320

Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: | And, just because I was thrice as old
but I fainted not,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
For the Hand still impelled me at once and Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, naught beside?

supported, suppressed

All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,

Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.

Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth

Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth;

In the gathered intensity brought to the gray

of the hills;

No, indeed! for God above

24

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:
Much is to learn, much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the But the time will come, at last it will, sudden wind-thrills;

In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still

Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill

That rose heavily, as I approached them, made

stupid with awe:

330

32

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall

say)

In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's
red-

39 E'en the serpent that slid away silent, he felt And what you would do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead.

the new law.

What, 't is past midnight, and you go the | And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!

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, 10
Weke, weke, that 's crept to keep him company!
Aha, you know your betters! Then, you'll 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

ye call?

Master-a . . . Cosimo of the Medici,

how d'

I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you
were best!

Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged,
How you affected such a gullet 's-gripe!

20

50

To roam the town and sing out carnival,
And I've been three weeks shut within my mew,
A-painting for the great man, saints and saints
And saints again. I could not paint all night—
Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air.
There came a hurry of feet and little feet,
A sweep of lute strings, laughs, and whifts of
song,-
Flower o' the broom,

But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves
Pick up a manner1 nor discredit you:
Zooks, are we pilchards,2 that they sweep the Flower o' the quince,
streets

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!

Round they

I let Lisa go, and what good in life since? And count fair prize what comes into their Flower o' the thyme-and so on. 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 hang-dogs go
Drink out this quarter-florin to the health
Of the munificent House that harbours me
(And many more beside, lads! more beside!) 30
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)

1 mend a little

2 Mediterranean sardines.

went.3

60

Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter
Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,—
three slim shapes,
And a face that looked up zooks, sir, flesh
and blood,
That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went,
Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,
All the bed-furniture-a dozen knots,
There was a ladder! Down I let myself,

| Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so
dropped,
And after them. I came up with the fun
Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well
met,-

Flower o' the rose,

70

If I've been merry, what matter who knows? And so as I was stealing back again the new spirit was manifested in the change To get to bed and have a bit of sleep from religious and symbolical subjects-haloed Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work saints and choiring angels-to portraits and scenes from human life and the world of nature, or to religious pictures thoroughly humanized. The poem was suggested by a picture of the "Coronation of the Virgin" (described in lines 347 ff.) which is in the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence; the incidents of the life of Fra Filippo Lippi (1406?1469) were obtained from Vasari's Lives of the Painters. He was first a monk, but he broke away from the Carmine, or Carmelite monastery, and came under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici the Elder, the great banker, patron of art and literature, and practical ruler of the Florentine Republic. It is said that his patron once shut him up in his palace in order to restrain his roving propensities and keep him at work on some frescoes he was painting. The poem opens with his capture on this escapade by the watchmen.

On Jerome5 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,
Mum's the word naturally; but a monk!
Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now!

3 I. e., took up the song in turn.
4 The Church of San Lorenzo.

5 St. Jerome, one of the early church fathers.

80

I was a baby when my mother died

And father died and left me in the street.

I had a store of such remarks, be sure,
Which, after I found leisure, turned to use.

I starved there, God knows how, a year or two | I drew men's faces on my copy-books,

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,

90

By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,

While I stood munching my first bread that month:

129

Scrawled them within the antiphonary 'ss 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.

"Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d 'ye
say?

In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark.
What if at last we get our man of parts,

So, boy, you're minded, '' quoth the good fat | We Carmelites, like those Camaldoleses

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 100
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.

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 o' the clove,

|

And Preaching Friars,10 to do our church up fine

140

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,11
I drew them, fat and lean: them, folk at church,
From good old gossips waiting to confess
Their cribs12 of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,—
To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot,
Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there
With the little children round him in a row 151
Of admiration, half for his beard and half
For 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,
110 | (Which the intense eyes looked through) came
at eve

gone.

All the Latin I construe is "amo," I love!
But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets | On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 160
Eight years together, as my fortune was, Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers
Watching folk's faces to know who will fing | (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was
The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires,
And who will curse or kick him for his pains,
Which gentleman processionale 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 Eight7 and have him whipped,-
How say I?—nay, which dog bites, which lets
drop

120

I painted all, then cried ""T is ask and have;
Choose, for more's ready!"-laid the ladder
flat,

And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall.
The monks closed in a circle and praised loud
Till checked, taught what to see and not to see,
Being simple bodies,-"That's the very man!
Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog!
That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes

210

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 three-
fold?

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,

221

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!
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

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?
Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms!
Rub all out, try at it a second time.
Oh, that white smallish female with the You're not of the true painters, great and old;
breasts,
Brother Angelico 's16 the man, you'll find;

She's just my niece Herodias,15 I would Brother Lorenzo17 stands his single peer:
say,-
Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!
Who went and danced and got men's heads Flower o' the pine,

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 fur-
ther
200
for

And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does

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 keep your mistr

stick to mine!

manners, and I'll

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
A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints-
A laugh, a cry, the business of the world—
(Flower o' the peach,

Death for us all, and his own life for each!)
And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs
over,

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.

In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass
After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, For, don't you mark? we're made so that we
Although the miller does not preach to him
The only good of grass is to make chaff.
What would men have? Do they like grass

May they or may n't they? all I want's the And so they are better, painted-better to us,

You understand me: I'm a beast, I know. 270 And we in our graves! This world 's no blot But see, now-why, I see as certainly

They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk-Or, mind you fast next Friday!" Why, for this, He picks my practice up-he 'll paint apace.

However, you 're my man, you 've seen the At Prato,20 splashed the fresco in fine style: