Introduction to Robert Browning [109]
spring come, and the nights one makes up bands To roam the town and sing out carnival, And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, A-painting for the great man, saints and saints And saints again. I could not paint all night -- Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. [50] There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song -- `Flower o' the broom, Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! Flower o' the quince, I let Lisa go, and what good in life since? Flower o' the thyme' -- and so on. Round they went. Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, -- three slim shapes, And a face that looked up. . .zooks, sir, flesh and blood, [60] That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went, Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, All the bed-furniture -- a dozen knots, There was a ladder! Down I let myself, Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, And after them. I came up with the fun Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met, -- `Flower o' the rose, If I've been merry, what matter who knows?' And so, as I was stealing back again, [70] To get to bed and have a bit of sleep Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head -- Mine's shaved -- a monk, you say -- the sting's in that! If Master Cosimo announced himself, Mum's the word naturally; but a monk! Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! [80] I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, My stomach being empty as your hat, The wind doubled me up and down I went. Old aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand (Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew), And so along the wall, over the bridge, [90] By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, While I stood munching my first bread that month: "So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time, -- "To quit this very miserable world? Will you renounce". . ."the mouthful of bread?" thought I; By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me; I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici [100] Have given their hearts to -- all at eight years old. Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 'Twas not for nothing -- the good bellyful, The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, And day-long blessed idleness beside! "Let's see what the urchin's fit for" -- that came next. Not overmuch their way, I must confess. Such a to-do! They tried me with their books: Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste! `Flower o' the clove, [110] All the Latin I construe is, "Amo" I love!' But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets Eight years together as my fortune was, Watching folk's faces to know who will fling The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, And who will curse or kick him for his pains, -- Which gentleman processional and fine, Holding a candle to the Sacrament, Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch The droppings of the wax to sell again, [120] Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, -- How say I? -- nay, which dog bites, which lets drop His bone from the heap of offal in the street, -- Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, He learns the look of things, and none the less For admonition from the hunger-pinch. I had a store of such remarks, be sure, Which, after I found leisure, turned to use: I drew men's faces on my copy-books, Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, [130] Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes,