You can't discover if it means hope, fear, 210 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'll find the soul you have missed, Within yourself, when you return him thanks. "Rub all out!" Well, well, there's my life, in short, And so the thing has gone on ever since. 221 I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds: You should not take a fellow eight years old And make him swear to never kiss the girls. It's... well, what matters talking, it's the I'm my own master, paint now as I please soul! Give us no more of body than shows soul! Here's Giotto,14 with his Saint a-praising God, That sets us praising,—why not stop with him? Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head 191 Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! 230 Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, The heads shake still-"It's art's decline, my son! With wonder at lines, colours, and what not? She's just my niece . . . Herodias,15 I would | Brother Lorenzo17 stands his single peer: say, heads Who went and danced and got men's cut off! Have it all out!" Now, is this sense, I ask? A fine way to paint soul, by painting body So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further 200 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 Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!" ... manners, and I'll 240 I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them-sometimes do and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come Death for us all, and his own life for each!) over, runs 250 13 Frequently represented so in early paintings, The world and life's too big to pass for a e. g., in the "Triumph of Death," ascribed to Orcagna, in the Campo Santo of Pisa. 14 Sometimes called "the father of modern Italian art"; he flourished at the beginning of the 14th century. 15 It was not Herodias, but her daughter, Salome. who danced before Herod and obtained the head of John the Baptist. See Matthew, 14. dream, And I do these wild things in sheer despite, 16 Fra Angelico (1387-1415), who painted in the earlier manner; famous for his paintings of angels. Cp. what Ruskin says, p. 684. 17 Lorenzo Monaco, another contemporary painter. And play the fooleries you catch me at, There's no advantage! you must beat her, then. love 300 In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass | or no First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; May they or may n't they? all I want's the And so they are better, painted-better to us, Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, Your cullion's hanging face? A bit of chalk, And trust me but you should, though! How much more, If I drew higher things with the same truth! That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 310 Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh, It makes me mad to see what men shall do This world 's no blot You understand me: I'm a beast, I know. 270 And we in our graves! As that the morning-star 's about to shine, 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 plain It does not say to folk-remember matins, A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. However, you 're my man, you 've seen the At Prato,20 splashed the fresco in fine style: world -The beauty and the wonder and the power, The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, Changes, surprises,-and God made it all! -For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, 18 Tommaso Guidi, better known as Masaccio (i. e. Tommasaccio. "Careless Tom"), the great pioneer of the Renaissance period, and the master of Filippo Lippi, not the pupil. "How looks my painting, now the scaffold 's down?" I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns"Already not one phiz of your three slaves Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, But 's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, The pious people have so eased their own 330 -That is-you'll not mistake an idle word Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot, Tasting the air this spicy night which turns 19 A Christian martyr of the 3d century who was roasted alive on a gridiron, or iron chair. 20 A town near Florence. The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! It 's natural a poor monk out of bounds Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! 23 Bless the Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay 380 And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, would say, And so all's saved for me, and for the church 390 They want a cast o' my office.24 I shall paint back, When ladies crowd to Church at mid-summer. Don't fear me! There's the gray beginning. And then i' the front, of course a saint or Zooks! UP AT A VILLA-DOWN IN THE CITY (AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY) Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square; Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there! Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least! There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast. Back I shrink-what is this I see and hear? Forward, puts out a soft palm-“Not go fast!"" -Addresses the celestial presence, "nay- Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull ture's skull, His camel-hair26 make up a painting-brush? But the city, oh the city--the square with the We come to brother Lippo for all that, 2: A famous vineyard region near Florence. 22 Giving them money. 23 St. Ambrose's, a Florentine convent. 24 A stroke of my skill. 25 The patron saint of Florence. 26 See page 41 (Matthew, lii, 4). houses! Why, They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye! Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high; 27 Is perfecit opus ("This is he who made it") is And the shops with fanciful signs which are the inscription on a scroll in the painting de scribed, indicating the portrait of Lippi. painted properly. All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough of the seasons,-I spare you the months of the fever and chill. Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin: No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in: You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 40 By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth: Or the Pulcinello1-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. At the post-office such a scene-picture-the new play, piping hot! 1 English "Punch" (Punch and Judy show). And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.2 Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's! Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so, Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero. "And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts of Saint Paul has reached, Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached.” 50 Noon strikes,-here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart! Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-tetootle the fife; No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life. One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals: Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-tetootle the fife. Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life! MEMORABILIA* Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems and new! 2 There is subtle irony in making this soulless civilian betray his childish contempt for the liberal or republican_party. * Once, in a bookstore, Browning overheard some one mention the fact that he had once seen Shelley. Browning was a youthful admirer of Shelley, having received from certain volumes of him and Keats a chance-found "eagle-feather.' as it were. some of his earliest inspiration. On Keats, see the next poem. This poet is not necessarily Keats, but Keats is a type of the great man who, missing popularity in his own life, dies obscurelylike the ancient obscure discoverer of the murex, the fish whose precious purple dyes made the fortune of many a mere trader or artisan who came after him. (Without intimating for a moment that Tennyson was a mere artisan, it may be freely acknowledged that much of his popularity, in which at this time, 1855, he quite exceeded Browning, was due to qualities which he derived from Keats.) Could criticise, and quote tradition Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh, Such hangings for his cedar-house, Most like the centre-spike of gold Which burns deep in the bluebell's womb What time, with ardours manifold, The bee goes singing to her groom, Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof! The liquor filtered by degrees, While the world stands aloof. And there's the extract, flasked and fine, And priced and salable at last! 40 50 |