O human faces, hath it spilt, my cup? What did ye give me that I have not saved? Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!) Of going-I, in each new picture,-forth, As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, Through old streets named afresh from the event, Till it reached home, where learned age should greet My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct Above his hair, lie learning at my feet!Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked With love about, and praise, till life should end, And then not go to heaven, but linger here, Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend, The thought grew frightful, 't was so wildly dear! But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights Have scared me, like the revels through a door Of some strange house of idols at its rites! This world seemed not the world it was, before. Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped ... Who summoned those cold faces that begun To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, They drew me forth, and spite of me. . enough! These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate, Partakers of their daily pettiness, Discussed of,— "This I love, or this I hate, "This likes me more, and this affects me less!" Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint. . These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint, With the same cold calm beautiful regard,— At least no merchant traffics in my heart; The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart : Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. So, die my pictures! surely, gently die! O youth, men praise so,-holds their praise its worth? Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry? Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth? FRA LIPPO LIPPI. I AM poor brother Lippo, by your leave! Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk! And here you catch me at an alley's end I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best! Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged, But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves Pick up a manner, nor discredit you : Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. With the pike and lantern,—for the slave that holds With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. And I 've been three weeks shut within my mew, There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song,— Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! I let Lisa go, and what good in life since? Flower o' the thyme—and so on. Round they went. Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,-three slim shapes, And a face that looked up . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood, There was a ladder! Down I let myself, Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met,— If I've been merry, what matter who knows? And so, as I was stealing back again, To get to bed and have a bit of sleep Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast 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! I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two (Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew) And so along the wall, over the bridge, By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, While I stood munching my first bread that month : ... "Will you renounce" "the mouthful of bread?" thought I ; By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me ; Have given their hearts to—all at eight years old. '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! All the Latin I construe is, "Amo" I love! But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch The droppings of the wax to sell again, Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped,- |