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 moonstruckI'm the man! Back I shrink-what is this I see and hear? I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake, My old serge gown and rope that goes all-round, I, in this presence, this pure company! Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape? Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing Forward, puts out a soft palm--“ Not so fast!" -Addresses the celestial presence, We come to brother Lippo for all that, 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 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 How strange now looks the life he makes us lead; So free we seem, so fettered fast we are! head All that 's behind us! You don't under 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. 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. There burns a truer light of God in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. The sudden blood of these men! at a word Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. I, painting from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, This in the background, waiting on my work, To crown the issue with a last reward! A good time, was it not, my kingly days? And had you not grown restless . . . but I know "T is done and past; 't was right, my instinct said; Too live the life grew, golden and not 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 reach and stay there; since I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost? Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, |