It does not say to folks remember matins, Or, mind your fast next Friday ! Why, for this I painted a Saint Laurence six months since 66 Already not one phiz of your three slaves Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, For pity and religion grow i' the crowd Your painting serves its purpose!" Hang the fools! That is — you'll not mistake an idle word Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, Got wot, 320 330 Tasting the air this spicy night which turns. The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now! Should have his apt word to excuse himself: And hearken how I plot to make amends. I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece ... There's for you! Give me six months, then go, see 340 323. Saint Laurence: suffered martydom in the reign of the Emperor Valerian, A.D. 258. He was broiled to death on a gridiron. 327. Already not one phiz of your three slaves... but's scratched: the people are so indignant at what they are doing, in the life-like picture. 336. That is: he fears he has spoken too plainly, and will be reported. 339. Chianti: a wine named from the part of Italy so called. 345. There's for you; he tips them. Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns ! When ladies crowd to church at midsummer. I'm the man! Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape? Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing Forward, puts out a soft palm—“Not so fast!” He made and devised you you, after all, Though he's none of you! could Saint John there, draw His camel-hair make up a painting-brush? We come to brother Lippo for all that, 346. Sant' Ambrogio's: a convent in Florence. 354. Saint John: John the Baptist is meant; see v. 375. 35a 360 370 355. Saint Ambrose: born about 340; made archbishop of Milan in 374; died 397; instituted the Ambrosian Chant. Iste perfecit opus!" So, all smile- Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay 380 Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops The hot-head husband! Thus I scuttle off To some safe bench behind, not letting go The palm of her, the little lily thing That spoke the good word for me in the nick, 390 A FACE. IF one could have that little head of hers For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's 377. Iste perfecit opus! this is on a scroll, in the picture, held by the "sweet angelic slip of a thing." 389. The picture referred to is The Coronation of the Virgin, in the Accademia delle Belle Arti, in Florence. There is a photograph of it in Illustrations to Browning's Poems, Part I., published by the Browning Society, with an interesting description of the picture, by Mr. Ernest Radford. There's no "babe" in the picture. 392. Zooks! it's high time was back and in bed, that my night-larking be not known. I. If one could have: Oh, if one could only have, etc. Burthen of honey-colored buds, to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. ΙΟ Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky (That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by), 20 All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT [ROME, 15-] VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity ! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? 9, 10. to kiss and capture: gerundives: to be kissed and captured. 14. Correggio: Antonio Allegri da Correggio, born 1494, died 1534. "He was the first master—the Venetians notwithstanding—to take a scheme of color and chiaro-scuro as the raison d'être of a complete composition, and his brush, responding to the idea, blends light and shade in delicious harmony." — Woltmann and Woermann's History of Painting. The tomb is imaginary; though it is said to be pointed out to visitors to Saint Praxed's who desire particularly to see it. 1. Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! "The Bishop on his death-bed has reached Solomon's conclusion that 'all is vanity.' So he proceeds to specify his particular vanity in the choice of a tombstone.". -N. Brit. Rev. 34, p. 367. "In What's done is done, and she is dead beside, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe ΙΟ 20 The Palace of Art, Mr. Tennyson has shown the despair and isolation of a soul surrounded by all luxuries of beauty, and living in and for them; but in the end the soul is redeemed and converted to the simple humanities of earth. Mr. Browning has shown that such a sense of isolation and such despair are by no means inevitable; there is a death in life which consists in tranquil satisfaction, a calm pride in the soul's dwelling among the world's gathered treasures of stateliness and beauty. So the unbelieving and worldly spirit of the dying Bishop, who orders his tomb at Saint Praxed's, his sense of the vanity of the world simply because the world is passing out of his reach, the regretful memory of the pleasures of his youth, the envious spite towards Gandolf, who robbed him of the best position for a tomb, and the dread lest his reputed sons should play him false and fail to carry out his designs, are united with a perfect appreciation of Renaissance art, and a luxurious satisfaction, which even a death-bed cannot destroy, in the splendor of voluptuous form and color."- Edward Dowden. |