The Home Book of Verse Volume Iv Part 30

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?

Nephews--sons mine.. ah G.o.d, I know not! Well-- She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!

What's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.

Life, how and what is it? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.

Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: --Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that s.n.a.t.c.h from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, G.o.d curse the same!

Yet still my niche is not so cramped, but thence One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.

--Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!

Draw close: that conflagration of my church --What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!

My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye-find... Ah G.o.d, I know not, I!...

Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah G.o.d, of lapis lazuli, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like G.o.d the Father's globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!

Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black-- 'T was ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?-- The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!

Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!

'T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve My bath must needs be left behind, alas!

One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world-- And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek ma.n.u.scripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?

--That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line-- Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!

And then how I shall lie through centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the ma.s.s, And see G.o.d made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, --Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?-- No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!

Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.

All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?

Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul, Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a visor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, To comfort me on my entablature Whereon I am to lie till I must ask "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!

For ye have stabbed me with ingrat.i.tude To death--ye wish it--G.o.d, ye wish it! Stone-- Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through-- And no more lapis to delight the world!

Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs --Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers-- Old Gandolf--at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

UP AT A VILLA--DOWN IN THE CITY As Distinguished By An Italian Person Of Quality

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square.

Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!

There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere s.h.a.g of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!

--I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.

But the city, oh the city--the square with the houses! Why?

They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye!

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry!

You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights, 'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights: You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive trees.

Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.

'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell, Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.

Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash!

In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in the conch--fifty gazers do not abash, Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash.

All the year round at the villa, nothing's to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like Death's lean lifted fore finger.

Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.

Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill.

Enough of the seasons,--I spare you the months of the fever and chill.

Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin: No sooner the bells leave off, than the diligence rattles in: You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.

By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth; Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.

At the post-office such a scene-picture--the new play, piping hot!

And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.

Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's!

Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so, Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero, "And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the skirts of St. Paul has reached, Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached."

Noon strikes,--here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart!

Bang-whang-whang, goes the drum, tootle-k-tootle the fife; No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.

But bless you, it's dear--it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate.

They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays pa.s.sing the gate It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!

Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still--ah, the pity, the pity!

Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white skirts, a-holding the yellow candles; One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals.

Bang-whang-whang, goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife.

Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

ALL SAINTS'

In a church which is furnished with mullion and gable, With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin, The penitents' dresses are sealskin and sable, The odor of sanct.i.ty's eau-de-cologne.

But only could Lucifer, flying from Hades, Gaze down on this crowd with its paniers and paints, He would say, as he looked at the lords and the ladies, "Oh, where is All Sinners' if this is All Saints'?"

Edmund Yates [1831-1894]

AN ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID, OR THE RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS

My son, these maxims make a rule, And lump them aye thegither: The Rigid Righteous is a fool The Rigid Wise anither: The cleanest corn that e'er was dight May hae some pyles o' caff in; Sae ne'er a fellow-creature slight For random fits o' daffin.

Solomon--Eccles. vii. 16.

Oh ye wha are sae guid yoursel', Sae pious and sae holy, Ye've naught to do but mark and tell Your neebor's fauts and folly:-- Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, Supplied wi' store o' water, The heaped happer's ebbing still, And still the clap plays clatter.

Hear me, ye venerable core, As counsel for poor mortals That frequent pa.s.s douce Wisdom's door, For glaikit Folly's portals!

I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes, Would here propone defences, Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes, Their failings and mischances.