To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan,
And turn the bell-tower's alt to altissimo;
And, fine as the beak of a young beccaccia,
The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally,
Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia,
Completing Florence, as Florence, Italy.

36.

Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold
Is broken away, and the long-pent fire,
Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffled

Springs from its sleep, and up goes the spire,
While, "God and the People" plain for its motto,
Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky?

At least to foresee that glory of Giotto

And Florence together, the first am I !

plete. our half-told tale of Cambuscan: by metonymy for the unfinished Campanile of Giotto;

"Or call up him that left half-told

The story of Cambuscan bold."

-Milton's Il Penseroso. An allusion to Chaucer, who left the Squire's Tale in the Canterbury Tales unfinished. The poet follows Milton's accentuation of the word "Cambuscan," on the penult; it's properly accented on the ultimate. beccaccia: woodcock. the Duomo's fit ally: "There is, as far as I know, only one Gothic building in Europe, the Duomo of Florence, in which the ornament is so exquisitely finished as to enable us to imagine what might have been the effect of the perfect workmanship of the Renaissance, coming out of the hands of men like Verocchio and Ghiberti, had it been employed on the magnificent framework of Gothic structure." - Ruskin in Stones of Venice.

St. 36. and up goes the spire: Giotto's plan included a spire of 100 feet, but the project was abandoned by Taddeo Gaddi, who carried on the work after the death of Giotto in 1336.

"The mountains from without

In silence listen for the word said next.

What word will men say, - here where Giotto planted

His Campanile like an unperplexed

Fine question heaven-ward, touching the things granted

A noble people, who, being greatly vexed

In act, in aspiration keep undaunted?"

-Mrs. Browning's Casa Guidi Windows, Pt. I., vv. 66–72.

PICTOR IGNOTUS.

[FLORENCE, 15-]

I COULD have painted pictures like that youth's
Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar
Stayed meah, thought which saddens while it soothes !
Never did fate forbid me, star by star,

To outburst on your night, with all my gift

Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift

And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk
To the centre, of an instant; or around

Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan
The license and the limit, space and bound,
Allowed to truth made visible in man.

And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,
Over the canvas could my hand have flung,
Each face obedient to its passion's law,

Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue :
Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood,

A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace,

Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood
Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place;
Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up,

And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved,
O human faces! hath it spilt, my cup?

What did ye give me that I have not saved?

ΙΟ

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3. ah, thought which saddens while it soothes: the thought saddens him that he has not realized his capabilities, and soothes him that he has resisted the temptations to earthly fame, and been true to his soul.

14-22. he could have expressed Hope, Rapture, Confidence, and all other passions, in the human face, each clear proclaimed without a tongue.

23. hath it spilt, my cup? the cup of his memory.

24. What did ye give me that I have not saved? he has retained all the impressions he has received from human faces.

Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!)

Of going
As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell,

I, in each new picture, — forth,

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, 'twas 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,

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25 et seq. Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well I have dreamed!) of going forth in each new picture, as it went to Pope or Kaiser, etc., making new hearts beat and bosoms swell.

34. the star not yet distinct above his hair: his fame not having yet shone brightly out; "his" refers to "youth." lie learning: and should lie. 41. But a voice changed it: the voice of his secret soul.

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?

60

70

ANDREA DEL SARTO.

[CALLED "THE FAULTLESS PAINTER."]

BUT do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia! bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,
Treat his own subject after his own way,

Fix his own time, accept too his own price,

67. travertine: coating of lime; properly a limestone. Lat., lapis Tiburtinus, found near Tibur, now Tivoli.

And shut the money into this small hand
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?

Oh, I'll content him,

but to-morrow, Love!

I often am much wearier than you think,

This evening more than usual: and it seems
As if forgive now should you let me sit

Here by the window, with your hand in mine,

And look a half hour forth on Fiesole,

Both of one mind, as married people use,
Quietly, quietly the evening through,
I might get up to-morrow to my work
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!
Your soft hand is a woman of itself,

And mine, the man's bared breast she curls inside.
Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve
For each of the five pictures we require:

It saves a model. So! keep looking so
My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet
My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,
Which everybody looks on and calls his,
And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
While she looks no one's very dear, no less.
You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,
There's what we painters call our harmony!

29. My face, my moon:

"Once, like the moon, I made

The ever-shifting currents of the blood
According to my humor ebb and flow."

— Cleopatra, in Tennyson's A Dream of Fair Women.

"You are the powerful moon of my blood's sea,

To make it ebb or flow into my face

As

your looks change."

- Ford and Decker's Witch of Edmonton.

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