Men and Women Part 5

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, 140 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.s 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! 150 I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael'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 160 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. 170 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, You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!

"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; The Roman's is the better when you pray, But still the other's Virgin was his wife--"

Men will excuse me, I am glad to judge 180 Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows My better fortune, I resolve to think.

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as G.o.d lives, Said one day Agnolo, his very self, To Rafael's . . . 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, 190 Who, were he set to plan and execute As you are, p.r.i.c.ked on by your popes and kings, Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"

To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.

I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, Give the chalk here--quick, thus the line should go!

Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! 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?) 200 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. 210 Come from the window, love--come in, at last, Inside the melancholy little house We built to be so gay with. G.o.d 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? he waits outside? 220 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?

While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?

I'll 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 France, One picture, just one more--the Virgin's face, 230 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, 240 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. 250 Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one 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-- 260 Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, 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! Go, my Love.

NOTES

"Andrea del Sarto." This monologue reveals, beside the personalities of both Andrea and Lucretia and the main incidents of their lives, the relations existing between Andrea's character, his choice of a wife, and the peculiar quality of his art; the whole serving, also, to ill.u.s.trate the picture on which the poem is based. The gray tone that silvers the picture pervades the poem with an air of helpless, resigned melancholy, and sets forth the fatal quality of facile craftsmans.h.i.+p joined with a flaccid spirit. --Mr. John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's cousin, asked Browning to get him a copy of the picture of Andrea and his wife in the Pitti Palace. Browning, being unable to find one, wrote this poem describing it, instead. Andrea (1486-1531), because his father was a tailor, was called del Sarto, also, il pittore senza errori, "the faultless painter."

2. Lucrezia: di Baccio del Fede, a cap-maker's widow, says Vasari, who ensnared Andrea "before her husband's death, and who delighted in trapping the hearts of men."

15. Fiesole: a hillside city on the Arno, three miles west of Florence.

93. Morello: the highest of the Apennine mountains north of Florence.

105. The Urbinate: Raphael Santi (1483-1520), so called because born at Urbino.

106. Vasari: painter and writer of the "Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters," which supplied Browning with material for this poem and for "Fra Lippo."

130. Agnolo: Michel Agnolo Buonarotti, painter, sculptor, and 1architect (1475-564).

149. Francis: Francis I of France (1494-1547), who invited Andrea to his Court at Fontainebleau, where he was loaded with gifts and honors, until, says Vasari, "came to him certain letters from Florence written to him by his wife . . . with bitter complaints,"

when, taking "the money which the king confided to him for the purchase of pictures and statues, . . . he set off . . . having sworn on the Gospels to return in a few months. Arrived in Florence, he lived joyously with his wife for some time, making presents to her father and sisters, but doing nothing for his own parents, who died in poverty and misery. When the period specified by the king had come . . . he found himself at the end not only of his own money but . . . of that of the king."

184. Agnolo . . . to Rafael: Angelo's remark is given thus by Bocchi, "Bellezze di Firenze"; "There is a bit of a manikin in Florence who, if he chanced to be employed in great undertakings as you have happened to be, would compel you to look well about you."

210. Cue-owls: the owl's cry gives it its common name in various languages and countries; the peculiarity of its cry as to the predominant sound of oo or ow naming the species. This Italian , of the same family as our cat-owl.

Buffon gives its note, , ; hence the Latin name, .

241. Scudi: Italian coins.

261. The New Jerusalem: Revelation 21.15-17.

263. Leonard: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer, who, together with Rafael and Agnolo, incarnates the genius of the Renaissance. He visited the same Court to which Andrea was invited, and was said to have died in the arms of Francis I.

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH

ROME, 15-

1845

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?

Nephews--sons mine . . . ah G.o.d, I know not! Well-- She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!

What's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.

Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 10 In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.

Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: --Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that s.n.a.t.c.h from out the corner South He graced his carrion with. G.o.d curse the same!

Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20 One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk; And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 30 --Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!

Draw close: that conflagration of my church --What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!

My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find . . . Ah G.o.d, I know not, I! . . .

Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah G.o.d, of , Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast . . .

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like G.o.d the Father's globe on both his hands Ye wors.h.i.+p in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! 50 Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black-- 'T was ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables . . . but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!

Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!

'T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.

My bath must needs be left behind, alas! 70 One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world-- And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek ma.n.u.scripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?