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1282 / ROBERT BROWNING
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, Who strive?you don't know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared
75 Carelessly passing with your robes afloat? Yet do much less, so much less, Someone7 says (I know his name, no matter)?so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them,
so In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,
85 Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. The sudden blood of these men! at a word? Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
90 I, painting from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's8 outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
95 Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
IOO I know both what I want and what might gain, And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 'Had I been two, another and myself, Our head would have o'erlooked the world!' No doubt. Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth
105 The Urbinate9 who died five years ago. ('Tis copied,' George Vasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
110 Above and through his art?for it gives way; That arm is wrongly put?and there again? A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right?that, a child may understand.
115 Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: But all the play, the insight and the stretch? Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out? Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
7. Probably the artist Michelangelo (1475?1564). 1. In saying that the painting is a copy, Andrea 8. A mountain peak outside Florence. may perhaps be concerned to prevent Lucrezia 9. Raphael (1483-1520), or Raffaello Sanzio, from selling it. born at Urbino.
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ANDREA DEL SARTO / 1283
120 Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think? More than I merit, yes, by many times. But had you?oh, with the same perfect brow, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
125 The fowler's pipe,2 and follows to the snare? Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 'God and the glory! never care for gain. The present by the future, what is that?
130 Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!? Michelangelo Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!' I might have done it for you. So it seems: Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. Reside, incentives come from the soul's self;
135 The rest avail not. Why do I need you? What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat0?somewhat, too, the power? of some importance
HO And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict, That I am something underrated here. Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.
145 I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. The best is when they pass and look aside; But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. Well may they speak! That Francis,3 that first time,
150 And that long festal year at Fontainebleau! I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, In that humane great monarch's golden look? One finger in his beard or twisted curl
155 Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile, One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, I painting proudly with his breath on me, All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
160 Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts? And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, This in the background, waiting on my work, To crown the issue with a last reward!
165 A good time, was it not, my kingly days? And had you not grown restless . . . but I know? 'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said;
2. Whistle or call used by hunters to lure wildfowl painting. On returning to Florence, however, into range. Andrea is reputed to have stolen some funds 3. King Francis 1 of France (1494?1547; reigned entrusted to him by Francis; and to please Lucrezia I 51 5?47) had invited Andrea to his court at Fon-he built a house with the money. Now he is afraid tainebleau and warmly encouraged him in his of being insulted by 'Paris lords' on the streets.
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1284 / ROBERT BROWNING
Too live the life grew, golden and not gray, And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
