Distract thee from the stern analysis 
 Of masses who cry only ! keep thy ken 
 
 Clear as thy soul is virtuous. Heroes^ blood 
 Splashed up against thy noble brow in Eome; 
 
 Let sucli not blind thee to an interlude 
 Which was not also holy, yet did come 
 
 ^Twixt sacramental actions, — brotherliood 
 Despised even there, and something of the doom 
 
 Of Remus in tlie trenches. Listen now — 
 Rossi died silent near where Cnesar died. 
 
 He did not say, " My l-Jrutus, is it thou?^' 
 But Italy unquestioned testified, 
 
 " / killed him ! / am Brutus. — I avow." 
 At which the wliole worhVs laugh of scorn replied, 
 
 " A poor maimed copy of Ikutus ! " Too much like. 
 Indeed, to be so unlike ! too unskilled 
 
 [86] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 At Philippi and the honest battle-pike, 
 To be so skilful where a man is killed 
 
 Near Pompey^s statue, and the daggers strike 
 At unawares i' the throat. Was thus fulfilled 
 
 An omen once of Michel Angelo ? — 
 When Marcus Brutus he conceived complete, 
 
 And strove to hurl him out by blow on blow 
 Upon the marble, at Art^s thunder-heat. 
 
 Till haply (some pre-shadow rising slow 
 Of what his Italy would fancy meet 
 
 To be called Brutus) straight his plastic hand 
 Fell back before his prophet-soul, and left 
 
 A fragment, a maimed Brutus, — but more grand 
 Than this, so named at Eome, was ! 
 
 Let thy weft 
 
 Present one woof and warp, Mazzini ! Stand 
 With no man hankering for a dagger^s heft. 
 
 No, not for Italy ! — nor stand apart, 
 No, not for the Eepublic ! — from those pure 
 
 Brave men who hold the level of thy heart 
 In patriot truth, as lover and as doer. 
 
 Albeit they will not follow where thou art 
 As extreme theorist. Trust and distrust fewer. 
 
 And so bind strong, and keep unstained the cause 
 Which (God^s sign granted) war-trumps newly blown 
 
 Shall yet annunciate to the world's applause. 
 
 But now, the world is busy : it has grown 
 
 A Pair-going world. Imperial England draws 
 [87] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 The flowing ends of the earth from Fez, Canton, 
 
 Delhi, and Stockholm, Athens and Madrid, 
 The Bussias and the vast Americas, 
 
 As if a queen drew in her robes amid 
 Her golden cincture, — isles, peninsulas. 
 
 Capes, continents, far inland countries hid 
 By jasper-sands and hills of chrysopras, 
 
 All trailing in their splendors through the door 
 Of the gorgeous Crystal Palace. Every nation. 
 
 To every other nation strange of yore. 
 Gives face to face the civic salutation. 
 
 And holds up in a proud right hand before 
 That congress the best work which she can fashion 
 
 By her best means. " These corals, will you please 
 To match against your oaks ? They grow as fast 
 
 Within my wilderness of purple seas.^^ — 
 " This diamond stared upon me as I passed 
 
 (As a live god's eye from a marble frieze) 
 Along a dark of diamonds. Is it classed ? " — 
 
 " I wove these stufPs so subtly that the gold 
 Swims to the surface of the silk like cream 
 
 And curdles to fair patterns. Yc bcliold ! " — 
 " These delicatest muslins rather seem 
 
 Than be, you think ? Nay, touch lliem and be bold, 
 Though siK'li veiled Chakhi's face in Hafiz' dream." — 
 
 '^ 1'liese carpets — you walk slow on them like kings. 
 Inaudible like spirits, while your foot 
 
 Dips deep in velvet roses and such tilings." — 
 " Even Apollonius might commend tliis flute : 
 
 [88] 
 

 I I 
 
 O s" 
 
 o o 
 
 ^ 
 
 o ? 
 
 2 ^ 
 
 5" 5" 
 
CASA GUIDI WLNDOWS 
 
 The music, winding through the stops, upsprings 
 To make the player very rich : compute ! ^' 
 
 " Here 's goblet-glass, to take in with your wine 
 The very sun its grapes were ripened under : 
 
 Drink light and juice together, and each fine.'* — 
 " This model of a steam-ship moves your wonder ? 
 
 You should behold it crushing down the brine 
 Like a blind Jove, who feels his way with thunder." — 
 
 " Here 's sculpture ! Ah, we live too ! why not throw 
 Our life into our marbles? Art has place 
 
 For other artists after Angelo." — 
 " I tried to paint out here a natural face ; 
 
 For nature includes Eaffael, as we know. 
 Not E/affael nature. Will it help my case ? " — 
 
 " Methinks you will not match this steel of ours ! " — 
 " Nor you this porcelain ! One might dream the clay 
 
 Eetained in it the larvse of the flowers, 
 They bud so round the cup, the old spring-way.'^ — 
 
 " Nor you these carven woods, where birds in bowers 
 With twisting snakes and climbing cupids play." 
 
 O Magi of the east and of the west. 
 Your incense, gold, and myrrh are excellent ! — 
 
 What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest ? 
 Your hands have worked well : is your courage spent 
 
 In handwork only ? Have you nothing best. 
 Which generous souls may perfect and present. 
 
 And He shall thank the givers for ? no light 
 Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor 
 
 [89] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 Who sit in darkness when it is not night ? 
 No cure for wicked children? Christ — no cure ! 
 
 No help for women sobbing out of sight 
 Because men made the laws ? no brothel-lure 
 
 Burnt out by popular lightnings ? Hast thou found 
 No remedy, my England, for such woes ? 
 
 No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, 
 No entrance for the exiled ? no repose, 
 
 Russia, for knouted Poles worked underground. 
 And gentle ladies bleached among the snows ? 
 
 No mercy for the slave, America ? 
 No hope for Eome, free Erance, chivalric France ? 
 
 Alas, great nations have great shames, I say. 
 No pity, world, no tender utterance 
 
 Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way 
 For poor Italia, baffled by mischance ? 
 
 O gracious nations, give some ear to me ! 
 You all go to your Fair, and I am one 
 
 Who at the roadside of humanity 
 Beseech your alms, — God's justice to be done. 
 
 So, prosper ! 
 
 In the name of Italy, 
 Meantime her patriot dead have benison. 
 
 They oidy have done well; and, what they did 
 Being perfect, it shall triumph. I a! Ihem slumber: 
 
 No king of Egypt in a pyramid 
 Is safer from oblivion, though he iniiiiber 
 
 Full seventy cerements for a coverlid. 
 These dead be seeds of life, and shall encumber 
 
 [ 90 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 The sad heart of the land until it loose 
 The clammy clods, and let out the spring-growth 
 
 In beatific green through every bruise. 
 The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, 
 
 Since every victim-carrion turns to use. 
 And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth, 
 
 Against each piled injustice. Ay, the least, 
 Dead for Italia, not in vain has died ; 
 
 Though many vainly, ere lifers struggle ceased, 
 To mad dissimilar ends have swerved aside ; 
 
 Each grave her nationality has pieced 
 By its own majestic breadth, and fortified, 
 
 And pinned it deeper to the soil. Forlorn 
 Of thanks be, therefore, no one of these graves ! 
 
 Not hers, — ^w\\o, at her husband's side, in scorn. 
 Outfaced the whistling shot and hissing waves. 
 
 Until she felt her little babe unborn 
 Eecoil, within her, from the violent staves 
 
 And bloodhounds of the world : at which her life 
 Dropt inwards from her eyes, and followed it 
 
 Beyond the hunters. Garibaldi's wife 
 And child died so. And now the seaweeds fit 
 
 Her body, like a proper shroud and coif. 
 And murmurously the ebbing waters grit 
 
 The little pebbles while she lies interred 
 In the sea-sand. Perhaps, ere dying thus. 
 
 She looked up in his face (which never stirred 
 From its clinched anguish) as to make excuse 
 
 For leaving him for his, if so she erred. 
 [91 ] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 He well remembers that she could not choose. 
 
 A memorable grave ! Another is 
 At Genoa. There a king may fitly lie, 
 
 Who, bursting that heroic heart of his 
 At lost No vara, that he could not die, 
 
 (Though thrice into the cannon^s eyes for this 
 He plunged his shuddering steed, and felt the sky 
 
 Reel back between the fire-shocks) stripped away 
 The ancestral ermine ere the smoke had cleared. 
 
 And, naked to the soul, that none might say 
 His kingship covered what was base and bleared 
 
 AVith treason, went out straight an exile, yea. 
 An exiled patriot. Let him be revered. 
 
 Yea, verily, Charles Albert has died well; 
 And if he lived not all so, as one spoke, 
 
 The sin pass softly with the passing-bell : 
 For he was shriven, I think, in cannon-smoke. 
 
 And, taking off his crown, made visible 
 A hero's forehead. Shaking Austria's yoke. 
 
 He shattered his own hand and heart. " So best,' 
 His last words were upon his lonely bed, 
 
 " I do not end like popes and dukes at least — 
 Thank Cod for it." And now that he is dead, 
 
 Admitting it is proved and maiiifest 
 That he was worthy, with a discrowned head. 
 
 To measure heights witli patriots, let them stand 
 Beside the man in his Oporto shroud. 
 
 And each vouchsafe to take him by the hand, 
 [92] 
 
QTATUE of Niccola Pisauo, 
 in Portico of the Uffizi. 
 
 " My sculjttor is N'lcolo the Piin%/^ ' ' 
 
 — Old Picc'irea in FTr-^rce, p. 113. 
 

 I ( e f r e r 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 And kiss him on the cheeky and say aloud, 
 
 " Thou, too, hast suffered for our native land ! 
 My brother, thou art one of us ! be proud.'"' 
 
 Still, graves, when Italy is talked upon. 
 Still, still, the patriot's tomb, the stranger's hate. 
 
 Still Niobe ! still fainting in the sun. 
 By whose most dazzling arrows violate 
 
 Her beauteous offspring perished 1 has she won 
 Nothing but garlands for the graves, from Fate ? 
 
 Nothing but death-songs ? Yes, be it understood 
 Life throbs in noble Piedmont ! while the feet 
 
 Of Eome's clay image, dabbled soft in blood. 
 Grow flat with dissolution, and, as meet. 
 
 Will soon be shovelled off like other mud. 
 To leave the passage free in church and street. 
 
 And I, who first took hope up in this song. 
 Because a child was singing one . . . behold. 
 
 The hope and omen were not, haply, wrong ! 
 Poets are soothsavers still, like those of old 
 
 Who studied flights of doves ; and creatures young 
 And tender, mighty meanings may unfold. 
 
 The sun strikes through the windows, up the floor ; 
 Stand out in it, my own young Florentine, 
 
 Not two years old, and let me see thee more ! 
 It grows along thy amber curls, to shine 
 
 Brighter than elsewhere. Now, look straight before, 
 And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine, 
 
 [93] 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 And from my soul, which fronts the future so, 
 With unabashed and unabated gaze. 
 
 Teach me to hope for, what the angels know 
 When they smile clear as thou dost. Down God^s ways 
 
 With just alighted feet, between the snow 
 And snowdrops, where a little lamb may graze, 
 
 Thou hast no fear, my lamb, about the road. 
 Albeit in our vain-glory we assume 
 
 That, less than we have, thou hast learnt of God. 
 Stand out, my blue-eyed prophet ! — thou to whom 
 
 The earliest world-day light that ever flowed. 
 Through Casa Guidi windows chanced to come ! 
 
 Now shake the glittering nimbus of thy hair. 
 And be God's witness that the elemental 
 
 New springs of life are gushing everywhere 
 To cleanse the water-courses, and prevent all 
 
 Concrete obstructions which infest the air ! 
 That earth 's alive, and gentle or ungentle 
 
 Motions within her signify but growth ! — 
 The ground swells greenest o'er the laboring moles. 
 
 Howe'er the uneasy world is vexed and wroth, 
 Young children, lifted liigh on parent souls. 
 
 Look round them with a smile upon the mouth, 
 And take for music every bell that tolls ; 
 
 (Who said we should be better if like these ?) 
 But we sit murmuring for the future, though 
 
 Posterity is smiling on our knees. 
 Convicting us of folly. Let us go — 
 
 [94 ] 
 
T/'ASAllI'S portrait of Ghiberti, in 
 Hall of Cosimo T., in Palazzo 
 Veccliio. 
 
 " jS^or ei'er teas man of them all indeed^ 
 From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, 
 Could say that he missed my critic-meed. " 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 113 
 
CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
 
 We will trust God. The blank interstices 
 Men take for ruins, He will build into 
 
 With pillared marbles rare, or knit across 
 With generous arches, till the fane 's complete. 
 This world has no perdition, if some loss. 
 
 Such cheer I gather from thy smiling, sweet ! 
 
 The self-same cherub-faces which emboss 
 The Yeil, lean inward to the Mercy-seat. 
 
 [95] 
 
THE DANCE 
 
THE DANCE 
 
 YOU remember down at Florence our Cascine 
 Where the people on the feast-days walk and drive, 
 And through the trees, long-drawn in many a green way, 
 O'er-roofing hum and murmur like a hive, 
 The river and the mountains look alive ? 
 
 n 
 
 You remember the piazzone there, the stand-place 
 Of carriages a-brim with Florence beauties. 
 
 Who lean and melt to music as the band plays. 
 Or smile and chat with some one who afoot is, 
 Or on horseback, in observance of male duties ? 
 
 ni 
 
 'T is so pretty, in the afternoons of summer. 
 So many gracious faces brought together ! 
 
 Call it rout, or call it concert, they have come here, 
 In the floating of the fan and of the feather, 
 To reciprocate with beauty the fine weather. 
 
 [99] 
 
THE DANCE 
 
 IV 
 
 While the flower-girls ofi'er nosegays (because they too 
 Go with other sweets) at every carriage-door ; 
 
 Here, by shake of a white finger, signed away to 
 Some next buyer, who sits buying score on score, 
 PiKng roses upon roses evermore. 
 
 V 
 
 And last season, when the French camp had its station 
 In the meadow-ground, things quickened and grew gayer 
 
 Through the mingling of the liberating nation 
 
 With this people ; groups of Frenchmen everywhere. 
 Strolling, gazing, judging lightly — " who was fair/^ 
 
 VI 
 
 Then the noblest lady present took upon her 
 To speak nobly from her carriage for the rest : 
 
 " Pray these officers from France to do us honor 
 By dancing with us straightway/' The request 
 Was gravely apprehended as addrest. 
 
 VII 
 
 And the men of France, bareheaded, bowing lowly, 
 Led out each a proud signora to the space 
 
 Which the startled crowd had rounded for them — slowly, 
 Just a touch of still emotion in his face. 
 Not presuming, through the symbol, on the grace. 
 
 [100] 
 
PORTRAIT of Ghirlandajo 
 (Domcnico Bigordi), from his 
 fresco of Joachim's Expulsion 
 from the Temple, iu Santa 
 Maria Novella. 
 
 " Xot that I expect the great BUfordi 
 . ... to hear m^;." 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 1 14 
 
THE DANCE 
 
 VIII 
 
 There was silence in the people : some lips trembled, 
 But none jested. Broke the music at a glance ; 
 
 And the daughters of our princes, thus assembled, 
 Stepped the measure with the gallant sons of France, 
 Hush ! it might have been a Mass, and not a dance. 
 
 IX 
 
 And they danced there till the blue that overskied us 
 Swooned with passion, though the footing seemed sedate ; 
 
 And the mountains, heaving mighty hearts beside us. 
 Sighed a rapture in a shadow, to dilate, 
 And touch the holy stone where Dante sate. 
 
 X 
 
 Then the sons of France, bareheaded, lowly bowing. 
 Led the ladies back where kinsmen of the south 
 
 Stood, received them ; till, with burst of overflowing 
 Feeling, husbands, brothers, Florence's male youth. 
 Turned and kissed the martial strangers mouth to mouth. 
 
 XI 
 
 And a cry went up, — a cry from all that people ! 
 — You have heard a people cheering, you suppose. 
 
 For the member, mayor . . . with chorus from the steeple ? 
 This was different, scarce as loud perhaps (who knows ?), 
 For we saw wet eyes around us ere the close. 
 
 [101 ] 
 
THE DANCE 
 
 XII 
 
 Amd we felt as if a nation, too long borne in 
 
 By hard wrongers, — comprehending in such attitude 
 
 That God had spoken somewhere since the morning, 
 That men were somehow brothers, by no platitude, 
 Cried exultant in great wonder and free gratitude. 
 
 [ 102] 
 
PORTRAIT of Alessandro Botticelli, 
 ill his ])ictiire of The Adoration of 
 the Maiii. Uffizi Gallery. 
 
 Sandra .... cliii'alrir, hellicose/" 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 THE morn when first it thunders in March, 
 The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say 
 As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch 
 
 Of the villa-gate this warm March day, 
 No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 
 
 In the valley beneath where, white and wide 
 And washed by the morning water-gold, 
 Florence lay out on the mountain-side. 
 
 II 
 
 Eiver and bridge and street and square 
 
 Lay mine, as much at my beck and call^ 
 Through the live translucent bath of air. 
 
 As the sights in a magic crystal ball. 
 And of all I saw and of all I praised, 
 
 The most to praise and the best to see 
 Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised: 
 
 But why did it more than startle me? 
 [ 105 ] 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 III 
 
 Giotto, how, with that soul of jours, 
 
 Could you play me false who loved you so ? 
 Some slights if a certain heart endures 
 
 Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know ! 
 I^ faith, I perceive not why I should care 
 
 To break a silence that suits them best. 
 But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear 
 
 When I find a Giotto join the rest. 
 
 IV 
 
 On the arch where olives overhead 
 
 Print the blue sky witli twig and leaf, 
 (That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed) 
 
 ^Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief. 
 And mark through the winter afternoons. 
 
 By a gift God grants me now and then. 
 In the mild decline of those suns like moons. 
 
 Who walked in Plorence, besides her men. 
 
 V 
 
 They might chirp and chaffer, come and go 
 
 For pleasure or profit, her men alive — 
 My business was hardly with them, I trow. 
 
 But with empty cells of the human hive; 
 — With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, 
 
 The church's apsis, aisle or nave. 
 Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch. 
 
 Its face set full for the sun to shave. 
 
 [ 106] 
 
PORTRAIT of Filippfno Lippi, 
 in Uffizi Gallery. Painted by 
 himself. 
 
 llie icromjed Lippiiio. " - • . . 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 YI 
 
 Wherever a fresco peels and drops, 
 
 Wherever an outline weakens and wanes 
 Till the latest life in the painting stops. 
 
 Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains : 
 One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick. 
 
 Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, 
 — A lion who dies of an ass''s kick, 
 
 The wronged great soul of an ancient Master. 
 
 TEI 
 
 For oh, this world and the wrong it does ! 
 
 They are safe in heaven with their backs to it. 
 The Michaels and Rafaels, vou hum and buzz 
 
 Eound the works of, you of the little wit ! 
 Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope, 
 
 Now that they see God face to face. 
 And have all attained to be poets, I hope ? 
 
 'T is their holiday now, in any case. 
 
 YIII 
 
 Much they reck of your praise and you ! 
 
 But the wronged great souls — can they be quit 
 Of a world where their work is all to do. 
 
 Where you style them, you of the little wit. 
 Old Master This and Early the Other, 
 
 Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows : 
 [ 107] 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 A younger succeeds to an elder brother. 
 
 Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.^ 
 
 IX 
 
 And here where your praise might yield returns. 
 
 And a handsome word or two give help. 
 Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns 
 
 And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. 
 What, not a word for Stefano ^ there. 
 
 Of brow once prominent and starry. 
 Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair 
 
 For his peerless painting ? (see Yasari.) 
 
 There stands the Master. Study, my friends. 
 
 What a man*s work comes to ! So he plans it. 
 Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 
 
 For the toiling and moiling, and then, sic transit ! 
 Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor. 
 
 With upturned eye while the hand is busy. 
 Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbor ! 
 
 ^Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy. 
 
 ^ Dello Delli, whose reputation was founded on his skill in painting 
 small figures on " cassoni " for wedding ganneuts and the like. No existing 
 work can be attributed to him with certainty. 
 
 2 Although extravagantly praised by Vasari, no authenticated picture by 
 Stefano (1301-1350) exists in Florence. 
 
 [108 ] 
 
nORONATIOX of the Virgin, 
 by Lorenzo Monaco. In Utfizi 
 Galk'i-v. 
 
 " Xot a churli.sh saint, Lorenzo Monaco .' " 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 11-4 
 
 " Brother Lorenzo stanch his shii/h i>eer/' 
 
 — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 1-9 
 
, OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 XI 
 
 '' If you knew their work you would deal your dole/' 
 
 May I take upon me to instruct you ? 
 When Greek Art ran and reached the goal^ 
 
 Thus much had the world to boast infructn — 
 The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken. 
 
 Which the actual generations garble. 
 Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken) 
 
 And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble. 
 
 XII 
 
 So, you saw yourself as you wished you were. 
 
 As you might have been, as you cannot be ; 
 Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there ; 
 
 And grew content in your poor degree 
 With your little power, by those statues* godhead. 
 
 And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, 
 And your little grace, by their grace embodied. 
 
 And your little date, by their forms that stay. 
 
 XIII 
 
 You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am ? 
 
 Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. 
 You would prove a model ? The Son of Priam 
 
 Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. 
 You're wroth — can you slay your snake like Apollo ? 
 
 You 're grieved — still Niobe 's the grander ! 
 You live — there 's the Racers' frieze to follow : 
 
 You die — there 's the dying Alexander. 
 [ 109 1 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 XIV 
 
 So, testing your weakness by their strength, 
 
 Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty, 
 Measured by Art in your breadth and length, 
 
 You learned — to submit is a mortal's duty. 
 — When I say " you ''' 't is the common soul. 
 
 The collective, I mean : the race of Man 
 That receives life in parts to live in a whole, 
 
 And grow here according to God's clear plan. 
 
 XV 
 
 Growth came when, looking your last on them all. 
 
 You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day 
 And cried with a start — What if we so small 
 
 Be greater and grander the while than they ! 
 Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ? 
 
 In both, of such lower types are we 
 Precisely because of our wider nature ; 
 
 For time, theirs — ours, for eternity. 
 
 XVI 
 
 To-day's brief passion limits their range ; 
 
 It seethes with the morrow for us and more. 
 They are perfect — how else ? they shall never change •. 
 
 We are faulty — why not ? we have time in store. 
 The Artificer's hand is not arrested 
 
 With us ; we are rough-hewn, no-wise polished : 
 They stand for our copy, and, once invested 
 
 With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. 
 [110] 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 XVII 
 ^T is a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — 
 
 The better ! What ■'s come to perfection perishes. 
 Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven : 
 
 Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. 
 Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto ! 
 
 Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish. 
 Done at a stroke, was just (was it not ?) " ! " 
 
 Thy great Campanile is still to finish. 
 
 XVIII 
 Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter. 
 
 But what and where depend on lifers minute ? 
 Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter 
 
 Our first step out of the gulf or in it ? 
 Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, 
 
 Man's face, have no more play and action 
 Than joy which is crystallized forever, 
 
 Or grief, an eternal petrifaction ? 
 
 XIX 
 
 On which I conclude, that the early painters. 
 
 To cries of " Greek Art and what more wish you ? 
 Replied, "To become now self-acquainters. 
 
 And paint man, man, whatever the issue ! 
 Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray. 
 
 New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters : 
 To bring the invisible full into play ! 
 
 Let the visible go to the dogs — what matters ? '" 
 
 [111 ] 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 XX 
 
 Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory 
 
 For daring so much, before the}' well did it. 
 The first of the new, in our racers story. 
 
 Beats the last of the old ; 't is no idle quiddit. 
 The worthies began a revolution. 
 
 Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge. 
 Why, honor them now ! (ends my allocution) 
 
 Nor confer your degree when the folks leave college. 
 
 XXI 
 
 There 's a fancy some lean to and others hate — 
 
 That, when this life is ended, begins 
 New work for the soul in another state. 
 
 Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins : 
 Where the strong and the weak, this world^s congeries, 
 
 Eepeat in large what they practised in small. 
 Through life after life in unlimited series ; 
 
 Only the scale 's to be changed, that 's all. 
 
 XXII 
 Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen 
 
 By the means of Evil that Good is best. 
 And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's 
 serene, — 
 
 When our faith in the same has stood the test — 
 Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod. 
 
 The uses of labor are surely done ; 
 There remaineth a rest for the people of God : 
 
 And I have had troubles enough, for one. 
 
 [ 112] 
 
A LESSIO BALDOVINETTI'S 
 
 Madoima aud Saints, in Uffizi 
 Gallery. 
 
 '■'' the someiohat pettif,"' ,' '. • 
 
 Of f hired touch and tempera criipihly ^-^^ 
 . . . . Alesao lUddorineft't.^^ 
 
 — Old Pictures in Florence, p. 114 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 XXIII 
 
 But at any rate I have loved the season 
 
 Of Art^s spring-birth so dim and dewy ; 
 My sculptor is Nicolo, the Pisan, 
 
 My painter — who but Cimabue? 
 Nor ever was man of them all indeed, 
 
 Prom these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, 
 Could say that he missed my critic-meed. 
 
 So, now to my special grievance — heigh ho ! 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Their ghosts still stand, as I said before. 
 
 Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, 
 Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o^er : 
 
 — No getting again what the church has grasped ! 
 The works on the wall must take their chance ; 
 
 ^^ Works never conceded to England's thick clime ! '^ 
 (I hope they prefer their inheritance 
 
 Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.) 
 
 XXV 
 
 When they go at length, with such a shaking 
 
 Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly 
 Each master his way through the black streets taking. 
 
 Where many a lost work breathes though badly — 
 Why don't they bethink them of who has merited ? 
 
 Why not reveal, while their pictures dree 
 Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted ? 
 
 Why is it they never remember me ? 
 8 [ 113 ] 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Not that I expect the great Bigordi, 
 
 Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose ; 
 Nor the wronged Lippino ; and not a word I 
 
 Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico^s : 
 But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 
 
 To grant me a taste of your intonaco, 
 Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye ? 
 
 Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco ? 
 
 XXVII 1 
 
 Could not the ghost with the close red cap, 
 
 My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman. 
 Save me a sample, give me the hap 
 
 Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughtsman? 
 No Virgin by him the somewhat petty. 
 
 Of finical touch and tempera crumbly - — 
 Could not Alesso Baldovinetti 
 
 Contribute so much, I ask him humbly ? 
 
 xxvni 
 
 Margheritone of Arezzo, 
 
 With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret 
 (Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so. 
 
 You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?) 
 
 1 The pictures alluded to in this and the following stanza are said to have 
 been Browning's own property. 
 
 [ 114] 
 

 O 
 
 w 
 
 >" t= 
 
 c 
 
 ± <=: 
 
 
 
 
 — • f~ 
 
 ►^ 
 
 ?r c 
 
 (r\ 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 :r. 
 
 c — • 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 C ?: 
 
 hr- '^ 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion,, 
 
 Where in the foreground kneels the donor ? 
 
 If such remain, as is my conviction, 
 
 The hoarding it does you but little honor. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 They pass ; for them the panels may thrill, 
 
 The tempera grow alive and tinglish ; 
 Their pictures are left to the mercies still 
 
 Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English, 
 Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize. 
 
 Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno 
 At naked High Art, and in ecstasies 
 
 Before some clay-cold vile Carlino ! ^ 
 
 XXX 
 
 No matter for these ! But Giotto, you, 
 
 Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it, — 
 Oh, never ! it shall not be counted true — - 
 
 That a certain precious little tablet '■^ 
 Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover, — 
 
 Was buried so long in oblivion's womb 
 And, left for another than I to discover. 
 
 Turns up at last ! and to whom ? — to whom ? 
 
 1 Carlo Dolci, a painter of the seventeenth century, when art had begun 
 to decline. 
 
 ^ A famous " Last Supper " mentioned by Vasari, which went astray from 
 San Spirito and was afterwards found in some obscure corner, and purchased 
 by a stranger. 
 
 [115] 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 XXXI 
 
 I, that have haunted the dim Sau Spirito, 
 
 (Or was it rather the Oguissaiiti ?) 
 Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe ! 
 
 Nay, I shall have it yet ! Betur amcmtil 
 My Koh-i-noor — or (if that's a platitude) 
 
 Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian Soft's eye ; 
 So, in anticipative gratitude. 
 
 What if I take up my hope and prophesy ? 
 
 XXXII 
 
 When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotard 
 
 Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing, 
 To the worse side of the Mont St. Gothard, 
 
 We shall begin by way of rejoicing ; 
 None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge). 
 
 Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer. 
 Hunting Kadetzky^s soul like a partridge 
 
 Over Morello with squib and cracker. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 This time we ^11 shoot better game and bag 'em hot — 
 
 No mere display at the stone of Dante, 
 But a kind of sober Witanagemot 
 
 (Ex: "Casa Guidi,^^ quod vicleas ante) 
 Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Plorence, 
 
 How Art may return that departed with her. 
 Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine^s, 
 
 And bring us the days of Orgagna hither ! 
 [ 116] 
 
o 
 
 o 
 
 ^ o 
 
 p- I— I 
 
 
OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 How we shall prologize, how we shall perorate, 
 
 Utter fit things upon art and history, 
 Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero rate 
 
 Make of the want of the age no mystery; 
 Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras, 
 
 Show — monarchy ever its uncouth cub licks 
 Out of the bear's shape into Chimsera's, 
 
 While Pure Art's birth is still the republic's. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan, 
 
 Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an " issmo^ 
 To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, 
 
 And turn the bell-towers' alt to altissimo : 
 And fine as the beak of a young beccaccia 
 
 The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally. 
 Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia. 
 
 Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold 
 
 Is broken away, and the long-pent fire. 
 Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffled 
 
 Springs from its sleep, and up goes the spire 
 While " God and the People " plain for its motto. 
 
 Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky ? 
 At least to foresee that glory of Giotto 
 
 And Florence together, the first am I ! 
 [ 117] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 1855 
 
 I AM poor brother Lippo, by your leave ! 
 You need not clap your torches to my face. 
 Zooks, what ^s to blame ? you think you see a monk ! 
 What, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds. 
 And here you catch me at an alley's end 
 Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar ? 
 The Carmine 's my cloister : hunt it up. 
 Do, — harry out, if you must show your zeal, 
 Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, 
 And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 
 Weke, WeJcey that 's crept to keep him company ! 
 Aha, you know your betters ? Then you ''11 take 
 Your hand away that 's fiddling on my throat. 
 And please to know me likewise. Who am I ? 
 Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 
 Three streets off — he 's a certain . . . how d' ye call ? 
 Master — a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, 
 r the house that caps the corner. Boh ! you were best 
 Eemember and tell me, the day you 're hanged. 
 How you affected such a guUet's-gripe ! 
 But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves 
 Pick up a manner nor discredit you : 
 
 [ 121 ] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 Zooks, are we pilchards^ that they sweep the streets 
 And count fair prize what comes into their net ? 
 He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is ! 
 Just such a face ! Why, sir, you make amends. 
 Lord, I 'm not angry ! Bid your hangdogs go 
 Drink out this quarter-florin to the health 
 Of the munificent House that harbors me 
 (And many more beside, lads ! more beside !) 
 And all 's come square again. I 'd like his face — 
 His, elbowing on his comrade in the door 
 With the pike and lantern, — for the slave that holds 
 John Baptist^s head a-dangle by the hair 
 With one hand (" Look you, now,^^ as who should say) 
 And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped ! 
 It 's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, 
 A wood-coal or the like ? or you should see ! 
 Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so. 
 What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, 
 You know them and they take you ? like enough ! 
 I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 
 ^Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. 
 Let 's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. 
 Here 's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands 
 To roam the town and sing out carnival, 
 And 1 \e been three weeks shut within my mew, 
 A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 
 And saints again. I could not paint all night — 
 Ouf ! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 
 There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 
 
 [ 122 ] 
 
>OUTllArr of Cosimo de' Medici 
 (called Pater Patria;), by Pon- 
 toriuo. In Uffizi Gallery. 
 
 ** \\ Jio (li/i J : 
 ^yjit/, one,, sir, irJio is lodyituf irith n friend 
 Three streets off . . . . Cosimo of the Medici."' 
 
 — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 121 
 
.• • • 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 A sweep of lute-strings^ laughs, and whifts of song, — 
 
 Flower d' the broorrij 
 
 Take away love, and our earth is a tomb ! 
 
 Flower o' the quince^ 
 
 I let Lisa go, and what good in life since ? 
 
 Flower o* the thyme — and so on. Eound they went. 
 
 Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter 
 
 Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, — three slim 
 
 shapes. 
 And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and 
 
 blood. 
 That 's all I 'm made of ! Into shreds it went. 
 Curtain and counterpane and coverlet. 
 All the bed- furniture — a dozen knots. 
 There was a ladder ! Down I let myself. 
 Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped. 
 And after them. I came up with the fun 
 Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met, — 
 Floioer o' the rose. 
 
 If Fve been merry, what matter who knows ? 
 And so as I was stealing back again 
 To get to bed and have a bit of sleep 
 Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work 
 On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast 
 With his great round stone to subdue the flesh. 
 You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see ! 
 Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head — 
 Mine 's shaved — a monk, you say — the sting 's in that ! 
 If Master Cosimo announced himself, 
 
 [ 123 ] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 Mum ^s the word naturally ; but a monk ! 
 
 Come, what am I a beast for ? tell us, now ! 
 
 I Avas a baby when my mother died 
 
 And father died and left me in the street. 
 
 I starved there, God knows how, a year or two 
 
 On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks. 
 
 Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, 
 
 My stomach being empty as your hat. 
 
 The wind doubled me up and down I went. 
 
 Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, 
 
 (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) 
 
 And so along the wall, over the bridge. 
 
 By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there. 
 
 While I stood munching my first bread that month : 
 
 " So, boy, you 're minded,'^ quoth the good fat father, 
 
 Wiping his own mouth, 't was refection-time, — 
 
 " To quit this very miserable world ? 
 
 Will you renounce '^ . . . " the mouthful of bread ? '^ 
 
 thought I ; 
 By no means ! Brief, they made a monk of me ; 
 I did renounce the world, its pride and greed. 
 Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house. 
 Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 
 Have given their hearts to — all at eight years old. 
 Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 
 'T was not for nothing — the good bellyful, 
 The warm serge and the rope that goes all round. 
 And day-long blessed idleness beside ! 
 '^ Let 's see what the urchin 's fit for " — that came next. 
 
 [ 124 ] 
 
QT. JEROME, by Era Lippo 
 Lippi. In Academy. 
 
 " / rise up to-morrow and go to work 
 On Jerome knorkhtf/ at his poor olcVhr^xist 
 With his (/re<it round stone to subdue the flesh."' 
 
 — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 123 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 Not overmuch their way, I must confess. 
 Such a to-do ! They tried me with their books : 
 Lord, they 'd have taught me Latin in pure waste ! 
 Flower 6* the clove, 
 
 All the Latin I construe is, " amo '^ I love ! 
 But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 
 Eight years together as my fortune was. 
 Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 
 The bit of half- stripped grape- bunch he desires. 
 And who will curse or kick him for his pains, — 
 Which gentleman processional and fine. 
 Holding a candle to the Sacrament 
 Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch 
 The droppings of the wax to sell again. 
 Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, — 
 How say I ? — ■ nay, which dog bites, which lets drop 
 His bone from the heap of offal in the street, — 
 Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike. 
 He learns the look of things, and none the less 
 For admonition from the hunger-pinch. 
 I had a store of such remarks, be sure. 
 Which, after I found leisure, turned to use : 
 I drew men^s faces on my copy-books. 
 Scrawled them within the antiphonary^s marge. 
 Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes. 
 Found eyes and nose and chin for A.s and B.s, 
 And made a string of pictures of the world 
 Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun. 
 On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. 
 
 [ 125 ] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 " Nay/"* quoth the Prior,, " turn him out^ d' ye say ? 
 In uo wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. 
 What if at last we get our man of parts, 
 We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese 
 And Preaching Priars, to do our church up fine 
 And put the front on it that ought to be ! '^ 
 And hereupon he bade me daub away. 
 Thank you ! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, 
 Never was such prompt disemburdening. 
 First, every sort of monk, the black and white, 
 I drew them, fat and lean : then, folk at church, 
 Prom good old gossips waiting to confess 
 Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, — 
 To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, 
 Presh from his murder, safe and sitting there 
 With the little children round him in a row 
 Of admiration, half for his beard and half 
 Por that white anger of his victim^s son 
 Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 
 Signing himself with the other because of Christ 
 (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 
 After the passion of a thousand years) 
 Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, 
 (Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve 
 On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 
 Her pair of ear-rings and a bunch of flowers 
 (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone, 
 I painted all, then cried '^'Tis ask and have; 
 Choose^ for more 's ready ! '' — laid the ladder flat, 
 
 [ 126 ] 
 
TTNFINISHED facade of the 
 Church of the Carmine ; 
 iSth to 15th century. 
 
 " What if at last we get oiir nMit'of pgri's 
 
 . ... to do our church up fne 
 
 And put the front on it that ought to he."'' 
 
 — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 12G 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 bowed my covered bit of cloister- wall, 
 onks closed in a circle and praised loud 
 eckedj taught what to see and not to see^ 
 simple bodies,, — " That 's the very man ! 
 it the boy who stoops to pat the dog ! 
 ^oman ^s like the Prior's niece who comes 
 e about his asthma : it 's the life ! '^ 
 ere my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked; 
 Detters took their turn to see and say : 
 ior and the learned pulled a face 
 opped all that in no time. " How? what's here? 
 from the mark of painting, bless us all ! 
 arms, legs, and bodies like the true 
 ch as pea and pea ! it 's devil's game ! 
 Dusiness is not to catch men with show, 
 lomage to the perishable clay, 
 t them over it, ignore it all, 
 them forget there 's such a thing as flesh. 
 )usiness is to paint the souls of men — 
 soul, and it 's a fire, smoke .^ no, it 's not. 
 ipor done up like a new-born babe — 
 it shape when you die it leaves your mouth) 
 . well, what matters talking, it 's the soul ! 
 s no more of body than shows soul ! 
 5 Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, 
 ets us praising, — why not stop with him ? 
 )ut all thoughts of praise out of our head 
 ivonder at lines, colors, and what not ? 
 bhe soul, never mind the legs and arms ! 
 [ 127 ] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 Eub all out, try at it a second time. 
 Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts, 
 She 's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say, — 
 Who went and danced and got men^s heads cut off ! 
 Have it all out ! '''' Now, is tliis sense, I ask ? 
 A fine way to paint soul, by painting body 
 So ill, the eye can^t stop there, must go further 
 And'can't fare worse ! Thus, yellow does for white 
 When what you put for yellow 's simply black. 
 And any sort of meaning looks intense 
 When all beside itself means and looks naught. 
 Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn. 
 Left foot and right foot, go a double step, 
 Make his flesh liker and his soul more like. 
 Both in their order ? Take the prettiest face. 
 The Prior's niece . . . patron-saint — is it so pretty 
 You can^t discover if it means hope, fear, 
 Sorrow or joy ? won't beauty go with these ? 
 Suppose I Ve made her eyes all right and blue. 
 Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, 
 And then add soul and heighten them threefold ? 
 Or say there 's beauty with no soul at all — 
 (I never saw it — put the case the same — ) 
 If you get simple beauty and naught else. 
 You get about the best thing God invents : 
 That 's somewhat : and you '11 find the soul you have missed. 
 Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 
 " Rub all out ! " Well, well, there 's my life, in short. 
 And so the thing has gone on ever since. 
 
 f 128 ] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 I ^m grown a man no doiibt_, I Ve broken bounds : 
 You should not take a fellow eight years old 
 And make him swear to never kiss the girls. 
 I ^m my own master,, paint now as I please — 
 Having a friend, you see, in the Comer-house ! 
 Lord, it ^s fast holding by the rings in front — 
 Those great rings serve more purposes than just 
 To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse ! 
 And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes 
 Are peeping o^er my shoulder as I work. 
 The heads shake still — '^ It 's art's decline, my son ! 
 You ''re not of the true painters, great and old ; 
 Brother Angelico 's the man, you ''11 find ; 
 Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer : 
 Fag on at flesh, you '11 never make the third ! ^^ 
 Flower d* the pine, 
 
 Yoio keep 1/ our mistr . . . manners ^ and I ' II stick to mine ! 
 I'm not the third, then : bless us, they must know ! 
 Don't you think they 're the likeliest to know. 
 They with their Latin ? So, I swallow my rage. 
 Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint 
 To please them — sometimes do, and sometimes don% 
 For, doing most, there 's pretty sure to come 
 A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints — 
 A laugh, a cry, the business of the world — 
 {Flower 6' the peach, 
 
 Death for its all, and his own life for each /) 
 And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over. 
 The world and life 's too big to pass for a dream, 
 9 [ 129 ] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 And I do these wild things in sheer despite, 
 
 And play the fooleries you catch me at. 
 
 In pare rage ! The old mill-horse, out at grass 
 
 After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, 
 
 Although the miller does not preach to him 
 
 The only good of grass is to make chaff. 
 
 What would men have ? Do they hke grass or no - 
 
 May they or may n^t they ? all I want ^s the thing 
 
 Settled for ever one way. As it is. 
 
 You tell too many lies and hurt yourself : 
 
 You don't like what you only like too much. 
 
 You do like what, if given you at your word. 
 
 You find abundantly detestable. 
 
 Por me, I think I speak as I was taught ; 
 
 I always see the garden and God there 
 
 A-making man^s wife : and, my lesson learned. 
 
 The value and significance of flesh, 
 
 I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. 
 
 You understand me : I ''m a beast, I know. 
 But see, now — why, I see as certainly 
 As that tlie morning-star 's about to shine, 
 What will hap some day. We \e a youngster here 
 Comes to our convent, studies what I do. 
 Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop : 
 His name is Guidi — he. ^11 not mind the monks — 
 They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk — 
 He picks my practice up — he '11 paint apace, 
 I hope so — though I never live so long, 
 
 [130] 
 
Coronation of the Virgin, in 
 Medici Chapel of Santa Croce. 
 
 " Here '* Giotto, vnth his Sitiit^ a-j)raisii}g God.' 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 I know what 's sure to follow. You be judge ! 
 You speak no Latin more than I^ belike ; 
 However, you 're my man, you We seen the world 
 
 — The beauty and the wonder and the power, 
 
 The shapes of things, their colors, lights and shades. 
 Changes, surprises, — and God made it all ! 
 
 — For what ? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, 
 For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, 
 The mountain round it and the sky above. 
 Much more the figures of man, woman, child. 
 These are the frame to ? What 's it all about ? 
 To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt upon. 
 Wondered at ? oh, this last of course ! — you say. 
 But why not do as well as say, — paint these 
 Just as they are, careless what comes of it ? 
 God's works — paint anyone, and count it crime 
 To let a truth slip. Don't object, " His works 
 Are here already ; nature is complete : 
 Suppose you reproduce her — (which you can't) 
 There 's no advantage ! you must beat her, then." 
 For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; 
 
 And so they are better, painted — better to us, 
 Which is the same thing. Art was given for that ; 
 God uses us to help each other so. 
 Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now. 
 Your cullion's hanging face ? A bit of chalk. 
 And trust me but you should, though ! How much more, 
 
 [ 131 ] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 If I drew higher things with the same truth ! 
 That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place. 
 Interpret God to all of you ! Oh, oh, 
 It makes me mad to see what men shall do 
 And we in our graves ! This world 's no blot for us. 
 Nor blank ; it means intensely, and means good : 
 To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 
 " Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer ! ^' 
 Strikes in the Prior : ^^ when your meaning 's plain 
 It does not say to folks — remember matins. 
 Or, mind you fast next Friday ! '' Why, for this 
 What need of art at all ? A skull and bones. 
 Two bits of stick nailed cross-wdse, or, what 's best, 
 A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. 
 I painted a Saint Laurence six months since 
 At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style : 
 " How looks my painting, now the scaffold 's down ? " 
 I ask a brother : " Hugely," he returns — 
 ^' Already not one phiz of your three slaves 
 Wlio turn the Deacon off his toasted side. 
 But 's scratched and prodded to our heart's content. 
 The pious people have so eased their own 
 With coming to say prayers there in a rage : 
 We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 
 Expect another job this time next year. 
 For pity and religion grow i' the crowd — 
 Your painting serves its purpose ! ''■' Hang the fools ! 
 — That is — you '11 not mistake an idle word 
 Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot, 
 
 [ 132] 
 
PORTRAIT of Toiimuiso Guidi, 
 called ^lasaccio, from his fresco 
 The Tribute Money. 
 
 ''''We''ve a t/ouni/attfr hep.' .- . .',.,' ; ' 
 His name is Guidi — he ''II not mind the 7nouks — 
 The If call him Jfu/kin;/ Tom.'''' 
 
 — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 130 
 
• • to < 
 
FRA LIPrO LIPPI 
 
 Tasting the air this spicy night which turns 
 The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine ! 
 Oh, the church knows ! don^t misreport me, now ! 
 It 's natural a poor monk out of bounds 
 Should have his apt word to excuse himself : 
 And hearken how I plot to make amends. 
 I have bethought me : I shall paint a piece 
 . . . There 's for you ! Give me six months, then go, see 
 Something in Sant'' Ambrogio^s ! Bless the nuns ! 
 They want a cast o^ my office. I shall paint 
 God in the midst. Madonna and her babe, 
 Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood. 
 Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 
 As puff on puff of grated orris-root 
 When ladies crowd to church at midsummer. 
 And then i' the front, of course a saint or two — 
 Saint John, because he saves the Florentines, 
 Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white 
 The convent^s friends and gives them a long day. 
 And Job, I must have him there past mistake. 
 The man of Uz, (and Us without the z. 
 Painters who need his patience.) Well, all these 
 Secured at their devotion, up shall come ; 
 
 Out of a corner when you least expect. 
 As one by a dark stair into a great light. 
 Music and talking, who but Lippo ! I ! — 
 Mazed, motionless and moon-struck — I 'm the man ! 
 Back I shrink — what is this I see and hear ? 
 I, caught up with my monk^s things by mistake, 
 
 [ 133] 
 
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 Mj old serge gown and rope that goes all round, 
 
 I, in this presence, this pure company ! 
 
 Where ^s a hole, where ''s a corner for escape ? 
 
 Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 
 
 Forward, puts out a soft palm — ^' Not so fast ! " 
 
 — Addresses the celestial presence, " nay — 
 
 He made you and devised you, after all, 
 
 Though he ''s none of you ! Could Saint John there, 
 
 draw — 
 His camel-hair make up a painting-brush ? 
 We come to brother Lippo for all that, 
 Iste perfecit opus ! " So, all smile — 
 I shuffle sideways with my blushing face 
 Under the cover of a hundred wings 
 Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you ^re gay 
 And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, 
 Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops 
 The hothead husband ! Thus I scuttle off 
 To some safe bench behind, not letting go 
 The palm of her, the little lily thing 
 That spoke the good word for me in the nick. 
 Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say. 
 And so all 's saved for me, and for the church 
 A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence ! 
 Your hand, sir, and good-bye : no lights, no lights ! 
 The street 's hushed, and I know my own way back, 
 Don^t fear me ! There 's the gray beginning. Zooks ! 
 
 [134] 
 

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ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 {Called " THE FAULTLESS PAINTER.") 
 
 1855 
 
 BUT do not let us quarrel any more, 
 No, ray Lucrezia ; bear with me for once : 
 Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 
 You turn your face, but does it bring your heart ? 
 I ''11 work then for your friend^'s friend, never fear. 
 Treat his own subject after his own way. 
 Fix his own time, accept too his own price. 
 And shut the money into this small hand 
 When next it takes mine. Will it ? tenderly ? 
 Oh, I '11 content him, — but to-morrow. Love ! 
 I often am much wearier than you think. 
 This evening more than usual, and it seems 
 As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 
 Here by the window with your hand in mine 
 And look a half hour forth on Fiesole, 
 Both of one mind, as married people use. 
 Quietly, quietly the evening through, 
 I might get up to-morrow to my work 
 Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 
 To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this ! 
 
 [ 137 ] 
 
ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 Your soft hand is a woman of itself, 
 
 And mine the man^s bared breast she curls inside. 
 
 Don^t count the time lost, neither ; jou must serve 
 
 For each of the five pictures we require : 
 
 It saves a model. So ! keep looking so — 
 
 My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds ! 
 
 — How could you ever prick those perfect ears, 
 Even to put the pearl there ! oh, so sweet — 
 My face, my moon, my everybody's moon. 
 Which everybody looks on and calls his. 
 
 And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn. 
 While she looks — no one's : very dear, no less. 
 You smile ? why there 's my picture ready made. 
 There 's what we painters call our harmony ! 
 A common grayness silvers everything, — 
 All in a twilight, you and I alike 
 
 — You at the point of your first pride in me 
 (That 's gone you know), — but I, at every point ; 
 My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 
 To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 
 
 There 's the bell clinking from the chapel-top ; 
 That length of convent-wall across the way 
 Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside ; 
 The last monk leaves the garden ; days decrease. 
 And autumn grows, autumn in everything. 
 Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape 
 As if I saw alike my work and self 
 And all that I was born to be and do, 
 A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 
 
 [ 138] 
 
^ O £, ?: 
 
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ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead ; 
 
 So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! 
 
 I feel he laid the fetter : let it lie ! 
 
 This chamber for example — turn your head — 
 
 All that ^s behind us ! You don't understand 
 
 Nor care to understand about my art. 
 
 But you can hear at least when people speak : 
 
 And that cartoon, the second from the door 
 
 — It is the thing. Love ! so such things should be — 
 Behold Madonna ! — I am bold to say. 
 
 I can do with my pencil what I know. 
 
 What I see, wliat at bottom of my heart 
 
 I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 
 
 Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 
 
 I do not boast, perhaps : yourself are judge 
 
 Who listened to the Legate's talk last week. 
 
 And just as much they used to say in France. 
 
 At any rate 't is easy, all of it ! 
 
 No sketches first, no studies, that 's long past : 
 
 I do what many dream of all their lives 
 
 — Dream ? strive to do, and agonize to do. 
 And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 
 On twice your fingers, and not leave this town. 
 Who strive — you don't know how the others strive 
 To paint a little thing like that you smeared 
 Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — 
 
 Yet do much less, so much less. Someone says, 
 (I know his name, no matter) — so much less ! 
 Well, less is more, Lucrezia : I am judged. 
 
 [ 1^9 ] 
 
ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 There burns a truer light of God in them_, 
 In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain^ 
 Heart, or whatever else,, than goes on to prompt 
 This low-pulsed forthright craftsman^s hand of mine. 
 Their works drop grouudward, but themselves, I know, 
 Reach many a time a heaven that 's shut to me. 
 Enter and take their place there sure enough. 
 Though they come back and cannot tell the world. 
 My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 
 The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — 
 Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 
 I, painting from myself and to myself. 
 Know what I do, am unmoved by men^s blame 
 Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 
 Morello^s outline there is wrongly traced, 
 His hue mistaken ; what of that ? or else, 
 Rightly traced and well ordered ; what of that ? 
 Speak as they please, what does the mountain care ? 
 Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. 
 Or what 's a heaven for ? All is silver-gray 
 Placid and perfect with my art : the worse ! 
 I know both what I want and what might gain; 
 And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 
 '^ 1 lad I been two, another and myself, 
 Our head would have overlooked the world ! " No doubt. 
 Yonder 's a work now, of that famous youth 
 The Urbinate who died live years ago. 
 ('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 
 Well, I can fancy how he did it all, 
 
 [ 140 ] 
 
ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, 
 
 Eeaching, that heaven might so replenish him. 
 
 Above and through his art — for it gives way ; 
 
 That arm is wrongly put — and there again — ■ 
 
 A fault to pardon in the drawing^s lines. 
 
 Its body, so to speak : its soul is right. 
 
 He means right -— that, a child may understand. 
 
 Still, what an arm ! and I could alter it : 
 
 But all the play, the insight and the stretch — 
 
 Out of me, out of me ! And wherefore out ? 
 
 Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul. 
 
 We might have risen to Rafael, I and you. 
 
 Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 
 
 More than I merit, yes, by many times. 
 
 But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow. 
 
 And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth. 
 
 And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 
 
 The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 
 
 Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind ! 
 
 Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 
 
 " God and the glory ! never care for gain. '- 
 
 The present by the future, what is that ? U 
 
 Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo ! 
 
 Rafael is waiting : up to God, all three ! " 
 
 I might have done it for you. So it seems : 
 
 Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. 
 
 Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; 
 
 The rest avail not. Why do I need you ? 
 
 What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ? 
 
 [ i« ] 
 
ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 In this world, who can do a thing, will not ; 
 And who would do it, cannot, I perceive : 
 Yet the will 's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power 
 And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 
 God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 
 'T is safer for me, if the award be strict. 
 That I am something underrated here. 
 Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. 
 I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, 
 For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 
 The best is when they pass and look aside ; 
 But they speak sometimes ; I must bear it all. 
 "Well may they speak ! That Francis, that first time, 
 And that long festal year at Fontainebleau ! 
 I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, 
 Put on the glory, E-afael's daily wear. 
 In that humane great monarch's golden look, — 
 One finger in his beard or twisted curl 
 Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile, 
 One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, 
 The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 
 I painting proudly with his breath on me. 
 All his court round him, seeing with his eyes. 
 Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 
 Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 
 And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, 
 This in the background, waitiug on my work. 
 To crown the issue with a last reward ! 
 A good time, was it not, my kingly days ? 
 
 [ 142 ] 
 
PORTRAIT of Fra Lippo Lippi, in 
 his Coronation of the Virij;in. 
 
 " Up shall* cdm4 
 Out of a corner lohen you hast expect,^ 
 .... who but Lippo ! 1 ! " 
 
 — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 133 
 

ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 And had you not grown restless . . . but I know — 
 ''T is done and past ; ^t was right, my instinct said ; 
 Too live the life grew, golden and not gray, 
 And I ^m the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 
 Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. 
 How could it end in any other way ? 
 You called me, and I came home to your heart. 
 The triumph was, to have ended there ; then, if 
 I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost ? 
 Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, 
 You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine ! 
 " Rafael did this, Andrea painted that ; 
 The Romanes is the better when you pray, 
 But still the other's Yirgin was his wife — '' 
 Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge 
 Both pictures in your presence ; clearer grows 
 My better fortune, I resolve to think. 
 For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives. 
 Said one day Agnolo, his very self. 
 To Rafael ... I have known it all these years . . , 
 (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts 
 Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see. 
 Too lifted up in heart because of it) 
 " Friend, there 's a certain sorry little scrub 
 Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how. 
 Who, were he set to plan and execute 
 As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings, 
 Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours ! '^ 
 To Rafael's ! — And indeed the arm is wrong. 
 
 [ 143 ] 
 
ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, 
 Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go ! 
 Ay, but the soul ! he ''s Eafael ! rub it out ! 
 Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 
 (What he ? why, who but Michel Agnolo ? 
 Do you forget already words like those ?) 
 If really there was such a chance, so lost, — 
 Is, whether you^re — not grateful — but more pleased. 
 Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed ! 
 This hour has been an hour ! Another smile ? 
 If you would sit thus by me every night 
 I should work better, do you comprehend ? 
 I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 
 See, it is settled dusk now ; there ^s a star ; 
 Morello 's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, 
 The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 
 €ome from the window, love, — come in, at last. 
 Inside the melancholy little house 
 We built to be so gay with. God is just. 
 King Francis may forgive me : oft at nights 
 When I look up from painting, eyes tired out. 
 The walls become illumined, brick from brick 
 Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold. 
 That gold of his I did cement them with ! 
 Let us but love each other. Must you go ? 
 That Cousin here again ? lie waits outside ? 
 Must see you — you, and not with me ? Those loans ? 
 More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that ? 
 Well, let smiles buy me ! have you more to spend ? 
 
 [ 144 ] 
 
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ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 "While hand and eye and something of a heart 
 
 Are left me, work ^s my ware, and what ^s it worth ? 
 
 I ''11 pay my fancy. Only let me sit 
 
 The gray remainder of the evening out. 
 
 Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 
 
 How I could paint, were I but back in Prance, 
 
 One picture, just one more — the Yirgin^'s face^ 
 
 Not yours this time ! I want you at my side 
 
 To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo — 
 
 Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. 
 
 Will you ? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. 
 
 I take the subjects for his corridor. 
 
 Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there. 
 
 And throw him in another thing or two 
 
 If he demurs ; the whole should prove enough 
 
 To pay for this same Cousin^s freak. Beside, 
 
 What ^s better and what ^s all I care about. 
 
 Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff ! 
 
 Love, does that please you ? Ah, but what does he. 
 
 The Cousin ! what does he to please you more ? 
 
 I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
 I regret little, I would change still less. 
 Since there my past life lies, why alter it ? 
 The very wrong to Francis ! — it is true 
 I took his coin, was tempted and complied. 
 And built this house and sinned, and all is said. 
 My father and my mother died of want. 
 Well, had I riches of my own ? you see 
 
 10 [ 145 ] 
 
ANDREA DEI. SARTO 
 
 How one gets rich ! Let each oue bear his lot. 
 They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died : 
 And I have labored somewhat in my time 
 And not been paid profusely. Some good son 
 Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try ! 
 No doubt, there 's something strikes a balance. Yes, 
 You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. 
 This must suffice me here. What would one have ? 
 In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance — 
 Four great walls in the New Jerusalem 
 Meted on each side by the angel's reed. 
 For Leonard, Eafael, Agnolo and me 
 To cover — the three first without a wife. 
 While I have mine ! So — still they overcome 
 Because there 's still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 
 
 Again the Cousin's whistle 1 Go, my Love. 
 
 [ 1^6] 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 THERE ^S a palace in Florence^ the world knows well. 
 And a statue watches it from the square. 
 And this story of both do our townsmen tell. 
 
 Ages ago, a lady there. 
 
 At the farthest window facing the East 
 
 Asked, " Who rides by with the royal air? " 
 
 The bridesmaids^ prattle around her ceased ; 
 
 She leaned forth, one on either hand ; 
 
 They saw how the blush of the bride increased — 
 
 They felt by its beats her heart expand — 
 As one at each ear and both in a breath 
 Whispered, "The Great-Duke Ferdinand/' 
 
 That selfsame instant, underneath, 
 The Duke rode past in his idle way, 
 Empty and fine like a swordless sheath. 
 
 Gay he rode, with a friend as gay. 
 Till he threw his head back — " Who is she ? " 
 — "A bride the Eiccardi brings home to-day .''' 
 
 [ 149] 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 Hair in heaps lay heavily 
 
 Over a pale brow spirit-pure — 
 
 Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree. 
 
 Crisped like a war-steed's encolure — 
 And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes 
 Of the blackest black our eyes endure. 
 
 And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise 
 Filled the fine empty sheath of a man, — 
 The Duke grew straightway brave and wise. 
 
 He looked at her, as a lover can ; 
 
 She looked at him, as one who awakes : 
 
 The past was a sleep, and her life began. 
 
 Now, love so ordered for both their sakes, 
 
 A feast was held that selfsame night 
 
 In the pile which the mighty shadow makes. 
 
 (For Via Larga is three-parts light, 
 
 But the palace overshadows one. 
 
 Because of a crime which may God requite ! 
 
 To Florence and God the wrong was done, 
 Tlirougli the first republic's murder there 
 By Cosimo and his cursed sou.) 
 
 The Duke (with tlic statue/s face in the square) 
 Turned in the midst of his multitude 
 At the bright approach of the bridal pair. 
 [150] 
 
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THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 Face to face the lovers stood 
 
 A single minute and no more, 
 
 While the bridegroom bent^ as a man subdued 
 
 Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor — 
 For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred, 
 As the courtly custom was of yore. 
 
 In a minute can lovers exchange a word ? 
 If a word did pass, which I do not think. 
 Only one out of the thousand heard. 
 
 That was the bridegroom. At day's brink 
 He and his bride were alone at last 
 In a bed-chamber by a taper's blink. 
 
 Calmly he said that her lot was cast, 
 
 That the door she had passed was shut on her 
 
 TiU the final catafalk repassed. 
 
 The world meanwhile, its noise and stir. 
 Through a certain window facing the East 
 She could watch like a convent's chronicler. 
 
 Since passing the door might lead to a feast. 
 And a feast might lead to so much beside. 
 He, of many evils, chose the least. 
 
 " Freely I choose too," said the bride : 
 " Your window and its world suffice," 
 Keplied the tongue, while the heart replied — 
 
 [ 151 ] 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 " If I spend the night with that devil twice. 
 May his window serve as my loop of hell 
 Whence a damned soul looks on paradise ! 
 
 " I fly to the Duke who loves me well. 
 Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow 
 Ere I count another ave-bell. 
 
 '' 'T is only the coat of a page to borrow, 
 
 And tie my hair in a horse-boy^s trim, 
 
 And I save my soul — but not to-morrow/^ - 
 
 (She checked herself and her eye grew dim) 
 " My father tarries to bless my state : 
 I must keep it one day more for him. 
 
 " Is one day more so long to wait ? 
 Moreover the Duke rides past, I know ; 
 We shall see each other, sure as fate/' 
 
 She turned on her side and slept. Just so ! 
 So we resolve on a thing and sleep : 
 So did the lady, ages ago. 
 
 That night the Duke said, " Dear or cheap 
 As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove 
 To body or soul, I will drain it deep." 
 
 And on the morrow, bold with love. 
 He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call. 
 As his duty bade, by tlie Duke's alcove) 
 L162] 
 
IV/TADONNA and Child, from 
 Andrea del Sarto's Holy 
 Pamily, in Pitti Gallery. 
 
 ^l 
 
 ** Raphael did tli'is, Andrea- pcihdt.id that,: i 
 The Roman s is the better Wiwn yov_ pxay^, 
 But still the others Virgin was his wife.'"' 
 
 — Andrea del Sarto, p. 143 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 And smiled " 'T was a very funeral, 
 
 Your lady Avill think, this feast of ours, — 
 
 A shame to efface, whate^'er befall ! 
 
 " What if we break from the Arno bowers, 
 
 And try if Petraja, cool and green, 
 
 Cure last nighty's fault with this morning's flowers? 
 
 The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen 
 On his steady brow and quiet mouth, 
 Said, " Too much favor for me so mean ! 
 
 " But, alas ! my lady leaves the South ; 
 Each wind that comes from the Apennine 
 Is a menace to her tender youth : 
 
 " Nor a way exists, the wise opine, 
 If she quits her palace twice this year. 
 To avert the flower of life's decline." 
 
 Quoth the Duke, " A sage and a kindly fear. 
 Moreover Petraja is cold this spring : 
 Be our feast to-nieht as usual here ! '^ 
 
 '&' 
 
 And then to himself — " Which night shall bring 
 Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool — 
 Or I am the fool, and thou art the king ! 
 
 '^ Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool — 
 For to-night the Envoy arrives from France 
 Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool. 
 
 [ 153] 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 '^ I need thee still and might miss perchance. 
 
 To-day is not wholly lost, beside, 
 
 With its hope of my lady's countenance : 
 
 " For I ride — what should I do but ride ? 
 
 And passing the palace, if I list, 
 
 May glance at its window — well betide ! 
 
 y> 
 
 So said, so done : nor the lady missed 
 One ray that broke from the ardent brow, 
 Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed. 
 
 Be sure that each renewed the vow. 
 No morrow's sun should arise and set 
 And leave them then as it left them now. 
 
 But next day passed, and next day yet, 
 With still fresh cause to wait one day more 
 Ere each leaped over the parapet. 
 
 And still, as love's brief morning wore. 
 With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh. 
 They found love not as it seemed before. 
 
 They thouglit it would work infallibly. 
 
 But not in despite of heaven and earth : 
 
 The rose would blow when the storm passed by. 
 
 Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth 
 By store of fruits that supplant the rose : 
 The world and its ways have a certain worth : 
 [ 154 ] 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 And to press a point while these oppose 
 
 Were simple policy ; better wait : 
 
 We lose no friends and we gain no foes. 
 
 Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate. 
 Who daily may ride and pass and look 
 Where his lady watches behind the grate ! 
 
 And she — she watched the square like a book 
 Holding one picture and only one. 
 Which daily to find she undertook : 
 
 When the picture was reached the book was done. 
 And she turned from the picture at night to scheme 
 Of tearing it out for herself next sun. 
 
 So weeks grew months, years ; gleam by gleam 
 The glory dropped from their youth and love. 
 And both perceived they had dreamed a dream ; 
 
 Which hovered as dreams do, still above : 
 But who can take a dream for a truth ? 
 Oh, hide our eyes from the next remoVe ! 
 
 One day as the lady saw her youth 
 Depart, and the silver thread that streaked 
 Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth. 
 
 The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked, — 
 And wondered who the woman was. 
 Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked, 
 
 [ 155 ] 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 Fronting her silent in the glass — 
 " Summon here/"' she suddenly said, 
 Before the rest of my old self pass, 
 
 (t 
 
 " Him, the Carver, a hand to aid, 
 
 Who fashions the clay no love will change. 
 
 And fixes a beauty never to fade. 
 
 " Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange 
 Arrest the remains of young and fair, 
 And rivet them while the seasons range. 
 
 " Make me a face on the window there. 
 Waiting as ever, mute the while. 
 My love to pass below in the square ! 
 
 " And let me think that it may beguile 
 Dreary days which the dead must spend 
 Down in their darkness under the aisle, 
 
 "To say, ' What matters it at the end? 
 I did no more while my heart was warm 
 Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.' 
 
 " Where is the use of the lip's red charm, 
 The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow. 
 And the blood that blues the inside arm — 
 
 " Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, 
 The earthly gift to an end divine ? 
 A lady of clay is as good, I trow." 
 [ 156 ] 
 
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THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 But long ere Eobbia's cornice, fine 
 
 With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace. 
 
 Was set where now is the empty shrine — 
 
 (And, leaning out of a bright blue space. 
 As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky. 
 The passionate pale lady^s face — 
 
 Eyeing ever, with earnest eye 
 
 And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch. 
 
 Some one who ever is passing by — ) 
 
 The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch 
 In Florence, " Youth — my dream escapes ! 
 Will its record stay ? '' And he bade them fetch 
 
 Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes — 
 " Can the soul, the will, die out of a man 
 Ere his body find the grave that gapes ? 
 
 " John of Douay shall effect my plan, 
 Set me on horseback here aloft, 
 Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, 
 
 " In the very square I have crossed so oft : 
 That men may admire, when future suns 
 Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, 
 
 " While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze 
 Admire and say, ^ When he was alive 
 How he would take his pleasure once ! ' 
 
 [157] 
 
THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 " And it shall go hard but I contrive 
 
 To listen the while,, and laugh in my tomb 
 
 At idleness which aspires to strive/^ 
 
 So ! While these wait the trump of doom. 
 How do their spirits pass, I wonder. 
 Nights and days in the narrow room? 
 
 Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder 
 What a gift life was, ages ago. 
 Six steps out of the chapel yonder. 
 
 Only they see not God, I know, 
 
 Nor all that chivalry of his. 
 
 The soldier- saints who, row on row. 
 
 Burn upward each to his point of bliss — 
 
 Since, the end of life being manifest. 
 
 He had burned his way thro^ the world to this. 
 
 I hear you reproach, " But delay Avas best, 
 
 For their end was a crime.^^ — Oh, a crime will do 
 
 As well, I reply, to serve for a test. 
 
 As a virtue golden through and through. 
 
 Sufficient to vindicate itself 
 
 And prove its worth at a moment's view ! 
 
 Must a game be played for the sake of pelf ? 
 Where a button goes, 't were an epigram 
 To offer the stamp of the very Guelph. 
 [ 158] 
 
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THE STATUE AND THE BUST 
 
 The true has no value beyond the sham : 
 
 As well the counter as coin, I submit. 
 
 When your table 's a hat, and your prize, a dram. 
 
 Stake your counter as boldly every whit. 
 
 Venture as warily, use the same skill, 
 
 Do your best, whether winning or losing it. 
 
 If you choose to play ! — is my principle. 
 
 Let a man contend to the uttermost 
 
 For his life's set prize, be it what it will ! 
 
 The counter our lovers staked was lost 
 
 As surely as if it were lawful coin : 
 
 And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 
 
 Is, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin. 
 Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. 
 You of the virtue (we issue join) 
 How strive you? De teyfahula I 
 
 t 159 J 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 BOOK I 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 I 
 
 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 DO you see this Ring ? 
 'Tis Rome-work, made to match 
 (By Castellani's imitative craft) 
 Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn. 
 After a dropping April ; found alive 
 Spark-like ■'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots 
 That roof old tombs at Chiusi : soft, you see. 
 Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There ■'s one trick, 
 (Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device 
 And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold 
 As this was, — such mere oozings from the mine, 
 Yirgin as oval tawny pendent tear 
 At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow, — 
 To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap : 
 Since hammer needs must widen out the round, 
 And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers. 
 Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear. 
 That trick is, the artificer melts up wax 
 With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold 
 [ 163] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both, 
 Effects a manageable mass, then works : 
 But his work ended, once the thing a ring, 
 Oh, there 's repristination ! Just a spirt 
 O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face. 
 And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume ; 
 While, self-sufficient now,' the shape remains, 
 The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness, 
 Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore : 
 Prime nature with an added artistry — 
 No carat lost, and you have gained a ring. 
 What of it ? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say ; 
 A thing's sign ; now for the thing signified. 
 
 Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss 
 F the air, and catch again, and twirl about 
 By the crumpled vellum covers, — pure crude fact 
 Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard. 
 And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since ? 
 Examine it yourselves ! I found this book. 
 Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just, 
 (Mark the predestination !) when a Hand, 
 Always above my shoulder, pushed me once, 
 One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm, 
 Across a square in Florence, crammed with booths. 
 Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time. 
 Toward Baccio's marble, — ay, the basement-ledge 
 O' the pedestal where sits and menaces 
 John of the Black Bands with the upright spear, 
 
 [ 164 ] 
 
o 
 
 by John of Boloijna (Jean Boul- 
 logne, from Douai), in Piazza dell' 
 Annuuziata. 
 
 " John of Douay shall effecA my plan ^ 
 Set me on horseback here aloft. 
 Alive, as the crafty sculptor can. 
 In the very square I have crossed so oft/" 
 
n 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 ^T wixt palace and church, — Eiccardi where they lived, 
 His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie. 
 This book, — precisely on that palace-step 
 Which, meant for lounging knaves o' the Medici, 
 Now serves re-venders to display their ware, — 
 ^Mongst odds and ends of ravage, picture-frames 
 White through the worn gilt, mirror-sconces chipped, 
 Bronze angel-heads once knobs attached to chests 
 (Handled when ancient dames chose forth brocade). 
 Modern chalk drawings, studies from the nude, 
 Samples of stone, jet, breccia, porphyry 
 Polished and rough, sundry amazing busts 
 In baked earth, (broken, Providence be praised !) 
 A wreck of tapestry, proudly-purposed web 
 When reds and blues were indeed red and blue. 
 Now offered as a mat to save bare feet 
 (Since carpets constitute a cruel cost) 
 Treading the chill scagliola bedward : then 
 A pile of brown-etched prints, two crazie each. 
 Stopped by a conch a-top from fluttering forth 
 — Sowing the Square with works of one and the same 
 blaster, the imaginative Sienese 
 Great in the scenic backgrounds — (name and fame 
 None of you know, nor does he fare the w^orse :) 
 From these '. . . Oh, with a Lionard going cheap 
 If it should prove, as promised, that Joconde 
 Whereof a copy contents the Louvre ! — these 
 I picked this book from. Pive compeers in flank 
 Stood left and right of it as tempting more — 
 
 [165] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 A dogseared Spicilegium, the fond tale 
 
 O' the Frail One of the Flower, by young Dumas, 
 
 Vulgarized Horace for the use of schools, 
 
 The Life, Death, Miracles of Saint Somebody, 
 
 Saint Somebody Else, his Miracles, Death and Life, — 
 
 With this, one glance at the lettered back of which. 
 
 And " Stall ! '' cried I : a lira made it mine. 
 
 Here it is, this I toss and take again ; 
 Small-quarto size, part print part manuscript : 
 A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact 
 Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard, 
 And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since. 
 Give it me back ! The thing ^s restorative 
 I' the touch and sight. 
 
 That memorable day, 
 (June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square) 
 I leaned a little and overlooked my prize 
 By the low^ railing round the fountain-source 
 Close to the statue, where a step descends : 
 While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose 
 Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place 
 For marketmen glad to pitch basket, down, 
 Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet. 
 And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read 
 Presently, thougli my patli grcAv perilous 
 Between the outspread straw-work, piles of plait 
 Soon to be flapping, each o'er two black eyes 
 
 [166] 
 
o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 F CA 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine : 
 
 Tlirough fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves, 
 
 Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape, 
 
 Eows of tall slim brass lamps with dangling gear, — 
 
 And worse, cast clothes a- sweetening in the sun : 
 
 None of them took my eye from off my prize. 
 
 Still read I on, from v/ritten title-page 
 
 To written index, on, through street and street, 
 
 At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge ; 
 
 Till, by the time I stood at home again 
 
 In Casa Guidi by Felice Church, 
 
 Under the doorway where the black begins 
 
 With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold, 
 
 I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth 
 
 Gathered together, bound up in this book. 
 
 Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest. 
 
 " Romana HomicicUorum " — nay, 
 
 Better translate — "A Eoman murder-case : 
 
 Position of the entire criminal cause 
 
 Of Guido Franceschini, nobleman. 
 
 With certain Four the cutthroats in his pay, 
 
 Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death 
 
 By heading or hanging as befitted ranks, 
 
 At Eome on February Twenty Two, 
 
 Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight : 
 
 Wherein it is disputed if, and when. 
 
 Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape 
 
 The customary forfeit." 
 
 [167] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 1? izi^nu^ 
 
 Cut tuttaja Caufa GHminauD 
 
 Coniro 
 y^uidol/ranc&fcninL JI/o^mc 
 
 ■fattl morlrt'inRoma :/ai{t(r. 
 
 (yJ pyiJTio con la cuc:o/!^7/onc £7 ctftr/ 
 gi/LiHi^ at iJ^orccL 
 
 Jiomana MmicUiorunh 
 
 Cd/sputatur an agunndvJnarity 
 /^^^^ /^ccimreY^orem 
 
 ^dultcrani. 
 ^tDJ^u€ incufvu pdcnt, 6rd: ^ 
 
 fl\educed racsimlle of Title-pace of Report of the Trial of Guldo Franceschiiil.) 
 
 [ 168 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Word for word. 
 So ran the title-page : murder, or else 
 Legitimate punishment of the other crime. 
 Accounted murder by mistake, — just that 
 And no more, in a Latin cramp enough 
 When the law had her eloquence to launch. 
 But interfilleted with Italian streaks 
 When testimony stooped to mother-tongue, — 
 That, was this old square yellow book about. 
 
 Now, as the ingot, ere the ring w^as forged. 
 Lay gold, (beseech you, hold that figure fast !) 
 So, in this book lay absolutely truth, 
 Fanciless fact, the documents indeed. 
 Primary lawyer-pleadings for, against. 
 The aforesaid Five ; real summed-up circumstance 
 Adduced in proof of these on either side. 
 Put forth and printed, as the practice was. 
 At Eome, in the Apostolic Chamber's type. 
 And so submitted to the eye o' the Court 
 Presided over by His Reverence 
 Eome's Governor and Criminal Judge, — the trial 
 Itself, to all intents, being then as now 
 Here in the book and nowise out of it ; 
 Seeing, there properly was no judgment-bar, 
 No bringing of accuser and accused. 
 And whoso judged both parties, face to face 
 Before some court, as we conceive of courts. 
 There was a Hall of Justice ; that came last : 
 [ 169] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Eor Justice had a chamber by the hall 
 
 Where she took evidence first, summed up the same. 
 
 Then sent accuser and accused alike. 
 
 In person of the advocate of each. 
 
 To weigh its worth, thereby arrange, array 
 
 The battle. ''T was the so-styled Fisc began. 
 
 Pleaded (and since he only spoke in print 
 
 The printed voice of him lives now as then) 
 
 The public Prosecutor — " Murder ^s proved ; 
 
 With five . . . what we call qualities of bad, 
 
 Worse, worst, and yet worse still, and still worse yet ; 
 
 Crest over crest crowning the cockatrice. 
 
 That beggar helPs regalia to enrich 
 
 Count Guido Franceschini : punish hiin ! " 
 
 Thus was the paper put before the court 
 
 In the next stage, (no noisy work at all,) 
 
 To study at ease. In due time like reply 
 
 Came from the so-styled Patron of the Poor, 
 
 Official mouthpiece of the five accused 
 
 Too poor to fee a better, — Guidons luck 
 
 Or else his fellows,^ — which, I hardly know, — 
 
 An outbreak as of wonder at the world, 
 
 A fury-fit of outraged innocence, 
 
 A passion of betrayed simplicity : 
 
 " Punish Count Guido ? For what crime, what hint 
 
 O' the colour of a crime, inform us first ! 
 
 Reward him rather ! Eecognize, we say, 
 
 In the deed done, a righteous judgment dealt ! 
 
 All conscience and all courage, — there 's our Count 
 
 [ 1^^ ] 
 

 
 LD book -stall at base of Statue 
 of Giovanni de' Medici, by 
 Baccio Bandinelli. 
 
 " Bacciu's marble^ — ai/, the hasement ledge 
 
 O' the pedestal where sits and menaces 
 
 John of the Black Bands with the upriijht spear."" 
 
 — The Ring and the Book, p. 1G4 
 
C «. f' o H > 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Charactered in a word ; and, what ^s more strange. 
 He had companionship in privilege. 
 Found four courageous conscientious friends : 
 Absolve, applaud all five, as props of law, 
 Sustainers of society ! — perchance 
 A trifle over-hasty with the hand 
 To hold her tottering ark, had tumbled else ; 
 But that ^s a splendid fault whereat we wink, 
 Wishing your cold correctness sparkled so ! ^' 
 Thus paper second followed paper first. 
 Thus did the two join issue — nay, the four. 
 Each pleader having an adjunct. " True, he killed 
 — So to speak — in a certain sort — his wife. 
 But laudably, since thus it happed ! " quoth one : 
 Whereat, more witness and the case postponed. 
 "Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed. 
 And proved himself thereby portentousest 
 Of cutthroats and a prodigy of crime. 
 As the woman that he slaughtered was a saint. 
 Martyr and miracle ! '' quoth the other to match : 
 Again, more witness, and the case postponed. 
 " A miracle, ay — of lust and impudence ; 
 Hear my new reasons ! '' interposed the first : 
 " — Coupled with more of mine ! " pursued his peer. 
 " Beside, the precedents, the authorities ! '' 
 From both at once a cry with an echo, that ! 
 That was a firebrand at each fox's tail 
 Unleashed in a cornfield : soon spread flare enough, 
 As hurtled thither and there heaped themselves 
 
 [171 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 From earth's four corners, all authority 
 
 And precedent for putting wives to death, 
 
 Or letting wives live, sinful as they seem. 
 
 How legislated, now, in this respect, 
 
 Solon and his Athenians ? Quote the code 
 
 Of Eomulus and Rome ! Justinian speak ! 
 
 Nor modern Baldo, Bartolo be dumb ! 
 
 The Roman voice was potent, plentiful ; 
 
 Cornelia de Sicariis hurried to help 
 
 Pompeia de Parricidiis; Julia de 
 
 Something-or-other jostled Lex this-and-that ; 
 
 King Solomon confirmed Apostle Paul : 
 
 That nice decision of Dolabella, eh ? 
 
 That pregnant instance of Theodoric, oh ! 
 
 Down to that choice example ^lian gives 
 
 (An instance I find much insisted on) 
 
 Of the elephant who, brute-beast though he were. 
 
 Yet understood and punished on the spot 
 
 His master's naughty spouse and faithless friend; 
 
 A true tale wliich lias edified each child. 
 
 Much more sliall ilourish favoured by our court 1 
 
 Pages of proof this way, and that way proof. 
 
 And always — once again the case postponed. 
 
 Thus wrangled, brangled, jangled tliey a month, 
 
 — Only on paper, pleadings all in print. 
 
 Nor ever was, except i' the brains of men. 
 
 More noise by word of mouth than you hear now — 
 
 Till the court cut all short with " Judged, your cause. 
 
 Receive our sentence ! Praise God ! We pronounce 
 
 [ na] 
 
L^1UUAK1>»1 r.VLAUJ^ HI Via 
 
 Lai'sa, now Via Cavour; 
 architecture of Michelozzi, 
 15th century. 
 
 '"'' liiccardi v^here they lived, his race J' * « '^. . 
 
 — The Ring and the Book, p. 1G5 
 
 "-^ feast was held that selfsame niyht 
 
 In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.'''' 
 
 — The Statue and the Bust, p. 150 
 
 " Those great rings serve more purjMses than Just 
 To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse ! " 
 
 — Fra Lippo Lippi, p. 129 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Count Guido devilish and damnable : 
 
 His wife Pompilia in thought, word and deed. 
 
 Was perfect pure, he murdered her for that : 
 
 As for the Four who helped the One, all Five — 
 
 Why, let employer and hirelings share alike 
 
 In guilt and guilt^s reward, the death their due ! "" 
 
 So was the trial at end, do you suppose ? 
 
 " Guilty you find him, death you doom him to ? 
 
 Ay, were not Guido, more than needs, a priest. 
 
 Priest and to spare ! '^ — this was a shot reserved ; 
 
 I learn this from epistles which begin 
 
 Here where the print ends, — see the pen and ink 
 
 Of the advocate, the ready at a pinch ! — 
 
 " My client boasts the clerkly privilege. 
 
 Has taken minor orders many enough. 
 
 Shows still sufficient chrism upon his pate 
 
 To neutralize a blood-stain : presbyter , 
 
 PrimcB tonsurce, siihdiacomis, 
 
 Sacerdos, so he slips from underneath 
 
 Your power, the temporal, slides inside the robe 
 
 Of mother Church : to her we make appeal 
 
 By the Pope, the Church's head ! " 
 
 A parlous plea. 
 Put in with noticeable effect, it seems ; 
 " Since straight," — resumes the zealous orator. 
 Making a friend acquainted with the facts, — 
 " Once the word ' clericalitv ' let fall. 
 Procedure stopped and freer breath was drawn 
 
 [ 1^^ ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 By all considerate and responsible Eome/' 
 
 Quality took the decent part, of course; 
 
 Held by the husband, who was noble too : 
 
 Or, for the matter of that, a churl would side 
 
 With too-refined susceptibility, 
 
 And honor which, tender in the extreme, 
 
 Stung to the quick, must roughly right itself 
 
 At all risks, not sit still and whine for law 
 
 As a Jew would, if you squeezed him to the wall. 
 
 Brisk-trotting through the Ghetto. Nay, it seems, 
 
 Even the Emperor's Envoy had his say 
 
 To say on the subject ; might not see, unmoved. 
 
 Civility menaced throughout Christendom 
 
 By too harsh measure dealt her champion here. 
 
 Lastly, what made all safe, the Pope was kind. 
 
 From his youth up, reluctant to take life. 
 
 If mercy might be just and yet show grace ; 
 
 Much more unlikely then, in extreme age. 
 
 To take a life the general sense bade spare. 
 
 ^T was plain that G uido would go scatheless yet. 
 
 But human promise, oh, how short of shine ! 
 How topple down the piles of hope we rear ! 
 How history proves . . . nay, read Herodotus ! 
 Suddenly starting from a nap, as it were, 
 A dog-sleep witli one shut, one open orb. 
 Cried the Pope's great self, — Innocent by name 
 And nature too, and eighty-six years old, 
 Antonio Pignatelli of Naples, Pope 
 
 [ m] 
 
THE RIxNG AND THE BOOK 
 
 Who had trod many lands, known many deeds, 
 
 Probed many hearts, beginning with his own^ 
 
 And now was far in readiness for God, — 
 
 'T was he who first bade leave those souls in peace. 
 
 Those Jansenists, re-nicknamed Molinists, 
 
 ('Gainst whom the cry went, like a frowsy tune. 
 
 Tickling men's ears — the sect for a quarter of an hour 
 
 V the teeth of the world which, clown-like, loves to chew 
 
 Be it but a straw 'twixt work and whistling- while. 
 
 Taste some vituperation, bite away. 
 
 Whether at marjoram -sprig or garlic-clove," 
 
 Aught it may sport with, spoil, and then spit forth) 
 
 '^ Leave them alone," bade he, '^ those Molinists ! 
 
 Who may have other light than we perceive. 
 
 Or why is it the whole world hates them thus ? '''' 
 
 Also he peeled ofP that last scandal-rag 
 
 Of Nepotism ; and so observed the poor 
 
 That men would merrily say, " Halt, deaf and blind. 
 
 Who feed on fat things, leave the master's self 
 
 To gather up the fragments of his feast. 
 
 These be the nephews of Pope Innocent ! — 
 
 His own meal costs but five carlines a day, 
 
 Poor-priest''s allowance, for he claims no more/^ 
 
 - — He cried of a sudden, this great good old Pope, 
 
 When they appealed in last resort to him, 
 
 " I have mastered the whole matter : I nothing doubt 
 
 Though Guido stood forth priest from head to heel. 
 
 Instead of, as alleged, a piece of one, — 
 
 And further, were he, from the tonsured scalp 
 
 [ 1^5 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 To the sandaled sole of him, my son and Christ's, 
 Instead of touching us by finger-tip 
 As you assert, and pressing up so close 
 Only to set a blood-smutch on our robe, — 
 I and Christ would renounce all right in him. 
 Am I not Pope, and presently to die. 
 And busied how io render my account. 
 And shall I wait a day ere I decide 
 On doing or not doing justice here ? 
 Cut off his head to-morrow by this time, 
 Hang up his four mates, two on either hand. 
 And end one business more ! " 
 
 So said, so done — 
 Eather so writ, for the old Pope bade this, 
 I find, with his particular chirograph. 
 His own no such infirm hand, Friday night ; 
 And next day, February Twenty Two, 
 Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight, 
 — Not at the proper head-and-hanging-place 
 On bridge-foot close by Castle Angelo, 
 Where custom somewhat staled the spectacle, 
 ('T was not so well i' the way of Eome, beside. 
 The noble Rome, the Eome of G uido's rank) 
 But at the city's newer gayer end, — 
 The cavalcading promenading place 
 Beside the gate and opposite the church 
 Under the Pincian gardens green with Spring, 
 'Neath the obelisk 'twixt the fountains in the Square, 
 
 [ I'^C ] 
 
o 
 
 ri a 
 B S 
 
 ""' o 
 
 CO 
 

 THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Did Guido and his fellows find their fate. 
 
 All Eome for witness, and — mj writer adds — 
 
 Eemoustrant in its universal grief, 
 
 Since Guido had the suffrage of all Eome. 
 
 This is the bookful ; thus far take the truth, 
 The untempered gold, the fact untampered with, 
 The mere ring-metal ere the ring be made ! 
 And what has hitherto come of it ? Who preserves 
 The memory of this Guido, and his wife 
 Pompilia, more than Ademollo's name, 
 The etcher of those prints, two crazie each. 
 Saved by a stone from snowhig broad the Square 
 With scenic backgrounds ? Was this truth of force ? 
 Able to take its own part as truth should, 
 Sufficient, self-sustaining ? Wliy, if so — 
 Yonder ''s a fire, into it goes my book. 
 As who shall say me nay, and what the loss ? 
 You know the tale already : I may ask, 
 Eather than think to tell you, more thereof, — 
 Ask you not merely who were he and she. 
 Husband and wife, what manner of mankind. 
 But how you hold concerning this and that 
 Other yet-unnamed actor in the piece. 
 The young frank handsome courtly Canon, now, 
 The priest, declared the lover of the wife. 
 He who, no question, did elope with her. 
 For certain bring the tragedy about, 
 Giuseppe Caponsacchi ; — his strange course 
 12 [ 177 1 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 V the matter, was it right or wrong or both ? 
 
 Then the old couple, slaughtered with the wiie 
 
 By the husband as accomplices in crime, 
 
 Those Comparini, Pietro and his spouse, — 
 
 What say you to the right or wrong of that. 
 
 When, at a known name whispered through the door 
 
 Of a lone villa on a Christmas night. 
 
 It opened that the joyous hearts inside 
 
 Might welcome as it were an angel-guest 
 
 Come in Christ^s name to knock and enter, sup 
 
 And satisfy the loving ones he saved ; 
 
 And so did welcome devils and their death ? 
 
 I have been silent on that circumstance 
 
 Although the couple passed for close of kin 
 
 To wife and husband, were by some accounts 
 
 Pompilia's very parents : you know best. 
 
 Also tliat infant the great joy was for. 
 
 That Gaetano, the wife's two-weeks^ babe, 
 
 The husband^'s first-born child, his son and heir. 
 
 Whose birth and being turned his night to day — 
 
 Why must the father kill the mother thus 
 
 Because she bore his son and saved himself ? 
 
 Well, British Public, ye who like me not, 
 (God love you !) and will have your proper laugh 
 At the dark question, laugh it ! I laugh first. 
 Truth must prevail, the proverb vows ; and truth 
 — Here is it all i' the book at last, as first 
 There it was all i' the heads and hearts of Eome 
 
 [ 1^8 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Gentle and simple, never to fall nor fade 
 Nor be forgotten. Yet, a little while. 
 The passage of a century or so, 
 Decads thrice five, and here 's time paid his tax. 
 Oblivion gone home with her harvesting. 
 And all left smooth again as scythe could shave. 
 Far from beginning with you London folk, 
 I took my book to Eome first, tried truth's power 
 On likely people. " Have you met such names ? 
 Is a tradition extant of such facts ? 
 Your law-courts stand, your records frown a-row : 
 What if I rove and rummage 1'^ " — Why, you ''11 waste 
 Your pains and end as wise as you began ! '^ 
 Everyone snickered : " names and facts thus old 
 Are newer much than Europe news we find 
 Down in to-day's Diario. Records, quotha ? 
 Why, the French burned them, what else do the French ? 
 The rap-and-rending nation ! And it tells 
 Against the Church, no doubt, — another gird 
 At the Temporality, your Trial, of course ? '' 
 " — Quite otherwise this time,^'' submitted I ; 
 " Clean for the Church and dead against the world. 
 The flesh and the devil, does it tell for once." 
 " — The rarer and the happier ! All the same. 
 Content you with your treasure of a book, 
 And waive what 's wanting ! Take a friend^s advice ! 
 It 's not the custom of the country. Mend 
 Your ways indeed and we may stretch a point : 
 Go get you manned by Manning and new-manned 
 
 [ 1^9 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 By Newman and, mayhap, wise-manned to boot 
 By Wiseman, and we ''11 see or else we won't ! 
 Thanks meantime for the story, long and strong, 
 A pretty piece of narrative enough, 
 Which scarce ought so to drop out, one would think, 
 From the more curious annals of our kind. 
 Do you tell the story, now, in off-hand style, 
 Straight from the book ? Or simply here and there, 
 (The while you vault it through the loose and large) 
 Hang to a hint ? Or is there book at all. 
 And don^t you deal in poetry, make-believe, 
 And the white lies it sounds like ? '' 
 
 Yes and no ! 
 From the book, yes ; thence bit by bit I dug 
 The lingot truth, that memorable day, 
 Assayed and knew my piecemeal gain was gold, — 
 Yes ; but from something else surpassing that. 
 Something of mine whicli, mixed up with the mass. 
 Made it bear hammer and be firm to file. 
 Fancy with fact is just one fact Ihe more ; 
 To-wit, that fancy has informed, Irnnspicrced, 
 Thridded and so thrown fast the facts else free, 
 As right through ring and ring runs the djereed 
 And binds the loose, one bar without a break. 
 I fused my live soul and that inert stufl', 
 ikfore attempting smithcraft, on the night 
 After the day when — truth thus grasped and gained 
 The book was shut and done with and laid by 
 
 [ i«o ] 
 
in 
 
 2 ?3 
 
 = o 
 
 ^ tS! 
 
 ^ I— I 
 
 2 c 
 
 3 o 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 On the cream-colored massive agate^ broad 
 'Neath the twin cherubs in the tarnished frame 
 O' the mirror, tall thence to the ceiling-top. 
 And from tlie reading, and that slab I leant 
 Mj elbow on, the while I read and read, 
 I turned, to free myself and find the world. 
 And stepped out on the narrow terrace, built 
 Over the street and opposite the church. 
 And paced its lozenge-brickwork sprinkled cool ; 
 Because Felice-church-side stretched, a-glow 
 Through each square window fringed for festival, 
 Whence came the clear voice of the cloistered ones 
 Chanting a chant made for midsummer nights — 
 I know not what particular praise of God, 
 It always came and went with. June. Beneath 
 V the street, quick shown by openings of the sky 
 When flame fell silently from cloud to cloud, 
 Eicher than that gold snow Jove rained on Ehodes, 
 The townsmen walked by twos and threes, and talked, 
 Drinking the blackness in default of air — 
 A busy human sense beneath my feet : 
 While in and out the terrace-plants, and round 
 One branch of tall datura, w^axed and weaned 
 The lamp-fly lured there, wanting the white flower. 
 Over the roof o"* the liglited church I looked 
 A bowshot to the street's end, north away 
 Out of the Eoman gate to the Roman road 
 By the river, till I felt the Apennine. 
 And there w'ould lie Arezzo, the man's town, 
 [181] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK. 
 
 The woman's trap and cage and torture-place. 
 Also the stage where the priest played his part, 
 A spectacle for angels, — ay, indeed. 
 There lay Arezzo ! Farther then I fared, 
 Feeling my way on through the hot and dense, 
 Eomeward, until I found the wayside inn 
 By Castelnuovo's few mean hut-like homes 
 Huddled together on the hill-foot bleak. 
 Bare, broken only by that tree or two 
 Against the sudden bloody splendor poured 
 Cursewise in day^s departure by the sun 
 O^er the low house-roof of that squalid inn 
 Where they three, for the first time and the last, 
 Husband and wife and priest, met face to face. 
 Whence I went on again, the end was near. 
 Step by step, missing none and marking all, 
 Till Rome itself, the ghastly goal, I reached. 
 Why, all the while, — how could it otherwise ? — 
 The life in me abolished the death of things, 
 Deep calling unto deep : as then and there 
 Acted itself over agahi once more 
 The tragic piece. I saw witli my own eyes 
 In Florence as I trod the terrace, breathed 
 The beauty and the fearfulness of night, 
 How it had run, tliis rouiul from Kome to Rome — 
 Because, you are to know, Ihiy lived at Rome, 
 Pompilia's parents, as they tliought themselves. 
 Two poor ignoble hearts who did their best 
 Part God's way, part the other way than God's, 
 [ 182 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 To someliow make a shift and scramble through 
 The world^s mud, careless if it splashed and spoiled. 
 Provided they might so hold high, keep clean 
 Their chikVs soul, one soul white enough for three, 
 And lift it to whatever star should stoop. 
 What possible sphere of purer life than theirs 
 Should come in aid of whiteness hard to save. 
 I saw the star stoop, that they strained to touch. 
 And did touch and depose their treasure on, 
 As Guido Franceschini took away 
 Pompilia to be his for evermore, 
 AVhile they sang " Now let us depart in peace. 
 Having beheld thy glory, Guido's wife ! " 
 I saw the star supposed, but fog o^ the fen. 
 Gilded star-fashion by a glint from hell; 
 Having been heaved up, haled on its gross way, 
 By hands unguessed before, invisible help 
 From a dark brotherhood, and specially 
 Two obscure goblin creatures, fox-faced this, 
 Cat-clawed the other, called his next of kin 
 By Guido the main monster, — cloaked and caped. 
 Making as they were priests, to mock God more, — 
 Abate Paul, Canon Girolamo. 
 These who had rolled the starlike pest to Rome 
 And stationed it to suck up and absorb 
 The sweetness of Pompilia, rolled again 
 That bloated bubble, with her soul inside. 
 Back to Arezzo and a palace there — 
 Or say, a fissure in the honest earth 
 
 [ 183 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Whence long ago had curled the vapor first. 
 
 Blown big by nether fires to appal day : 
 
 It touched home,, broke, and blasted far and wide. 
 
 I saw the cheated couple find the cheat 
 
 And guess what foul rite they were captured for, — 
 
 Too fain to follow over hill and dale 
 
 That child of theirs caught up thus in the cloud 
 
 And carried by the Prince o' the Power of the Air 
 
 Whither he would, to wilderness or sea. 
 
 I saw them, in the potency of fear. 
 
 Break somehow through the satyr-family 
 
 (For a gray mother with a monkey-mien, 
 
 Mopping and mowing, was apparent too, 
 
 As, confident of capture, all took hands 
 
 And danced about the captives in a ring) 
 
 — Saw them break through, breathe safe, at Eome again, 
 
 Saved by the selfish instinct, losing so 
 
 Their loved one left with haters. These I saw. 
 
 In recrudescency of baffled hate. 
 
 Prepare to Avring the uttermost revenge 
 
 From body and soul thus left them : all was sure. 
 
 Fire laid and caldron set, the obscene ring traced. 
 
 The victim stripped and prostrate: wliat of God? 
 
 The cleaving of a cloud, a cry, a crash, 
 
 Quenched lay llieir caldron, cowered i' the dust the crew. 
 
 As, in a glory of armor like Saint George, 
 
 Out again sprang the young good beauteous priest 
 
 Bearing away the lady in his arms, 
 
 Saved for a splendid minute and no more 
 
 [ 1«4 J 
 

 o 
 
 H 
 
 -c O 
 
 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 For, whom i^ the path did that priest come upon, 
 He and the poor lost lady borne so brave, 
 — Checking the song of praise in me, had else 
 Swelled to the full for God^s will done on earth — 
 Whom but a dusk misfeatured messenger. 
 No other than the angel of this life, 
 Whose care is lest men see too much at once. 
 He made the sign, such God glimpse must suffice. 
 Nor prejudice the Prince o^ the Power of the Air, 
 Whose ministration piles us overhead 
 What we call, first, earth's roof and, last, heaven's floor. 
 Now grate o' the trap, then outlet of the cage : 
 So took the lady, left the priest alone. 
 And once more canopied the world with black. 
 But through the blackness I saw Rome again. 
 And where a solitary villa stood 
 In a lone garden-quarter : it was eve, 
 The second of the year, and oh so cold ! 
 Ever and anon there flittered through the air 
 A snow-flake, and a scanty couch of snow 
 Crusted the grass-walk and the garden-mould. 
 All was grave, silent, sinister, — when, ha ? 
 Glimmeringly did a pack of were-wolves pad 
 The snow, those flames were Guido's eyes in front, 
 And all five found and footed it, the track. 
 To where a threshold-streak of warmth and light 
 Betrayed the villa-door with life inside. 
 While an inch outside were those blood-bright eyes. 
 And black lips wrinkling o'er the flash of teeth, 
 
 [ 185 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 And tongues that lolled — God that madest man ! 
 
 Tliey parleyed in their language. Then one whined — 
 
 That was the policy and master-stroke — 
 
 Deep in his throat whispered what seemed a name — 
 
 " Open to Caponsacchi ! '' G uido cried : 
 
 '' Gabriel ! " cried Lucifer at Eden-gate. 
 
 Wide as a heart, opened the door at once, 
 
 ShoAviiig the joyous couple, and their child 
 
 The two-weeks' mother, to the wolves, the wolves 
 
 To them. Close eyes ! And when the corpses lay 
 
 Stark-stretched, and those the wolves, their wolf-work 
 
 done. 
 Were safe-embosomed by the night again, 
 I knew a necessary change in things; 
 As when the worst watch of the night gives way, 
 And there comes duly, to take cognizance. 
 The scrutinizing eye-point of some star — 
 And wlio despairs of a new daybreak now ? 
 Lo, the first ray protruded on those five ! 
 It reached them, and each felon writhed transfixed. 
 Awhile they palpitated on the spear 
 Motionless over Tophet : stand or fall ? 
 " I say, the spear should fall — should stand, I say ! " 
 Cried the world come to judgment, granting grace 
 Or dealing doom according to world's wont, 
 Those world's-bystanders grou])ed on Home's cross-road 
 At prick and summons of tlie })rimal curse 
 Which bids man love as well as make a lie. 
 There prattled they, discoursed the right and wrong, 
 
 I 18C ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Turned wrong to rights proved wolves sheep and sheep 
 
 wolves, 
 So that you scarce distinguished fell from fleece ; 
 Till out spoke a great guardian of the fold. 
 Stood up, put forth his hand that held the crook. 
 And motioned that the arrested point decline : 
 Horribly oft', the wriggling dead-weight reeled. 
 Rushed to the bottom and lay ruined there. 
 Though still at the pita's mouth, despite the smoke 
 O' the burning, tarriers turned again to talk 
 And trim the balance, and detect at least 
 A touch of wolf in what showed whitest sheep, 
 A cross of sheep redeeming the whole wolf, — 
 Yex truth a little longer : — less and less. 
 Because years came and went, and more and more 
 Brought new lies w^ith them to be loved in turn. 
 Till all at once the memory of the thing, — 
 The fact that, wolves or sheep, such creatures were, — 
 Which hitherto, however men supposed. 
 Had somehow plain and pillar-like prevailed 
 T the midst of them, indisputably fact. 
 Granite, time''s tooth should grate against, not graze, — 
 Why, this proved sandstone, friable, fast to fly 
 And give its grain away at wish o' the wind. 
 Ever and ever more diminutive, 
 Base gone, shaft lost, only entablature. 
 Dwindled into no bigger than a book. 
 Lay of the column ; and that little, left 
 By the roadside ^mid the ordure, shards and weeds. 
 
 t 187] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Until I liaply, wandering that lone way, 
 Kicked it up, turned it over, and recognized. 
 For all the crumblement, this abacus. 
 This square old yellow book, could calculate 
 By this the lost proportions of the style. 
 
 This was it from, my fancy with those facts, 
 
 I used to tell the tale, turned gay to grave. 
 
 But lacked a listener seldom ; such alloy. 
 
 Such substance of me interfused the gold 
 
 Which, Avrought into a shapely ring therewith, 
 
 Hammered and filed, fingered and favored, last 
 
 Lay ready for the renovating wash 
 
 O' the water. '' How much of the tale was true ? " 
 
 I disappeared ; the book grew all in all ; 
 
 The lawyers' pleadings swelled back to their size, — 
 
 Doubled in two, the crease upon them yet, 
 
 For more commodity of carriage, see ! — 
 
 And these are letters, veritable sheets 
 
 That brought posthaste the news to Florence, writ 
 
 At Rome the day Count Guido died, we find, 
 
 To stay the craving of a client there. 
 
 Who bound the same and so produced my book. 
 
 Lovers of dead truth, did ye fare the worse ? 
 
 Lovers of live truth, found ye false my tale ? 
 
 Well, now ; there 's nothing in nor out o' the world 
 Good except truth : yet this, the something else, 
 What 's this then, which proves good yet seems untrue 
 
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 This that I mixed with truth, motions of mine 
 
 That quickened, made the inertness malleolable 
 
 O* the gold was not mine, — what''s 3^onr name for this? 
 
 Are means to the end, themselves in part the end ? 
 
 Is fiction which makes fact alive, fact too ? 
 
 The somehow may be thishow. 
 
 I find first 
 Writ down for very A B C of fact, 
 " In the beginning God made heaven and earth " ; 
 Erom which, no matter with what lisp, I spell 
 And speak you out a consequence — that man, 
 Man, — as befits the made, the inferior thing, — 
 Purposed, since made, to grow, not make in turn. 
 Yet forced to try and make, else fail to grow, — 
 Formed to rise, reach at, if not grasp and gain 
 The good beyond liim, — which attempt is growth, — 
 Repeats God's process in man's due degree. 
 Attaining man's proportionate result, — 
 Creates, no, but resuscitates, perhaps. 
 Inalienable, the arch-prerogative 
 Which turns thought, act — conceives, expresses too ! 
 No less, man, bounded, yearning to be free, 
 May so project his surplusage of soul 
 In search of body, so add self to self 
 By owning what lay ownerless before, — 
 So find, so fill full, so appropriate forms — 
 That, althougli nothing which liad never life 
 Shall get life from him, be, not having been. 
 Yet, something dead may get to live again, 
 
 [ 189 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Something with too much life or not enough. 
 
 Which, either way imperfect, ended once : 
 
 An end whereat man's impulse intervenes. 
 
 Makes new beginning, starts the dead alive, 
 
 Completes the incomplete and saves the thing. 
 
 Man^s breath were vain to liglit a virgin wick, — 
 
 Half-burned-out, all but quite-quenched wicks o"* the lamp 
 
 Stationed for temple-service on this earth, 
 
 These indeed let him breathe on and relume ! 
 
 For such man's feat is, in the due degree, 
 
 — Mimic creation, galvanism for life. 
 
 But still a glory jjortioned in the scale. 
 
 Why did the mage say, — feeling as we are wont 
 
 For truth, and stopping midway short of truth. 
 
 And resting on a lie, — "I raise a ghost " ? 
 
 " Because,^' he taught adepts, " man makes not man. 
 
 Yet by a special gift, an art of arts. 
 
 More insight and more outsight and much more 
 
 Will to use both of these than boast my mates, 
 
 I can detach from me, commission forth 
 
 Half of my soul ; which in its pilgrimage 
 
 O'er old unwandered waste ways of the world. 
 
 May chance upon some fragment of a whole. 
 
 Rag of ticsh, scrap of bone in dim disuse. 
 
 Smoking flax that fed fire once : prompt therein 
 
 I enter, spark-like, put old powers to play, 
 
 Pusli lines out to the limit, lead forth last 
 
 (By a moonrise througli a ruin of a crypt) 
 
 What shall b(; mistily seen, murmuringly heard, 
 
 1 liw ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Mistakeiilj felt : then write my name with Paust's ! ^' 
 Oh, Eaust, why Faust ? Was not Elisha once ? — 
 Who bade them lay his staff on a corpse-face. 
 There was no voice, no hearing : he went in 
 Therefore, and shut the door upon them twain. 
 And prayed unto the Lord : and he w^ent up 
 And lay upon the corpse, dead on the couch. 
 And put his mouth upon its mouth, his eyes 
 Upon its eyes, his hands upon its hands. 
 And stretched him on the flesh ; the flesh waxed warm 
 And he returned, walked to and fro the house, 
 And went up, stretched him on the flesh again. 
 And the eyes opened. ''T is a credible feat 
 With the right man and way. 
 
 Enough of me ! 
 The Book ! I turn its medicinable leaves 
 In London now till, as in Florence erst, 
 A spirit laughs and leaps through every limb. 
 And lights my eye, and lifts me by the hair. 
 Letting me have my will again with these 
 — How title I the dead alive once more ? 
 
 Count Guido Franceschini the Aretine, 
 Descended of an ancient house, though poor, 
 A beak-nosed bushy-bearded black-haired lord, 
 Lean, pallid, low of stature yet robust. 
 Fifty years old, — having four years ago 
 Married Pompilia Comparini, young, 
 Good, beautiful, at Bome, where she was born, 
 
 [191 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 And brought her to Arezzo, where they lived 
 
 Unhappy lives, whatever curse the cause, — 
 
 This husband, taking four accomplices, 
 
 EoUowcd this wife to Eome, wliere she was fled 
 
 From their Arezzo to find peace again. 
 
 In convoy, eight months earlier, of a ])riest, 
 
 Aretine also, of still nobler birth, 
 
 Giuseppe Caponsacchi, — caught her there 
 
 Quiet in a villa on a Christmas night. 
 
 With only Pietro and Violante by. 
 
 Both her putative parents ; killed the three. 
 
 Aged, they seventy each, and she seventeen. 
 
 And, two weeks since, the mother of his babe 
 
 First-born and heir to what the style was worth 
 
 O' the Guido who determined, dared and did 
 
 This deed just as he purposed point by point. 
 
 Then, bent upon escape, but hotly pressed. 
 
 And captured with his co-mates that same night. 
 
 He, brought to trial, stood on this defence — 
 
 Injury to his honor caused the act; 
 
 And since his wife was false, (as manifest 
 
 By tiiglit from home in such companionsliip,) 
 
 Death, punislunent deserved of the false wife 
 
 And faithless parents who abetted her 
 
 I' the flight aforesaid, wronged nor God nor man. 
 
 " Nor false she, nor yet faithless they," replied 
 
 The accuser ; '' cloaked and masked this murder glooms ; 
 
 True was P()m])ilia, loyal too the pair; 
 
 Out of the man's own heart a monster curled 
 
 f \m ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Which — crime coiled with connivancy at crime — 
 His victim's breast, he tells you, hatched and reared ; 
 Uncoil we and stretch stark the worm of hell ! ^' 
 A month the trial swayed this way and that 
 Ere judgment settled down on Guidons guilt ; 
 Then was the Pope, that good Twelfth Innocent, 
 Appealed to : who well weighed what went before, 
 Affirmed the guilt and gave the guilty doom. 
 
 Let this old woe step on the stage again ! 
 
 Act itself o'er anew for men to judge, 
 
 Not by the very sense and sight indeed — 
 
 (Which take at best imperfect cognizance. 
 
 Since, how heart moves brain, and how both move hand, 
 
 What mortal ever in entirety saw ?) 
 
 — No dose of purer truth than man digests. 
 
 But truth with falsehood, milk that feeds him now, 
 
 Not strong meat he may get to bear some day — 
 
 To-wit, by voices we call evidence. 
 
 Uproar in the echo, live fact deadened down. 
 
 Talked over, bruited abroad, whispered away. 
 
 Yet helping us to all we seem to hear : 
 
 For how else know we save by worth of word ? 
 
 Here are the voices presently shall sound 
 In due succession. First, the world's outcry 
 Around the rush and ripple of any fact 
 Fallen stonewise, plumb on the smooth face of things; 
 The world's guess as it crowds the bank o' the pool. 
 13 [ 193 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 At what were figure and substance, by their splash : 
 Then, by vibrations in the general mind, 
 At depth of deed already out of reach. 
 This threefold murder of the day before, — 
 Say, Half-Rome^s feel after the vanished truth ; 
 Honest enough, as the way is : all the same, 
 Harboring in the centre of its sense 
 A hidden germ of failure, shy but sure, 
 To neutralize that honesty and leave 
 That feel for truth at fault, as the way is too. 
 Some prepossession such as starts amiss. 
 By but a hair^s breadth at the shoulder-blade. 
 The arm o^ the feeler, dip he ne^er so bold ; 
 So leads arm waveringly, lets fall wide 
 0' the mark its finger, sent to find and fix 
 Truth at the bottom, that deceptive speck. 
 With this Half-Kome, — the source of swerving, call 
 Over-belief in Guidon's right and wrong 
 Eather than in Pompilia's wrong and right : 
 Who shall say how, who shall say why ? ^T is there — 
 The instinctive theorizing whence a fact 
 Looks to the eye as the eye likes the look. 
 Gossip in a public place, a sample-speech. 
 Some worthy, with his previous hint to find 
 A husband^s side the safer, and no whit 
 Aware lie is not ^acus the while, — 
 How such an one supposes and states fact 
 To whosoever of a multitude 
 Will listen, and perhaps prolong thereby 
 
 [ 194 ] 
 

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THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 The not-unpleasant flutter at the breast. 
 
 Born of a certain spectacle shut in 
 
 By the church Lorenzo opposite. So, they lounge 
 
 Midway the mouth o^ the street, on Corso side, 
 
 ^Twixt palace Fiano and palace Ruspoli, 
 
 Linger and listen ; keeping clear o' the crowd. 
 
 Yet wishful one could lend that crowd one^s eyes, 
 
 (So universal is its plague of squint) 
 
 And make hearts beat our time that flutter false : 
 
 — All for the trutVs sake, mere truth, nothing else ! 
 
 How Half-Eome found for Guido much excuse. 
 
 Next, from Eome's other half, the opposite feel 
 For truth with a like swerve, like unsuccess, — 
 Or if success, by no skill but more luck 
 This time, through siding rather with the wife. 
 Because a fancy-fit inclined that way, 
 Than with the husband. One wears drab, one pink ; 
 Who wears pink, ask him " "Which shall win the race, 
 Of coupled runners like as egg and egg ? " 
 " — Why, if I must choose, he with the pink scarf. ''' 
 Doubtless for some such reason choice fell here 
 A piece of public talk to correspond 
 At the next stage of the story ; just a day 
 Let pass and we^ day brings the proper change. 
 Another sample-speech i' the market-place 
 O' the Barberini by the Capucins ; 
 Where the old Triton, at his fountain- sport, 
 Bernini's creature plated to the paps, 
 
 [ 195] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Puffs up steel sleet which breaks to diamond dust, 
 
 A spray of sparkles snorted from his conch. 
 
 High over the caritellas, out o' the way 
 
 0^ the motley merchandizing multitude. 
 
 Our murder has been done three davs 02:0, 
 
 The frost is over and gone, the south wind laughs. 
 
 And, to the very tiles of eacli red roof 
 
 xV-sraoke i' the sunshine, Eome lies gold and glad : 
 
 So, listen how, to the other half of Eome, 
 
 Pompilia seemed a saint and martyr both ! 
 
 Then, yet another day let come and go. 
 With pause prelusive still of novelty. 
 Hear a fresh speaker ! — neither this nor that 
 Half-Eome aforesaid ; something bred of both : 
 One and one breed the inevitable three. 
 Such is the personage harangues you next ; 
 The elaborated product, terfium quid: 
 Eome's first commotion in subsidence gives 
 The curd 0^ the cream, flower o' the wheat, as it were. 
 And finer sense o' the city. Is this plain ? 
 You get a reasoned statement of the case. 
 Eventual verdict of the curious few 
 Who care to sift a business to the bran 
 Nor coarsely bolt it like the simpler sort. 
 Here, after ignorance, instruction speaks ; 
 Here, clarity of candor, history's soul. 
 The critical mind, in short : no gossip-guess. 
 What the superior social section thinks, 
 
 [ 196] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 In person of some man of quality 
 
 Who — breathing musk from lace-work and brocade, 
 
 His solitaire amid the flow of frill, 
 
 Powdered peruke on nose, and bag at back. 
 
 And cane dependent from the ruffled wrist — 
 
 Harangues in silvery and selectest phrase 
 
 ^Neath waxlight in a glorified saloon 
 
 Where mirrors multiply the girandole : 
 
 Courting the approbation of no mob. 
 
 But Eminence This and All-Illustrious That 
 
 Who take snuff softly, range in well-bred ring. 
 
 Card-table-quitters for observance' sake. 
 
 Around the argument, the rational word — 
 
 Still, spite its weight and worth, a sample-speech. 
 
 How Quality dissertated on the case. 
 
 So much for Eome and rumor ; smoke comes first : 
 
 Once let smoke rise untroubled, we descry 
 
 Clearlier what tongues of flame may spire and 
 
 spit 
 To eye and ear, each with appropriate tinge 
 According to its food, or pure or foul. 
 The actors, no mere rumors of tlie act. 
 Intervene. First you hear Count Guidons voice, 
 In a small chamber that adjoins the court. 
 Where Governor and Judges, summoned thence, 
 Tommati, Venturini and the rest, 
 Find the accused ripe for declaring truth. 
 Soft-cushioned sits he ; yet shifts seat, shirks touch, 
 
 [197] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 As, with a twitchy brow and wincing lip 
 And cheek that changes to all kinds of white. 
 He proffers his defence, in tones snbdued 
 Near to mock-mildness now, so mournful seems 
 The obtuser sense truth fails to satisfy ; 
 Now, moved, from pathos at the wrong endured. 
 To passion ; for the natural man is roused 
 At fools who first do wrong then pour the blame 
 Of their wrong-doing, Satan-like, on Job. 
 Also his tongue at times is hard to curb ; 
 Incisive, nigh satiric bites the phrase, 
 Eough-raw, yet somehow claiming privilege 
 
 — It is so hard for shrewdness to admit 
 
 Folly means no harm when she calls black white ! 
 
 — Eruption momentary at the most, 
 Modified forthwith by a fall o' the fire. 
 
 Sage acquiescence ; for the world 's the world, 
 And, what it errs in. Judges rectify : 
 He feels lie has a fist, then folds his arms 
 Crosswise and makes his mind up to be meek. 
 And never once does he detach his eye 
 From tliose ranged there to slay him or to save. 
 But does his best man's-service for himself. 
 Despite, — what twitches brow and makes lip wince, 
 His limbs' late taste of what was called the Cord, 
 Or Vigil-torture more facetiously. 
 Even so ; they were wont to tease the truth 
 Out of loth witness (toying, trifling time) 
 By torture : ^t was a trick, a vice of the age, 
 
 [ 198 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Here, there and every where_, what would you have ? 
 Eeligion used to tell Humanity 
 She gave him warrant or denied him course. 
 And since the course was much to his own mind, 
 Of pinching flesh and pulling bone from bone 
 To unhusk truth a-hiding in its hulls. 
 Nor whisper of a warning stopped the way, 
 He, in their joint behalf, the burly slave. 
 Bestirred him, mauled and maimed all recusants, 
 While, prim in place, Religion overlooked ; 
 And so had done till doomsday, never a sign 
 Nor sound of interference from her mouth. 
 But that at last the burly slave wiped brow. 
 Let eye give notice as if soul were there. 
 Muttered " ''T is a vile trick, foolish more than vile. 
 Should have been counted sin ; I make it so : 
 At any rate no more of it for me — 
 Nay, for I break the torture-engine thus ! " 
 Then did Religion start up, stare amain, 
 Look round for help and see none, smile and say 
 " What, broken is the rack ? Well done of thee ! 
 Did I forget to abrogate its use ? 
 Be the mistake in common with us both ! 
 — One more fault our blind age shall answer for, 
 Down in my book denounced though it must be 
 Somewhere. Henceforth find truth by milder means 
 Ah but, Pteligion, did we wait for thee 
 To ope tlie book, that serves to sit upon. 
 And pick such place out, we should wait indeed ! 
 
 [199] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 That is all history : and what is uot now. 
 Was then^ defeudauts found it to their cost. 
 How Guido, after being tortured, spoke. 
 
 Also hear Caponsacchi who comes next, 
 Man and priest — could you comprehend the coil ! — 
 In days when that was rife which now is rare. 
 How, mingling each its multifarious wires. 
 Now heaven, now earth, now heaven and earth at once, 
 Had plucked at and perplexed their puppet here, 
 Played off the young frank personable priest ; 
 Sworn fast and tonsured plain heaven's celibate, 
 And yet earth's clear-accepted servitor, 
 A courtly spiritual Cupid, squire of dames 
 By law of love and mandate of the mode. 
 The Church's own, or why parade her seal. 
 Wherefore that chrism and consecrative work ? 
 Yet verily the world's, or why go badged 
 A prince of sonneteers and lutanists. 
 Show color of each vanity in vogue 
 Borne with decorum due on blameless breast ? 
 All that is changed now, as he tells the court 
 How he liad played the part excepted at ; 
 Tells it, moreover, now the second time : 
 Since, for his cause of scandal, his own share 
 I' the flight from home and husband of the wife, 
 He has been censured, punished in a sort 
 By relegation, — exile, we should say. 
 To a short distance for a little time, — 
 
 [200] 
 
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THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Whence he is summoned on a sudden now^ 
 Informed that she, he thought to save, is lost, 
 And, in a breath, bidden re-tell his tale. 
 Since the first telling somehow missed effect. 
 And then advise in the matter. There stands he. 
 While the same grim black-panelled chamber blinks 
 As though rubbed shiny with the sins of Eome 
 Told the same oak for ages — wave-washed wall 
 Against which sets a sea of wickedness. 
 There, where you yesterday heard Guido speak, 
 Speaks Caponsacchi ; and there face him too 
 Tommati, Yenturini and the rest 
 Who, eight months earlier, scarce repressed the smile, 
 Forewent the wink ; waived recognition so 
 Of peccadillos incident to youth. 
 Especially youth high-born ; for youth means love. 
 Vows can^t change nature, priests are only men. 
 And love likes stratagem and subterfuge : 
 Which age, that once was youth, should recognize. 
 May blame, but needs not press too hard upon. 
 Here sit the old Judges then, but with no grace 
 Of reverend carriage, magisterial port. 
 For why? The accused of eight months since, — the same 
 Who cut the conscious figure of a fool. 
 Changed countenance, dropped bashful gaze to ground. 
 While hesitating for an answer then, — 
 Now is grown judge himself, terrifies now 
 This, now the other culprit called a judge. 
 Whose turn it is to stammer and look strange, 
 
 [ ^01 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 As he speaks rapidly, aiigril}', speech that smites : 
 
 And they keep silence, bear blow after blow. 
 
 Because the seeming- solitary man. 
 
 Speaking for God, may have an audience too, 
 
 Invisible, no discreet judge provokes. 
 
 How the priest Caponsacchi said his say. 
 
 Then a soul sighs its lowest and its last 
 After the loud ones, — so much breath remains 
 Unused by the four-days'-dying ; for she lived 
 Thus long, miraculously long, 't was thought, 
 Just that Pompilia might defend herself. 
 How, while the hireling and the alien stoop. 
 Comfort, yet question, — since the time is brief, 
 And folk, allowably inquisitive. 
 Encircle the low pallet where she lies 
 In the good house that helps the poor to die, — 
 Pompilia tells the story of her life. 
 For friend and lover, — leech and man of law 
 Do service; busy helpful ministrants 
 As varied in their calling as their mind. 
 Temper and age : and yet from all of these. 
 About the white bed under the arched roof, 
 Is somehow, as it were, evolved a one, — 
 Small separate sympathies combined and large. 
 Nothings that were, grown something very much : 
 As if the bystanders gave each his straw. 
 All he had, though a trifle in itself. 
 Which, plaited all together, made a Cross 
 [ 202 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Fit to die looking on and praying with, 
 Just as well as if ivory or gold. 
 So, to the common kindliness she speaks, 
 There being scarce more privacy at the last 
 For mind than body : but she is used to bear, 
 And only unused to the brotherly look. 
 How she endeavored to explain her life. 
 
 Then, since a Trial ensued, a touch o^ the same 
 To sober us, flustered with frothy talk. 
 And teach our common sense its helplessness. 
 For why deal simply with divining-rod. 
 Scrape where we fancy secret sources flow, 
 And ignore law, the recognized machine. 
 Elaborate display of pipe and wheel 
 Framed to unchoke, pump up and pour apace 
 Truth till a flowery foam shall wash the world? 
 The patent truth-extracting process, — ha ? 
 Let us make that grave mystery turn one wheel. 
 Give you a single grind of law at least ! 
 One orator, of two on either side. 
 Shall teach us the puissance of the tongue 
 — That is, o' the pen which simulated tongue 
 On paper and saved all except the sound 
 Which never was. Law's speech beside law's thought ? 
 That were too stunning, too immense an odds : 
 That point of vantage law lets nobly pass. 
 One lawyer shall admit us to behold 
 The manner of the making out a case, 
 
 [ 203 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Pirst fashion of a speech ; the chicl: in egg, 
 The masterpiece law's bosom incubates. 
 How Don Giacinto of the Arcangeli, 
 Called Procurator of the Poor at Eome, 
 Now advocate for Guido and his mates, — 
 The jolly learned man of middle age, 
 Cheek and jowl all in laps with fat and law. 
 Mirthful as mighty, yet, as great hearts use. 
 Despite the name and fame that tempt our flesh, 
 Constant to that devotion of the hearth. 
 Still captive in those dear domestic ties ! — 
 How he, — having a cause to triumph with. 
 All kind of interests to keep intact. 
 More than one efficacious personage 
 To tranquillize, conciliate and secure. 
 And above all, public anxiety 
 To quiet, show its Guido in good hands, — 
 Also, as if such burdens were too light, 
 A certain family-feast to claim his care. 
 The birthday-banciuet for the only son — 
 Paternity at smiling strife with law — 
 How he brings botli to buckle in one bond; 
 
 And, thick at throat, with waterish under-eye, 
 Turns to his task and settles in his seat 
 And puts his utmost means in practice now : 
 Wlieezes out law-phrase, whiffles Latin forth. 
 And, just as though roast lamb would never be. 
 Makes logic levigate the big crime small : 
 Bubs palm on j^alm, rakes foot with itchy foot, 
 [ ^04 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Conceives and inchoates the argument, 
 Sprinkling each flower appropriate to the time, 
 — Ovidian quip or Ciceronian crank, 
 A-bubble in the larynx while he laughs. 
 As he had fritters deep down frying there. 
 How he turns, twists, and tries the oily thing 
 Shall be — first speech for Guido 'gainst the Fisc. 
 Then with a skip as it were from heel to head, 
 Leaving yourselves fill up the middle bulk 
 O^ the Trial, reconstruct its shape august. 
 From such exordium clap we to the close ; 
 Give you, if we dare wing to such a height. 
 The absolute glory in some full-grown speech 
 On the other side, some finished butterfly, 
 Some breathing diamond-flake with leaf-gold fans. 
 That takes the air, no trace of worm it was, 
 Or cabbage-bed it had production from. 
 Giovambattista o' the Bottini, Fisc, 
 Pompilia''s patron by the chance of the hour. 
 To-morrow her persecutor, — composite, he. 
 As becomes who must meet such various calls — 
 Odds of age joined in him with ends of youth. 
 A man of ready smile and facile tear. 
 Improvised hopes, despairs at nod and beck, 
 And language — ah, the gift of eloquence ! 
 Language that goes, goes, easy as a glove. 
 O'er good and evil, smoothens both to one. 
 Rashness helps caution with him, fires the straw. 
 In free enthusiastic careless fit, 
 [ 205 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 On the first proper pinnacle of rock 
 Which offers, as reward for all that zeal. 
 To lure some bark to founder and bring gain : 
 While calm sits Caution, rapt with heavenward eye, 
 A true confessor's gaze, amid the glare 
 Beaconing to the breaker, death and hell. 
 " Well done, thou good and faithful ! " she approves 
 " Hadst thou let slip a faggot to the beach, 
 ITie crew might surely spy thy precipice 
 And save their boat ; the simple and the slow 
 Might so, forsooth, forestall the wrecker's fee! 
 Let the next crew be wise and hail in time ! " 
 Just so compounded is the outside man. 
 Blue juvenile pure eye and pippin cheek. 
 And brow all prematurely soiled and seamed 
 With sudden age, bright devastated hair. 
 Ah, but you miss the very tones o' the voice. 
 The scrannel pipe that screams in heights of head, 
 As, in his modest studio, all alone. 
 The tall wight stands a-tiptoe, strives and strains. 
 Both eyes shut, like the cockerel that would crow. 
 Tries to his own self amorously o'er 
 What never will be uttered else than so — 
 Since to the four walls, Forum and Mars' Hill, 
 Speaks out the poesy whicli, penned, turns prose. 
 Clavecinist debarred Iiis instrument. 
 He yet thrums — shirking neither turn nor trill. 
 With desperate finger on dumb table-edge — 
 The sovereign rondo, shall conclude his Suite, 
 
 [ 206 ] 
 
PORTRAIT by Raphael, known as 
 "The Veiled Lady," in the Pitti 
 Gallery. Supposed to represent 
 the Fornariua, whom Raphael loved. 
 
 His lady of the sonnt,is. " 
 
 — One Word Morei p. 2"17 
 

 t ^ O * *4? <* 
 
 It C I C I t 
 
 I O C < ^ r r 
 
 It o « ^ - 
 
 » 1 I * » 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Charm an imaginary audience there, 
 From old Corelli to young Haendel, both 
 F the flesh at Rome, ere he perforce go print 
 The cold black score, mere music for the mind — 
 The last speech against Guido and his gang. 
 With special end to prove Pompilia pure. 
 How the Fisc vindicates Pompilia^s fame. 
 
 Then comes the all but end, the ultimate 
 Judgment save yours. Pope Innocent the Twelfth, 
 Simple, sagacious, mild yet resolute. 
 With prudence, probity and ■ — what beside 
 From the other world he feels impress at times. 
 Having attained to fourscore years and six, — 
 How, when the court found Guido and the rest 
 Guilty, but law supplied a subterfuge 
 And passed the final sentence to the Pope, 
 He, bringing his intelligence to bear 
 This last time on what ball behoves him drop 
 In the urn, or white or black, does drop a black. 
 Send five souls more to just precede his own. 
 Stand him in stead and witness, if need were, 
 How he is wont to do God^s work on earth. 
 The manner of his sitting out the dim 
 Droop of a sombre February day 
 In the plain closet where he does such work. 
 With, from all Peter's treasury, one stool. 
 One table and one lathen crucifix. 
 There sits the Pope, his thoughts for company ; 
 [ 207 ] 
 
 X 
 
 ■ f ; 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Grave but not sad, — nay, something like a cheer 
 
 Leaves the lips free to be benevolent, 
 
 Which, all day long, did duty firm and fast. 
 
 A cherishing there is of foot and knee, 
 
 A chafing loose-skinned large-veined hand witli hand, — 
 
 What steward but knows when stewardship earns its wage, 
 
 May levy praise, anticipate the lord ? 
 
 He reads, notes, lays the papers down at last. 
 
 Muses, then takes a turn about the room ; 
 
 Unclasps a huge tome in an antique guise, 
 
 Primitive print and tongue half obsolete. 
 
 That stands him in diurnal stead ; opes page, 
 
 Finds place where falls the passage to be conned 
 
 According to an order long in use : 
 
 And, as he comes upon the evening's chance, 
 Starts somewhat, solemnizes straight his smile. 
 
 Then reads aloud that portion first to last. 
 And at the end lets flow his own thoughts forth 
 Likewise aloud, for respite and relief. 
 Till by the dreary relics of the west 
 Wan through the half-moon window, all his light, 
 He bows tlie head while the lips move in prayer. 
 Writes some three brief lines, signs and seals the same, 
 Tinkles a hand-bell, bids the obsequious Sir 
 Who puts foot presently o' the closet-sill 
 He watched outside of, bear as superscribed 
 That mandate to the Governor forthwith : 
 Then heaves abroad his cares in one good sigh, 
 Traverses corridor with no arm's help, 
 
 [ 208 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 And so to sup as a clear conscience should. 
 The manner of the judgment of the Pope. 
 
 Then must speak Guido yet a second time^, 
 Satan's old saw being apt here — skin for skin, 
 All a man hath that will he give for life. 
 While life was graspable and gainable, 
 And bird-like buzzed her wings round Guidons brow. 
 Not much truth stiffened out the web of words 
 He wove to catch her : when away she flew 
 And death came, death's breath rivelled up the lies. 
 Left bare the metal thread, the fibre fine 
 Of truth, i' the spinning : the true words shone last. 
 How Guido, to another purpose quite. 
 Speaks and despairs, the last night of his life, 
 In that New Prison by Castle Angelo 
 At the bridge foot : the same man, another voice. 
 On a stone bench in a close fetid cell, 
 Where the hot vapor of an agony. 
 Struck into drops on the cold wall, runs down — 
 Horrible worms made out of sweat and tears — 
 There crouch, well-nigh to the knees in dungeon-straw, 
 Lit by the sole lamp suffered for their sake. 
 Two awe-struck figures, this a Cardinal, 
 That an Abate, both of old styled friends 
 O' the thing part man part monster in the midst, 
 So changed is Pranceschini's gentle blood. 
 The tiger-cat screams now, that whined before, 
 That pried and tried and trod so gingerly, 
 14 [ 209 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Till in its silkiness the trap-teeth joined; 
 Then jou know how the bristling fury foams. 
 They listen, this wrapped in his folds of red, 
 While his feet fumble for the filth below ; 
 The other, as beseems a stouter heart, 
 Working his best with beads and cross to ban 
 The enemy that comes in like a flood 
 Spite of the standard set up, verily 
 And in no trope at all, against him there ; 
 .For at the prison-gate, just a few steps 
 Outside, already, in the doubtful dawn, 
 Thither, from this side and from that, slow sweep 
 And settle down in silence solidly. 
 Crow-wise, the frightful Brotherhood of Death. 
 Black-hatted and black-hooded huddle they. 
 Black rosaries a-dangling from each waist ; 
 So take they their grim station at the door, 
 Torches lit, skuU-and-cross-bones-banner spread. 
 And that gigantic Christ with open arms. 
 Grounded. Nor lacks there aught but that the group 
 Jkeak forth, intone the lamentable psalm, 
 " Out of the deeps. Lord, have I cried to thee ! '' — 
 When inside, from the true profound, a sign 
 Shall bear intelligence that the foe is foiled. 
 Count Guido Franceschini has confessed. 
 And is absolved and reconciled with God. 
 Then they, intoning, may begin their march. 
 Make by the longest way for the People's Square, 
 Carry the criminal to his crime's award : 
 
 [ ^10 ] 
 
Graiiduca, in the Pitti 
 Gallery. 
 
 " Madonna 
 
 that visits Florence in a vision." 
 
 — One Word More, p. 218 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 A mob to cleave, a scaffolding to reach. 
 Two gallows and Mannaia crowning all. 
 How Guido made defence a second time. 
 
 Finally, even as thus by step and step 
 
 I led you from the level of to-day 
 
 Up to the summit of so long ago, 
 
 Here, whence I point you the wide prospect round — 
 
 Let me, by like steps, slope you back to smooth, 
 
 Land you on mother-earth, no whit the worse. 
 
 To feed o^ the fat o' the furrow : free to dwell. 
 
 Taste our time's better things profusely spread 
 
 For all who love the level, corn and wine. 
 
 Much cattle and the many-folded fleece. 
 
 Shall not my friends go feast again on sward, 
 
 Though cognizant of country in the clouds 
 
 Higher than wistful eagle's horny eye 
 
 Ever unclosed for, 'mid ancestral crags. 
 
 When morning broke and Spring was back once more. 
 
 And he died, heaven, save by his heart, unreached ? 
 
 Yet heaven my fancy lifts to, ladder-like, — 
 
 As Jack reached, hoipen of his beanstalk- rungs ! 
 
 A novel country : I might make it mine 
 By choosing which one aspect of the year 
 Suited mood best, and putting solely that 
 On panel somewhere in the House of Fame, 
 Landscaping what I saved, not what I saw : 
 — Might fix you, whether frost in goblin-time 
 
 [211 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Startled the moon with his abrupt bright laugh^ 
 
 Or^ August's hair afloat in filmy fire, 
 
 She fell, arms wide, face foremost on the world, 
 
 Swooned there and so singed out the strength of things. 
 
 Thus were abolished Spring and Autumn both. 
 
 The land dwarfed to one likeness of the land. 
 
 Life cramped corpse-fashion. Rather learn and love 
 
 Each facet-flash of the revolving year ! — 
 
 Eed, green and blue that whirl into a white. 
 
 The variance now, the eventual unity, 
 
 Which make the miracle. See it for yourselves, 
 
 This man's act, changeable because alive ! 
 
 Action now shrouds, nor shows the informing thought ; 
 
 Man, like a glass ball with a spark a-top. 
 
 Out of the magic fire that lurks inside. 
 
 Shows one tint at a time to take the eye : 
 
 Which, let a finger touch the silent sleep. 
 
 Shifted a hair's-breadth shoots you dark for bright, 
 
 Sufl'uses bright with dark, and baffles so 
 
 Your sentence absolute for shine or shade. 
 
 Once set such orbs, — white styled, black stigmatized, - 
 
 A- rolling, see them once on the other side 
 
 Your good men and your bad men every one 
 
 From Guido Franccscliini to Guy Faux, 
 
 Oft would you rub your eyes and change your names. 
 
 Such, British Public, ye who like me not, 
 (God love you ! ) — whom I yet have labored for, 
 Perchance more careful whoso runs may read 
 
 [ 212 ] 
 
O 
 
 ? S 5 
 
 re ^ 
 
 t% 2 ~ 5S 
 
 ■* »;, ^ •>. 
 
 2" ^ 
 
 n I— I 
 
 O 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Than erst when all, it seemed, could read who ran, — 
 Perchance more careless whoso reads may praise 
 Than late when he who praised and read and wrote 
 Was apt to find himself the selfsame me, — 
 Such labor had such issue, so I wrought 
 Tliis arc, by furtherance of such alloy. 
 And so, by one spirt, take away its trace 
 Till, justifiably golden, rounds my ring. 
 
 A ring without a posy, and that ring mine ? 
 
 lyric Love, half angel and half bird 
 And all a wonder and a wild desire, — 
 Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, 
 Took sanctuary within the holier blue. 
 And sang a kindred soul out to his face, — 
 Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart — 
 When the first summons from the darkling earth 
 Eeached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue, 
 And bared them of the glory — to drop down, 
 To toil for man, to suffer or to die, — 
 This is the same voice : can thy soul know change ? 
 Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help ! 
 Never may I commence my song, my due 
 To God who best taught song by gift of thee. 
 Except with bent head and beseeching hand — 
 That still, despite the distance and the dark. 
 What was, again may be ; some interchange 
 Of grace, some splendor once thy very thought, 
 
 [ 213 ] 
 
THE RING AND THE BOOK 
 
 Some benediction anciently th}^ smile : 
 
 — Never conclude, but raising hand and head 
 
 Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn 
 
 For all hope, all sustainment, all reward. 
 
 Their utmost up and on, — so blessing back 
 
 In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, 
 
 Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud, 
 
 Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall ! 
 
 [ 214 ] 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
ONE WOBD 3IORE'^ 
 
 To E. B. B. 
 
 London, September, 1855. 
 
 THEEE they are,, my fifty men and women 
 Naming me the fifty poems finished ! 
 Take them. Love, the book and me together : 
 Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. 
 
 II 
 
 Eafael made a century of sonnets, 
 
 Made and wrote them in a certain volume 
 
 Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil 
 
 Else he only used to draw Madonnas : 
 
 These, the world might view — but one, the volume. 
 
 Who that one, you ask ? Your heart instructs you. 
 
 Did she live and love it all her lifetime ? 
 
 Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets. 
 
 Die, and let it drop beside her pillow 
 
 Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, 
 
 1 Originally appended to the collection of fifty poems called " Men and 
 Women." 
 
 [ 217 ] 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
 Eafael's cheek so duteous and so loving — 
 Cheek, the ^vorld was wont to hail a painter's, 
 Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 You and I would rather read that volume, 
 (Taken to his beating bosom by it) 
 Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 
 Would we not ? than wonder at Madonnas — 
 Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, 
 Her, that visits Florence in a vision, 
 Her, that 's left with lilies in the Louvre — 
 Seen by us and all the world in circle. 
 
 IV 
 
 You and I will never read that volume. 
 
 Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple 
 
 Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. 
 
 Guido Reni dying, all Bologna 
 
 Cried, and tlie world cried too, ^' Ours, the treasure ! 
 
 Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. 
 
 V 
 
 Dante once prepared to paint an angel : 
 Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice." 
 While he mused and traced it and retraced it, 
 (Peradventure witli a pen corroded 
 Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for. 
 When, his left-hand in* the hair o' the wicked, 
 [ 218 ] 
 
rpORRE AL GALLO, from which 
 many of Galileo's astronomical 
 observations were made. 
 
 " Galileo, on his turret. " 
 
 — One Word More, p. 224 
 
 .,«:.; 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
 Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, 
 Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, 
 Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 
 Let the wretch go festering through Florence) — 
 Dante, who loved well because he hated. 
 Hated wickedness that hinders loving, 
 Dante standing, studying his angel, — 
 In there broke the folk of his Inferno. 
 Says lie — " Certain people of importance " 
 (Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) 
 " Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet/' 
 Says the poet — "Then I stopped my painting." 
 
 VI 
 
 You and I would rather see that angel. 
 
 Painted by the tenderness of Dante, 
 
 Would we not ? — than read a fresh Inferno. 
 
 VII 
 
 You and I will never see that picture. 
 While he mused on love and Beatrice, 
 While he softened o'er his outlined angel. 
 In they broke, those "people of importance " : 
 We and Bice bear the loss for ever. 
 
 VIII 
 
 What of RafaeFs sonnets, Dante's picture ? 
 This : no artist lives and loves, that longs not 
 Once, and only once, and for one only, 
 [ 219 ] 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
 (Ah, the prize ! ) to find his love a language 
 
 Fit and fair and simple and sufficient — 
 
 Using nature that 's an art to others, 
 
 Not, this one time, art that ^s turned his nature. 
 
 Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 
 
 None but would forego his proper dowry, — 
 
 Does he paint ? he fain would write a poem, — 
 
 Does lie write? he fain would paint a picture, 
 
 Put to proof art alien to the artist's. 
 
 Once, and only once, and for one only, 
 
 So to be the man and leave the artist. 
 
 Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. 
 
 IX 
 
 Wherefore ? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement ! 
 He who smites the rock and spreads the water. 
 Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, 
 Even he, the minute makes immortal. 
 Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute. 
 Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. 
 While he smites, how can he but remember, 
 So he smote before, in such a peril. 
 
 When they stood and mocked — '^ Shall smiting help us? " 
 AVhen they drank and sneered — "A stroke is easy ! " 
 When they wiped their mouths and went their journey. 
 Throwing him for thanks — " But drought was pleasant." 
 Thus old memories mar the actual triumph ; 
 Thus the doing savors of disrelish ; 
 Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; 
 
 [ 2^0 ] 
 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
 O'er-importuiied brows becloud the mandate. 
 
 Carelessness or consciousness — the gesture. 
 
 For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 
 
 Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, 
 
 Hears, yet one time more, the ^customed prelude — 
 
 " How should st thou, of all men, smite, and save us ? '* 
 
 Guesses what is like to prove the sequel — 
 
 " Egypt^s flesh-pots — nay, the drought was better/'' 
 
 X 
 
 Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant ! 
 Theirs, the Sinai-forehead^s cloven brilliance. 
 Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. 
 Never dares the man put off the prophet. 
 
 XI 
 
 Did he love one face from out the thousands, 
 (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, 
 Were she but the ^Ethiopian bondslave,) 
 He would envy yon dumb patient camel. 
 Keeping a reserve of scanty water 
 Meant to save his own life in the desert; 
 Ready in the desert to deliver 
 (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) 
 Hoard and life together for his mistress. 
 
 XII 
 
 I shall never, in the years remaining. 
 Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, 
 
 [ 221 ] 
 
 .*■.: 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
 Make you music that should all-express me ; 
 
 So it seems : I stand on my attainment. 
 
 This of verse alone, one life allows me ; 
 
 Yerse and nothing else have I to give you. 
 
 Other heights in other lives, God willing : 
 
 All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love ! 
 
 XIII 
 
 Yet a semblance of resource avails us — 
 
 Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. 
 
 Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly. 
 
 Lines I write the first time and the last time. 
 
 He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush. 
 
 Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly. 
 
 Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little. 
 
 Makes a strange art of an art familiar, 
 
 Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. 
 
 He who blows thro' bronze, may breathe thro' silver, 
 
 Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. 
 
 He who writes, may write for once as I do. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Love, you saw me gather men and women. 
 Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy. 
 Enter each and all, and use their service. 
 Speak from every mouth, — the speech, a poem. 
 Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, 
 Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving : 
 I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's, 
 
 [ 222 ] 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
 Karshish, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty. 
 Let me speak this once in my true person. 
 Not as Lippo_, Eoland or Andrea, 
 Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence — 
 Pray you, look on these my men and women, 
 Take and keep my fifty poems finished ; 
 Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also ! 
 Poor the speech ; be how I speak, for all things. 
 
 XV 
 
 Not but that you know me ! Lo, the moon's self ! 
 Here in London, yonder late in Florence, 
 Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. 
 Curving on a sky imbrued with color. 
 Drifted over Piesole by twilight, 
 Came she, our new crescent of a hair^s-breadth. 
 Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 
 Eounder ^twixt the cypresses and rounder. 
 Perfect till the nightingales applauded. 
 Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished. 
 Hard to greet, she traverses the houseroofs. 
 Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver. 
 Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. 
 
 XVI 
 
 What, there's nothing in the moon note-worthy ? 
 Nay : for if that moon could love a mortal. 
 Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy) 
 [ 223 J 
 
 It 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
 All her magic (^t is the old sweet mythos), 
 
 She would turn a new side to her mortal^ 
 
 Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman — 
 
 Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace. 
 
 Blind to Galileo on his turret. 
 
 Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even ! 
 
 Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal — 
 
 When she turns round, comes again in heaven. 
 
 Opens out anew for worse or better ! 
 
 Proves she like some portent of an iceberg 
 
 Swimming full upon the ship it founders. 
 
 Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? 
 
 Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire 
 
 Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain ? 
 
 Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu 
 
 Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, 
 
 Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. 
 
 Like the bodied heaven in his clearness 
 
 Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, 
 
 When they ate and drank and saw God also ! 
 
 XVII 
 
 What were soon ? None knows, none ever shall know. 
 Only this is sure — the sight were other, 
 Not the raoon^s same side, born late in Florence, 
 Dying now impoverished here in London. 
 God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 
 Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with. 
 One to show a woman w lun he loves her ! 
 
 [ 224 ] 
 
2 > 
 
 .tit; 
 
ONE WORD MORE 
 
 XVIII 
 
 This I say of me, but think of you^ Love ! 
 
 This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! 
 
 Ah, but that ^s the world^s side, there ^s the wonder, 
 
 Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you ! 
 
 There, in turn I stand Avith them and praise you. 
 
 Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. 
 
 But the best is when I glide from out them. 
 
 Cross a step or two of dubious twilight. 
 
 Come out on the other side, the novel 
 
 Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of. 
 
 Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Oh, their Eafael of the dear Madonnas, 
 Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, 
 Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it. 
 Drew one angel — borne, see, on my bosom ! 
 
 E. B. 
 
 r,\: 
 
 15 
 
 [ 225 ] 
 
INDEX 
 
 ?*1 
 
 i!iv 
 
Index 
 
 
 Angelico, Fra (da Fiesole), 36, 114, 
 
 129. 
 Apollo, Statue of, Uffizi Gallery, 109. 
 Arezzo, Province of, 40 ; town of, 
 
 181, 182, 183, 192. 
 Arno, four bridges over, 24. 
 
 Baccio Bandinelli's statue of Gio- 
 vanni della Banda Nere, Piazza 
 of San Lorenzo, 164. 
 
 Baldovinetti, Alesso, Madonna and 
 Saints, Uffizi Gallery, 114. 
 
 Bandiera, the brothers, 54. 
 
 Bargello chapel, 45. 
 
 Beatrix, 45, 218. 
 
 Bellosguardo, site of Galileo's villa, 
 64. 
 
 Bigordi, Domenico, 114. 
 
 Bridge of Santa Trinita, 167. 
 
 Bruuelleschi's church, San Lorenzo. 
 44. 
 
 Buonarroti (Michelangelo), 43, 62, 
 115. 
 
 Campanile of Giotto, 25, 105, 111, 
 
 117. 
 Carlo Dolci, 115. 
 Carmine, Carmelite cloister of the, 
 
 121,126, 130. 
 Casa Guidi, 22, 39, 68, 77, 79, 82, 
 
 94, 167. 
 Cascine, The, 99; piazza in the, 99. 
 Castellani, 163. 
 Cellini's Perseus, 43. 
 Charles Albert, 92. 
 Charles of Anjou, sees Ciraabue's 
 
 Virgin and Child, 34. 
 Chiusi, province Siena, 163. 
 
 Cimabue, 34, 35; discovers Giotto, 35. 
 Circoli, The, 71. 
 
 Cosimo Pater Patriae, 121, 123; his 
 palace (Palace of the Medici), 129. 
 Crystal Palace, London, 88-90. 
 
 Dante, 44, 45, 218, 219, 225; bust 
 
 on gate of San Gallo, 60. 
 Dante's stone, 44, 45, 101, 116. 
 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 108, 146. 
 Dello Delli, 108. 
 Duomo, Palazzo del, 72, 117. 
 Dying Alexander, The, Uffizi Gallery, 
 
 109. 
 
 Ferdinand I. de' Medici, Equestrian 
 statue of, Piazza dell' Annunziata, 
 149, 150. 157. 
 
 Fiesole, 62, 137, 138, 223. 
 
 Filicaja, Vincenza da, 23. 
 
 Francis L of France, patron of An- 
 drea del Sarto, 142, 144, 145. 
 
 Galileo's Tower, 224. 
 
 Gallo gate, 60. 
 
 Garibaldi, Death of wife and child 
 of, 91, 92. 
 
 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 113. 
 
 Ghirlandajo (Domenico Bigordi), 113. 
 
 Giotto, 24, 36, 45, 58, 106, 111, 117; 
 Last Supper, 115; Saints, in Chapel 
 of the Medici, Santa Croce, 127. 
 
 Glad Borgo (Borgo Allegri), 34. 
 
 Gualbert, St., Altar of, Fiesole, 63. 
 
 Guerazzi, 72, 75, 76. 
 
 Guidi, 130. 
 
 Guido Reni, 218. 
 
 •a- 
 
 m 
 
 .u 
 
 [ 229 ] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Jerome, St., Painting of by Fra 
 Lippo Lippi, Academy of Fine Arts, 
 123. 
 
 Joconde, by Lionard, in the Louvre, 
 lfJ5. 
 
 Lapaccia, Monna, 124. 
 
 Leopold, Grand-duke, 41, 42, 68-70, 
 75-77, 82. 
 
 Lippino Lippi, 114. 
 
 Lippo Lippi, Fra, 121-134. 
 
 Lippo Lippi's, Fra, fresco of St. Law- 
 rence, Prato, 132; altar-piece for 
 S. Ambrogio, 133, 134; painting 
 of St. Jerome, Academy of Fine 
 Arts, 123. 
 
 Loggia dei Lanzi, 43. 
 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, 32. 
 
 Lucrezia, wife of Andrea del Sarto, 
 137-146. 
 
 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 34 
 Margheritone, 36; Crucifixion, Santa 
 
 Croce church, 114. 
 Massa-Carrara, Province of, 40. 
 Mazziiu, Giuseppe, 83, 86, 87. 
 Metternich, Prince, 46. 
 Michelangelo (see also Buonarroti), 
 
 107, 141, 143, 144, 146. 
 Michelangelo's Tomb of the Medici, 
 
 25; bust of Brutus, 43, 87; snow 
 
 statue for Pietro, 26, 27. 
 Monaco, Lorenzo, 114, 129. 
 Mont St. Gothard, 116. 
 Moreilo, 116, 140, 144. 
 
 Niccolo gate, 60. 
 
 Niobe, Group of, Uffizi Gallery, 109. 
 
 Novara, 80, !)2. 
 
 OONISSANTI, 116. 
 
 Orcagna (Orgagna), the brothers, 
 Fresco of Inferno by, 34, 116. 
 
 Petka.ta, Villa, 153. 
 
 Petrarch's bust on gate of San 
 
 Niccolo, 60. 
 Piazza of tlie Grand-duke, 31. 
 Pienza, 40. 
 
 Pillar, Piazza Santa Trinita, 167. 
 
 Pisano, Niccola (Nicolo, the Pisan), 
 113. 
 
 Pisa, Province of, 40. 
 
 Pitti palace, 22, 38, 42, 45, 68. 
 
 Pius IX. (Pio Nono), 53, 54, 82, 83, 
 85. 
 
 Pollajolo, 114. 
 
 Porta Romana, 181. 
 
 Prato cathedral. Frescos of the Bap- 
 tist in, 122. 
 
 Racers, Frieze of the, 109. 
 Radetzky, Count Johann, 116. 
 Raphael (Raffael), 36, 62, 107, 141- 
 
 144, 146; Madonnas by, 217, 218, 
 
 225. 
 Riccardi, The Palazzo, Piazza dell' 
 
 Annunziata, 149, 150, 165. 
 Robbia, della, 156. 
 Rossi, Count, 86. 
 
 Samminiato, 223. 
 
 Sandro Botticelli, 114. 
 
 San Felice, Church of, 22, 167, 181. 
 
 San Lorenzo, Church of, 25, 123, 165. 
 
 San Lorenzo, Piazza of, 164, 106. 
 
 San Spirito, Church of, 116. 
 
 Santa Croce church, 44. • 
 
 Santa Maria Novella, Church of, 33.. 
 
 Sarto, Andrea del, 137-146; Ma- 
 donna, Pitti Galler.v, 139, 143; 
 copy of portrait of Leo X., 140, 141 . 
 
 Savonarola, 31, 32; martyrdom of, 
 150. 
 
 Siena cathedral. Tombs of Borgia 
 and Pope Joan in, 84. 
 
 Siena, Province of, 40. 
 
 Stefano, 108. 
 
 Strozzi, Palace of the, 167. 
 
 Taddeo Gaddi, Church of Santa 
 
 Maria Novella, 114. 
 Theseus, Statue of, Uffizi Gallery, 
 
 109. 
 
 Vallombuosa, 63. 
 Vasari, George, 108, 140. 
 Via Larga, 26, 150. 
 
 [ 230 ] 
 
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