The Poetical Works Of Robert Bridges Part 57

RICHARD

'Twill be the funeral of Giovann Dupre Wending to Santa Croce. Let us go And see what relic of old splendour cheers The dying ritual.

LAWRENCE

They esteem him well To lay his bones with Michael Angelo.

Who might he be?

RICHARD

He too a sculptor, one Who left a work long to resist the years.

LAWRENCE

You make me question further.

RICHARD

I can tell All as we walk. A poor woodcarver's son, Prenticed to cut his father's rude designs (We have it from himself), maker of shrines, In his mean workshop in Siena dreamed; And saw as G.o.ds the artists of the earth, And long'd to stand on their immortal sh.o.r.e, And be as they, who in his vision gleam'd, Dowering the world with grace for evermore.

So, taxing rest and leisure to one aim, The boy of single will and inbred skill Rose step by step to academic fame.

LAWRENCE

Do I not know him then? His figures fill The tympana o'er Santa Croce's gate; In the museum too, his Cain, that stands A left-handed discobolos....

RICHARD

So great His vogue, that elder art of cla.s.sic worth Went to the wall to give his statues room; And last--his country's praise could do no more-- He cut the stone that honoured good Cavour.

LAWRENCE

I have seen the things.

RICHARD

He, finding in his hands His life-desire possest, fell not in gloom, Nor froth'd in vanity: his Sabbath earn'd He look'd to spend in meditative rest: So laying chisel by, he took a pen To tell his story to his countrymen, And prove (he did it) that the flower of all, Rarest to attain, is in the power of all.

LAWRENCE

Yet nought he ever made, that I have learn'd, In wood or stone deserved, nay not his best, The Greek or Tuscan name for beautiful.

'Twas level with its praise, had force to pull Favour from fashion.

RICHARD

Yet he made one thing Worthy of the lily city in her spring; For while in vain the forms of beauty he aped, A perfect spirit in himself he shaped; And all his lifetime doing less than well Where he profess'd nor doubted to excel, Now, where he had no scholarship, but drew His art from love, 'twas better than he knew: And when he sat to write, lo! by him stood The heavenly Muse, who smiles on all things good; And for his truth's sake, for his stainless mind, His homely love and faith, she now grew kind, And changed the crown, that from the folk he got, For her green laurel, and he knew it not.

LAWRENCE

Ah! Love of Beauty! This man then mistook Ambition for her?

RICHARD

In simplicity Erring he kept his truth; and in his book The statue of his grace is fair to see.

LAWRENCE

Then buried with their great he well may be.

RICHARD

And number'd with the saints, not among them Who painted saints. Join we his requiem.

ECLOGUE III

FOURTH OF JUNE AT ETON

_RICHARD AND G.o.dFREY_

RICHARD

Beneath the wattled bank the eddies swarm In wandering dimples o'er the shady pool: The same their chase as when I was at school; The same the music, where in shallows warm The current, sunder'd by the bushy isles, Returns to join the main, and struggles free Above the willows, gurgling thro' the piles: Nothing is changed, and yet how changed are we!

--What can bring G.o.dfrey to the Muses' bower?

G.o.dFREY

What but brings you? The festal day of the year; To live in boyish memories for an hour; See and be seen: tho' you come seldom here.

RICHARD

Dread of the pang it was, fear to behold What once was all myself, that kept me away.

G.o.dFREY

You miss new pleasures coveting the old.

RICHARD

They need have prudence, who in courage lack; 'Twas that I might go on I looked not back.

G.o.dFREY

Of all our company he, who, we say, Fruited the laughing flower of liberty!

RICHARD

Ah! had I my desire, so should it be.