Introduction to Robert Browning [107]
oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with! Let us but love each other. Must you go? That cousin here again? he waits outside? [220] Must see you -- you, and not with me? Those loans? More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that? Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend? While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth? I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit The gray remainder of the evening out, Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly How I could paint, were I but back in France, One picture, just one more -- the Virgin's face, [230] Not your's this time! I want you at my side To hear them -- that is, Michel Agnolo -- Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. I take the subjects for his corridor, Finish the potrait out of hand -- there, there, And throw him in another thing or two If he demurs; the whole should prove enough To pay for this same cousin's freak. Beside, What's better and what's all I care about, [240] Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff! Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, The cousin! what does he to please you more?
I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less. Since there my past life lies, why alter it? The very wrong to Francis! -- it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said. My father and my mother died of want. [250] Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have labored somewhat in my time And not been paid profusely. Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures -- let him try! No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. This must suffice me here. What would one have? In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance -- [260] Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me To cover -- the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So -- still they overcome Because there's still Lucrezia, -- as I choose.
Again the cousin's whistle! Go, my love.
-- 29. My face, my moon:
"Once, like the moon, I made The ever-shifting currents of the blood According to my humor ebb and flow." -- Cleopatra, in Tennyson's `A Dream of Fair Women'.
"You are the powerful moon of my blood's sea, To make it ebb or flow into my face As your looks change." -- Ford and Decker's `Witch of Edmonton'.
35. A common grayness: Andrea del Sarto was distinguished for his skill in chiaro-oscuro.
82. low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand: "Andrea del Sarto's was, after all, but the `low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand', and therefore his perfect art does not touch our hearts like that of Fra Bartolommeo, who occupies about the same position with regard to the great masters of the century as Andrea del Sarto. Fra Bartolommeo spoke from his heart. He was moved by the spirit, so to speak, to express his pure and holy thoughts in beautiful language, and the ideal that presented itself to his mind, and from which he, equally with Raphael, worked, approached almost as closely as Raphael's to that abstract beauty after which they both longed. Andrea del Sarto had no such longing: he was content with the loveliness of earth. This he could understand and imitate in its fullest perfection, and therefore he troubled himself but little about the `wondrous paterne' laid up in heaven. Many of his Madonnas have greater beauty, strictly speaking, than those of Bartolommeo, or even of Raphael; but we miss in them that mysterious spiritual loveliness that gives the latter their chief charm." -- Heaton's History of Painting.
I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less. Since there my past life lies, why alter it? The very wrong to Francis! -- it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said. My father and my mother died of want. [250] Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have labored somewhat in my time And not been paid profusely. Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures -- let him try! No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. This must suffice me here. What would one have? In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance -- [260] Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me To cover -- the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So -- still they overcome Because there's still Lucrezia, -- as I choose.
Again the cousin's whistle! Go, my love.
-- 29. My face, my moon:
"Once, like the moon, I made The ever-shifting currents of the blood According to my humor ebb and flow." -- Cleopatra, in Tennyson's `A Dream of Fair Women'.
"You are the powerful moon of my blood's sea, To make it ebb or flow into my face As your looks change." -- Ford and Decker's `Witch of Edmonton'.
35. A common grayness: Andrea del Sarto was distinguished for his skill in chiaro-oscuro.
82. low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand: "Andrea del Sarto's was, after all, but the `low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand', and therefore his perfect art does not touch our hearts like that of Fra Bartolommeo, who occupies about the same position with regard to the great masters of the century as Andrea del Sarto. Fra Bartolommeo spoke from his heart. He was moved by the spirit, so to speak, to express his pure and holy thoughts in beautiful language, and the ideal that presented itself to his mind, and from which he, equally with Raphael, worked, approached almost as closely as Raphael's to that abstract beauty after which they both longed. Andrea del Sarto had no such longing: he was content with the loveliness of earth. This he could understand and imitate in its fullest perfection, and therefore he troubled himself but little about the `wondrous paterne' laid up in heaven. Many of his Madonnas have greater beauty, strictly speaking, than those of Bartolommeo, or even of Raphael; but we miss in them that mysterious spiritual loveliness that gives the latter their chief charm." -- Heaton's History of Painting.