1. ۱There they are, my fifty men and women
2. ۲Naming me the fifty poems finished!
3. ۳Take them, Love, the book and me together;
4. ۴Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
5. ۵
6. ۶Rafael made a century of sonnets,
7. ۷Made and wrote them in a certain volume
8. ۸Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil
9. ۹Else he only used to draw Madonnas;
10. ۱۰These, the world might view--but one, the volume.
11. ۱۱Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.
12. ۱۲Did she live and love it all her lifetime?
13. ۱۳Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,
14. ۱۴Die, and let it drop beside her pillow
15. ۱۵Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory,
16. ۱۶Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving--
17. ۱۷Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's,
18. ۱۸Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?
19. ۱۹
20. ۲۰You and I would rather read that volume
21. ۲۱(Taken to his beating bosom by it),
22. ۲۲Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael,
23. ۲۳Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas--
24. ۲۴Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno,
25. ۲۵Her, that visits Florence in a vision,
26. ۲۶Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre--
27. ۲۷Seen by us and all the world in circle.
28. ۲۸
29. ۲۹You and I will never read that volume.
30. ۳۰Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple,
31. ۳۱Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.
32. ۳۲Guido Reni dying, all Bologna
33. ۳۳Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!"
34. ۳۴Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
35. ۳۵
36. ۳۶Dante once prepared to paint an angel:
37. ۳۷Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice."
38. ۳۸While he mused and traced it and retraced it
39. ۳۹(Peradventure with a pen corroded
40. ۴۰Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for,
41. ۴۱When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked,
42. ۴۲Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,
43. ۴۳Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,
44. ۴۴Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,
45. ۴۵Let the wretch go festering through Florence)--
46. ۴۶Dante, who loved well because he hated,
47. ۴۷Hated wickedness that hinders loving,
48. ۴۸Dante, standing, studying his angel,--
49. ۴۹In there broke the folk of his Inferno.
50. ۵۰Says he--"Certain people of importance"
51. ۵۱(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)
52. ۵۲"Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet."
53. ۵۳Says the poet--"Then I stopped my painting."
54. ۵۴
55. ۵۵You and I would rather see that angel,
56. ۵۶Painted by the tenderness of Dante,
57. ۵۷Would we not?--than read a fresh Inferno.
58. ۵۸
59. ۵۹You and I will never see that picture.
60. ۶۰While he mused on love and Beatrice,
61. ۶۱While he softened o'er his outlined angel,
62. ۶۲In they broke, those "people of importance":
63. ۶۳We and Bice bear the loss forever.
64. ۶۴
65. ۶۵What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture?
66. ۶۶This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not
67. ۶۷Once, and only once, and for one only,
68. ۶۸(Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language
69. ۶۹Fit and fair and simple and sufficient--
70. ۷۰Using nature that's an art to others,
71. ۷۱Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.
72. ۷۲Ay, of all the artists living, loving,
73. ۷۳None but would forego his proper dowry,--
74. ۷۴Does he paint? he fain would write a poem,
75. ۷۵Does he write? he fain would paint a picture,--
76. ۷۶Put to proof art alien to the artist's,
77. ۷۷Once, and only once, and for one only,
78. ۷۸So to be the man and leave the artist,
79. ۷۹Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.
80. ۸۰
81. ۸۱Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement!
82. ۸۲He who smites the rock and spreads the water,
83. ۸۳Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him,
84. ۸۴Even he, the minute makes immortal,
85. ۸۵Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute,
86. ۸۶Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing.
87. ۸۷While he smites, how can he but remember,
88. ۸۸So he smote before, in such a peril,
89. ۸۹When they stood and mocked--"Shall smiting help us?"
90. ۹۰When they drank and sneered--"A stroke is easy!"
91. ۹۱When they wiped their mouths and went their journey,
92. ۹۲Throwing him for thanks--"But drought was pleasant."
93. ۹۳Thus old memories mar the actual triumph;
94. ۹۴Thus the doing savors of disrelish;
95. ۹۵Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat;
96. ۹۶O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate,
97. ۹۷Carelessness or consciousness--the gesture.
98. ۹۸For he bears an ancient wrong about him,
99. ۹۹Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces,
100. ۱۰۰Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude--
101. ۱۰۱"How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?"
102. ۱۰۲Guesses what is like to prove the sequel--
103. ۱۰۳"Egypt's flesh-pots--nay, the drought was better."
104. ۱۰۴
105. ۱۰۵Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!
106. ۱۰۶Theirs, the Sinai-forhead's cloven brilliance,
107. ۱۰۷Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.
108. ۱۰۸Never dares the man put off the prophet.
109. ۱۰۹
110. ۱۱۰Did he love one face from out the thousands,
111. ۱۱۱(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely,
112. ۱۱۲Were she but the Æthiopian bondslave),
113. ۱۱۳He would envy yon dumb, patient camel,
114. ۱۱۴Keeping a reserve of scanty water
115. ۱۱۵Meant to save his own life in the desert;
116. ۱۱۶Ready in the desert to deliver
117. ۱۱۷(Kneeling down to let his ... be opened)
118. ۱۱۸Hoard and life together for his mistress.
119. ۱۱۹
120. ۱۲۰I shall never, in the years remaining,
121. ۱۲۱Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues.
122. ۱۲۲Make you music that should all-express me;
123. ۱۲۳So it seems; I stand on my attainment.
124. ۱۲۴This of verse alone, one life allows me;
125. ۱۲۵Verse and nothing else have I to give you;
126. ۱۲۶Other heights in other lives, God willing;
127. ۱۲۷All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love.
128. ۱۲۸
129. ۱۲۹Yet a semblance of resource avails us--
130. ۱۳۰Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.
131. ۱۳۱Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,
132. ۱۳۲Lines I write the first time and the last time.
133. ۱۳۳He who works in fresco steals a hair-brush,
134. ۱۳۴Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,
135. ۱۳۵Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,
136. ۱۳۶Makes a strange art of an art familiar,
137. ۱۳۷Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets,
138. ۱۳۸He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver,
139. ۱۳۹Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.
140. ۱۴۰He who writes, may write for once as I do.
141. ۱۴۱
142. ۱۴۲Love, you saw me gather men and women,
143. ۱۴۳Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy,
144. ۱۴۴Enter each and all, and use their service,
145. ۱۴۵Speak from every mouth,--the speech, a poem.
146. ۱۴۶Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,
147. ۱۴۷Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving:
148. ۱۴۸I am mine and yours--the rest be all men's,
149. ۱۴۹Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty.
150. ۱۵۰Let me speak this once in my true person,
151. ۱۵۱Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea,
152. ۱۵۲Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence:
153. ۱۵۳Pray you, look on these my men and women,
154. ۱۵۴Take and keep my fifty poems finished;
155. ۱۵۵Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!
156. ۱۵۶Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.
157. ۱۵۷
158. ۱۵۸Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!
159. ۱۵۹Here in London, yonder late in Florence,
160. ۱۶۰Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.
161. ۱۶۱Curving on a sky imbrued with color,
162. ۱۶۲Drifted over Fiesole by twilight,
163. ۱۶۳Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.
164. ۱۶۴Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato,
165. ۱۶۵Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder,
166. ۱۶۶Perfect till the nightingales applauded.
167. ۱۶۷Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,
168. ۱۶۸Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs,
169. ۱۶۹Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,
170. ۱۷۰Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.
171. ۱۷۱
172. ۱۷۲What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?
173. ۱۷۳Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,
174. ۱۷۴Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy),
175. ۱۷۵All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos),
176. ۱۷۶She would turn a new side to her mortal,
177. ۱۷۷Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman,--
178. ۱۷۸Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,
179. ۱۷۹Blind to Galileo on his turret.
180. ۱۸۰Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even!
181. ۱۸۱Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal--
182. ۱۸۲When she turns round, comes again in heaven,
183. ۱۸۳Opens out anew for worse or better!
184. ۱۸۴Proves she like some portent of an iceberg
185. ۱۸۵Swimming full upon the ship it founders,
186. ۱۸۶Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?
187. ۱۸۷Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire,
188. ۱۸۸Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?
189. ۱۸۹Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu
190. ۱۹۰Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest,
191. ۱۹۱Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.
192. ۱۹۲Like the bodied heaven in his clearness
193. ۱۹۳Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work,
194. ۱۹۴When they ate and drank and saw God also!
195. ۱۹۵
196. ۱۹۶What were seen? None knows, none ever will know.
197. ۱۹۷Only this is sure--the sight were other,
198. ۱۹۸Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,
199. ۱۹۹Dying now impoverished here in London.
200. ۲۰۰God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures
201. ۲۰۱Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
202. ۲۰۲One to show a woman when he loves her.
203. ۲۰۳
204. ۲۰۴This I say of me, but think of you, Love!
205. ۲۰۵This to you--yourself my moon of poets!
206. ۲۰۶Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder,
207. ۲۰۷Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!
208. ۲۰۸There, in turn I stand with them and praise you--
209. ۲۰۹Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.
210. ۲۱۰But the best is when I glide from out them,
211. ۲۱۱Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,
212. ۲۱۲Come out on the other side, the novel
213. ۲۱۳Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,
214. ۲۱۴Where I hush and bless myself with silence.
215. ۲۱۵
216. ۲۱۶Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,
217. ۲۱۷Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno,
218. ۲۱۸Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it,
219. ۲۱۹Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!