Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: | And, just because I was thrice as old but I fainted not, 320 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, 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 E'en the serpent that slid away silent, he felt And what you would do with me, in fine, 39 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! rounds, And here you catch me at an alley's end ... Master-a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, were best! 40 It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, Here's spring come, and the nights one makes To roam the town and sing out carnival, d'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 50 I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 20 Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged, Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! 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. Round they net? He's Judas to a tittle, that man is! Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. Iis, elbowing on his comrade in the door John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair 1 mend a little 2 Mediterranean sardines. went.3 70 On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast head 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 If Master Cosimo announced himself, Cosimo de' Medici the Elder, the great banker: Mum's the word naturally; but a monk! patron of art and literature, and practical ruler of the Forentine Republic. It is said Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! 80 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. Mine's shaved-a monk, you say-the sting's in that! 3 I. e., took up the song in turn. 4 The Church of San Lorenzo. 5 St. Jerome, one of the early church fathers. I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. 90 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 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! Not overmuch their way, I must confess. 129 I had a store of such remarks, be sure, "Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d 'ye say? In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. 140 And put the front on it that ought to be!" Never was such prompt disemburdening. (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this at eve On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 160 Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was All the Latin I construe is "amo," I love! 120 gone. 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. It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the I'm my own master, paint now as I pleasesoul! Give us no more of body than shows soul! 191 With wonder at lines, colours, and what not? Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! 230 Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, white smallish female with the You're not of the true painters, great and old; . . 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, Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, To please them-sometimes do and sometimes For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come Death for us all, and his own life for each!) 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, And play the fooleries you catch me at, or no There's no advantage! you must beat her, then.". For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love 300 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 God uses us to help each other so, now, Your cullion's hanging face? A bit of chalk, If I drew higher things with the same truth! It makes me mad to see what men shall do You understand me: I'm a beast, I know. 270 And we in our graves! But see, now-why, I see as certainly As that the morning-star 's about to shine, What will hap some day. We've a youngster Comes to our convent, studies what I do, for us, Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: To find its meaning is my meat and drink. It does not say to folk-remember matins, 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. What need of art at all? A skull and bones, 320 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, Changes, surprises,-and God made it all! "How looks my painting, now the scaffold 's down?" I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns- 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, air this spicy night which turns Suppose you reproduce her—(which you can't) Tasting the 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. 19 A Christian martyr of the 3d century who was |