| I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! | |
| You need not clap your torches to my face. | |
| Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk! | |
| What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds, | |
| And here you catch me at an alley's end | 5 |
| Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? | |
| The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up, | |
| Do,--harry out, if you must show your zeal, | |
| Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, | |
| And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, | 10 |
| Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company! | |
| Aha, you know your betters! Then, you'll take | |
| Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat, | |
| And please to know me likewise. Who am I? | |
| Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend | 15 |
| Three streets off--he's a certain . . . how d'ye call? | |
| Master--a ...Cosimo of the Medici, | |
| I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best! | |
| Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged, | |
| How you affected such a gullet's-gripe! | 20 |
| 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 | |
| And count fair price what comes into their net? | |
| He's Judas to a tittle, that man is! | 25 |
| Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. | |
| Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hang-dogs go | |
| Drink out this quarter-florin to the health | |
| Of the munificent House that harbours me | |
| (And many more beside, lads! more beside!) | 30 |
| And all's come square again. I'd like his face-- | |
| His, elbowing on his comrade in the door | |
| With the pike and lantern,--for the slave that holds | |
| John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair | |
| With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) | 35 |
| And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped! | |
| It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, | |
| A wood-coal or the like? or you should see! | |
| Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so. | |
| What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, | 40 |
| You know them and they take you? like enough! | |
| I saw the proper twinkle in your eye-- | |
| 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. | |
| Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. | |
| Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands | 45 |
| To roam the town and sing out carnival, | |
| 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-- | |
| Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. | 50 |
| There came a hurry of feet and little feet, | |
| A sweep of lute strings, laughs, and whifts of song, -- | |
| Flower o' the broom, | |
| Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! | |
| Flower o' the quince, | 55 |
| I let Lisa go, and what good in life since? | |
| Flower o' the thyme--and so on. Round they went. | |
| Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter | |
| Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,--three slim shapes, | |
| And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood, | 60 |
| That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went, | |
| Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, | |
| All the bed-furniture--a dozen knots, | |
| There was a ladder! Down I let myself, | |
| Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, | 65 |
| And after them. I came up with the fun | |
| Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met,-- | |
| Flower o' the rose, | |
| If I've been merry, what matter who knows? | |
| And so as I was stealing back again | 70 |
| 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 | |
| With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, | |
| You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! | 75 |
| 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! | |
| Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! | 80 |
| 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 | |
| On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, | |
| Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, | 85 |
| My stomach being empty as your hat, | |
| The wind doubled me up and down I went. | |
| Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, | |
| (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) | |
| And so along the wall, over the bridge, | 90 |
| By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, | |
| While I stood munching my first bread that month: | |
| "So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father | |
| Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time,-- | |
| "To quit this very miserable world? | 95 |
| 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, | |
| 'Twas not for nothing--the good bellyful, | |
| The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, | |
| And day-long blessed idleness beside! | 105 |
| "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! | |
| Flower o' the clove. | 110 |
| All the Latin I construe is, "amo" I love! | |
| But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets | |
| Eight years together, as my fortune was, | |
| Watching folk's faces to know who will fling | |
| The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, | 115 |
| And who will curse or kick him for his pains,-- | |
| Which gentleman processional and fine, | |
| Holding a candle to the Sacrament, | |
| Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch | |
| The droppings of the wax to sell again, | 120 |
| Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped,-- | |
| How say I?--nay, which dog bites, which lets drop | |
| His bone from the heap of offal in the street,-- | |
| Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, | |
| He learns the look of things, and none the less | 125 |
| For admonition from the hunger-pinch. | |
| I had a store of such remarks, be sure, | |
| Which, after I found leisure, turned to use. | |
| I drew men's faces on my copy-books, | |
| Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, | 130 |
| Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, | |
| Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, | |
| And made a string of pictures of the world | |
| Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun, | |
| On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. | 135 |
| "Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d'ye say? | |
| In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. | |
| What if at last we get our man of parts, | |
| We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese | |
| And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine | 140 |
| And put the front on it that ought to be!" | |
| And hereupon he bade me daub away. | |
| Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, | |
| Never was such prompt disemburdening. | |
| First, every sort of monk, the black and white, | 145 |
| I drew them, fat and lean: then, folk at church, | |
| From good old gossips waiting to confess | |
| Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,-- | |
| To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, | |
| Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there | 150 |
| With the little children round him in a row | |
| Of admiration, half for his beard and half | |
| For that white anger of his victim's son | |
| Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, | |
| Signing himself with the other because of Christ | 155 |
| (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this | |
| After the passion of a thousand years) | |
| Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, | |
| (Which the intense eyes looked through) came 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 gone. | |
| I 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. | 165 |
| The monks closed in a circle and praised loud | |
| Till checked, taught what to see and not to see, | |
| Being simple bodies,--"That's the very man! | |
| Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog! | |
| That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes | 170 |
| To care about his asthma: it's the life!'' | |
| But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked; | |
| Their betters took their turn to see and say: | |
| The Prior and the learned pulled a face | |
| And stopped all that in no time. "How? what's here? | 175 |
| Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all! | |
| Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true | |
| As much as pea and pea! it's devil's-game! | |
| Your business is not to catch men with show, | |
| With homage to the perishable clay, | 180 |
| But lift them over it, ignore it all, | |
| Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. | |
| Your business is to paint the souls of men-- | |
| Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . no, it's not . . . | |
| It's vapour done up like a new-born babe-- | 185 |
| (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) | |
| It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the soul! | |
| Give us no more of body than shows soul! | |
| Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, | |
| That sets us praising--why not stop with him? | 190 |
| Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head | |
| With wonder at lines, colours, and what not? | |
| Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms! | |
| Rub all out, try at it a second time. | |
| Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts, | 195 |
| She's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say,-- | |
| Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off! | |
| Have it all out!" Now, is this sense, I ask? | |
| A fine way to paint soul, by painting body | |
| So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further | 200 |
| And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white | |
| When what you put for yellow's simply black, | |
| And any sort of meaning looks intense | |
| When all beside itself means and looks nought. | |
| Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, | 205 |
| Left foot and right foot, go a double step, | |
| Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, | |
| Both in their order? Take the prettiest face, | |
| The Prior's niece . . . patron-saint--is it so pretty | |
| You can't discover if it means hope, fear, | 210 |
| Sorrow or joy? won't beauty go with these? | |
| Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue, | |
| Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, | |
| And then add soul and heighten them three-fold? | |
| Or say there's beauty with no soul at all-- | 215 |
| (I never saw it--put the case the same--) | |
| If you get simple beauty and nought else, | |
| You get about the best thing God invents: | |
| That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed, | |
| Within yourself, when you return him thanks. | 220 |
| "Rub all out!" Well, well, there's my life, in short, | |
| And so the thing has gone on ever since. | |
| I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds: | |
| You should not take a fellow eight years old | |
| And make him swear to never kiss the girls. | 225 |
| I'm my own master, paint now as I please-- | |
| Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! | |
| Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front-- | |
| Those great rings serve more purposes than just | |
| To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse! | 230 |
| And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes | |
| Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, | |
| The heads shake still--"It's art's decline, my son! | |
| You're not of the true painters, great and old; | |
| Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find; | 235 |
| Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer: | |
| Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!" | |
| Flower o' the pine, | |
| You keep your mistr ... manners, and I'll stick to mine! | |
| I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! | 240 |
| Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, | |
| They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, | |
| Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint | |
| To please them--sometimes do and sometimes don't; | |
| For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come | 245 |
| A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints-- | |
| A laugh, a cry, the business of the world-- | |
| (Flower o' the peach | |
| Death for us all, and his own life for each!) | |
| And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, | 250 |
| The world and life's too big to pass for a dream, | |
| And I do these wild things in sheer despite, | |
| And play the fooleries you catch me at, | |
| In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass | |
| After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, | 255 |
| Although the miller does not preach to him | |
| The only good of grass is to make chaff. | |
| What would men have? Do they like grass or no-- | |
| May they or mayn't they? all I want's the thing | |
| Settled for ever one way. As it is, | 260 |
| You tell too many lies and hurt yourself: | |
| You don't like what you only like too much, | |
| You do like what, if given you at your word, | |
| You find abundantly detestable. | |
| For me, I think I speak as I was taught; | 265 |
| I always see the garden and God there | |
| A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned, | |
| The value and significance of flesh, | |
| I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. | |
| |
| You understand me: I'm a beast, I know. | 270 |
| 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 here | |
| Comes to our convent, studies what I do, | |
| Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop: | 275 |
| His name is Guidi--he'll not mind the monks-- | |
| They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk-- | |
| He picks my practice up--he'll paint apace. | |
| I hope so--though I never live so long, | |
| I know what's sure to follow. You be judge! | 280 |
| You speak no Latin more than I, belike; | |
| However, you're my man, you've seen the world | |
| --The beauty and the wonder and the power, | |
| The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, | |
| Changes, surprises,--and God made it all! | 285 |
| --For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, | |
| For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, | |
| The mountain round it and the sky above, | |
| Much more the figures of man, woman, child, | |
| These are the frame to? What's it all about? | 290 |
| To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon, | |
| Wondered at? oh, this last of course!--you say. | |
| But why not do as well as say,--paint these | |
| Just as they are, careless what comes of it? | |
| God's works--paint any one, and count it crime | 295 |
| To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works | |
| Are here already; nature is complete: | |
| Suppose you reproduce her--(which you can't) | |
| 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; | |
| And so they are better, painted--better to us, | |
| Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; | |
| God uses us to help each other so, | 305 |
| Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, | |
| Your cullion's hanging face? A bit of chalk, | |
| And trust me but you should, though! How much more, | |
| If I drew higher things with the same truth! | |
| That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, | 310 |
| Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh, | |
| It makes me mad to see what men shall do | |
| And we in our graves! This world's no blot for us, | |
| Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: | |
| To find its meaning is my meat and drink. | 315 |
| "Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer!" | |
| Strikes in the Prior: "when your meaning's plain | |
| It does not say to folk--remember matins, | |
| Or, mind you fast next Friday!" Why, for this | |
| What need of art at all? A skull and bones, | 320 |
| Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what's best, | |
| A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. | |
| I painted a Saint Laurence six months since | |
| At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style: | |
| "How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?" | 325 |
| I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns-- | |
| "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, | |
| The pious people have so eased their own | 330 |
| With coming to say prayers there in a rage: | |
| We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. | |
| Expect another job this time next year, | |
| For pity and religion grow i' the crowd-- | |
| Your painting serves its purpose!" Hang the fools! | 335 |
| |
| --That is--you'll not mistake an idle word | |
| Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot, | |
| Tasting the air this spicy night which turns | |
| The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! | |
| Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now! | 340 |
| It's natural a poor monk out of bounds | |
| 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 | 345 |
| Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns! | |
| They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint | |
| God in the midst, Madonna and her babe, | |
| Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood, | |
| Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet | 350 |
| As puff on puff of grated orris-root | |
| When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer. | |
| And then i' the front, of course a saint or two-- | |
| Saint John' because he saves the Florentines, | |
| Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white | 355 |
| The convent's friends and gives them a long day, | |
| And Job, I must have him there past mistake, | |
| The man of Uz (and Us without the z, | |
| Painters who need his patience). Well, all these | |
| Secured at their devotion, up shall come | 360 |
| Out of a corner when you least expect, | |
| As one by a dark stair into a great light, | |
| Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!-- | |
| Mazed, motionless, and moonstruck--I'm the man! | |
| Back I shrink--what is this I see and hear? | 365 |
| I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake, | |
| My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, | |
| I, in this presence, this pure company! | |
| Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape? | |
| Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing | 370 |
| Forward, puts out a soft palm--"Not so fast!" | |
| --Addresses the celestial presence, "nay-- | |
| He made you and devised you, after all, | |
| Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there draw-- | |
| His camel-hair make up a painting brush? | 375 |
| We come to brother Lippo for all that, | |
| Iste perfecit opus! So, all smile-- | |
| I shuffle sideways with my blushing face | |
| Under the cover of a hundred wings | |
| Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay | 380 |
| And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, | |
| Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops | |
| The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off | |
| To some safe bench behind, not letting go | |
| The palm of her, the little lily thing | 385 |
| That spoke the good word for me in the nick, | |
| Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say. | |
| And so all's saved for me, and for the church | |
| A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence! | |
| Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights! | 390 |
| The street's hushed, and I know my own way back, | |
| Don't fear me! There's the grey beginning. Zooks! | |