447

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,
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,
I, painting from myself and to myself,
Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame
Or their praise either, Somebody remarks
Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,
His hue mistaken-what of that? or else,
Rightly traced and well ordered-what of that?
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!
I know both what I want and what might
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh,
"Had I been two, another and myself,
Our head would have o'erlooked the
No doubt.

Yonder's a work, now, of that famous youth
The Urbinate 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,
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.
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.
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
The fowler's pipe, 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?
Live for fame, side by side with Angelo-
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.
Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;
The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
What wife had Rafael, or has Angelo?
In this world, who can do a thing, will not-
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the will's somewhat-somewhat, too, the
power-

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,

Too live the life grew, golden and not gray-
And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
Out of the grange whose four walls make his
world.

How could it end in any other way?
You called me, and I came home to your heart.
The triumph was to have ended there-then if
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?
Let my hands frame your face in your hair's
gold,

You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that—
The Roman's is the better when you pray,
But still the other's Virgin was his wife-
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
My better fortune, I resolve to think.
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
Said one day Angelo, his very self,
To Rafael. I have known it all these
years

(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts

Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, Too lifted up in heart because of it)— "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,

Who, were he set to plan and execute

As you are pricked on by your popes and kings,
Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"
To Rafael's! And indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare-yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk here-quick, thus the line should
go!

Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he? why, who but Michael Angelo?
Do you forget already words like those?)
If really there was such a chance, so lost,
Is, whether you're—not grateful—but more
pleased.

truth.

This hour has been an hour! Another smile?

If you would sit thus by me every night
I should work better, do you comprehend?
I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;
Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
Come from the window, love-come in at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me. 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?
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,
Not yours this time! I want you at my side
To hear them-that is, Michael Angelo-
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 portrait 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,
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.
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

Four great walls in the New Jerusalem
Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Angelo 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.

SAUL.

SAID Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak,

Kiss my cheek, wish me well!" Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek.

And he, "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,

Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent

Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,

Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.

For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days,

Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended prayer or of praise, their strife,

And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life.

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child, with his dew

On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue

Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat

Were now raging to torture the desert!"

Then I, as was meet,

Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet,

And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped;

I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped;

Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone,

That extends to the second inclosure, I groped my way on

Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed,

And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid,

But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied.

At the first I saw naught but the blackness; but soon I descried

A something more black than the blacknessthe vast, the upright

Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight

Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest

of all;

-Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate

To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate,

Till for boldness they fight one another: and then, what has weight

To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house

There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse!

God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,

To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand

Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship and great hearts expand

And grow one in the sense of this world's life. -And then, the last song

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the jewels that woke in his turban at once with a start

lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart.

So the head-but the body still moved not, stillhung there erect.

And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked, As I sang

"Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! Not a muscle is stopped in its playing, nor sinew no spirit feels waste,

Oh,

unbraced.

the wild joys of living! the leaping from

rock up to rock

The strong rending of boughs from the fir-treethe cool silver shock

Of the plunge in a pool's living water—the hunt

of the bear,

And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.

And the meal-the rich dates-yellowed over with gold dust divine,

And the locust's-flesh steeped in the pitcher; the full draught of wine,

And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bull-rushes tell

That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.

How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ

All the heart and the soul and the senses, forever in joy!

Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst guard When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward?

Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung

The low song of the nearly-departed, and heard her faint tongue

"Bear, bear him along

one more attest,

I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and all was for best

Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not much-but the rest. And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew

Such result as from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained true!

And the friends of thy boyhood-that boyhood of wonder and hope,

Present promise, and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope

Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine;

And all gifts which the world offers singly, on one head combine!

On one head, all the beauty and strength, love

and rage, like the throe

That, a-work in the rock, helps its labor, and lets the gold go:

High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning it-all

Brought to blaze on the head of one creatureKing Saul!"

And lo, with that leap of my spirit, heart, hand, harp and voice, [ding rejoice Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidSaul's fame in the light it was made for-as when, dare I say,

The Lord's army in rapture of service, strains through its array,

And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot-"Saul!" cried I, and stopped,

And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped

By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name.

Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim,

And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone,

While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone

A year's snow bound about for a breastplate— leaves grasp of the sheet?

Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet,

And there fronts you, stark, black but alive yet, your mountain of old,

With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold

Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar

Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempestall hail, there they are!

Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest

Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on its crest

For their food in the ardors of summer! One long shudder thrilled

All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled,

At the king's self left standing before me, released and aware.

What was gone, what remained? all to traverse

'twixt hope and despair

Death was past, life not come--so he waited. Awhile his right hand

Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forthwith to remand

To their place what new objects should enter: 't was Saul as before.

I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more

Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore

At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean-a sun's slow decline

Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine

Base with base to knit strength more intense: so, arm folded in arm

O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.

What spell or what charm, (For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urge

To sustain him where song had restored him?Song filled to the verge

His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields

Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty! Beyond, on what fields,

| Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye

And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by?

He saith, "It is good;" still he drinks not-he lets me praise life,

Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

Then fancies grew rife

Which had come long ago on the pastures, when round me the sheep,

Fed in silence-above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep,

And I lay in my hollow, and mused on the world that might lie

'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky:

And I laughed-" Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks,

Let me people at least with my fancies the plains and the rocks,

Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show

Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hard

ly shall know!

Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,

And the prudence that keeps what men strive for. And now these old trains Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so once more the string

Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus:

"Yea, my king,"

I began" thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring

From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute:

In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.

Thou hast marked the slow rise of the treehow its stem trembled first

Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburst

The fan-branches all round; and thou mindedst when these too, in turn,

Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect; yet more was to learn,

Ev'n the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight,

When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight

Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall stanch

Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine.

Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the

Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace

The results of his past summer-prime-so, each ray of thy will,

Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill

Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too give forth

A like cheer to their sons, who in turn fill the south and the north

With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past.

But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last.

As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height,

So with man-so his power and his beauty forever take flight.

No! again a long draught of my soul-wine! look forth o'er the years

Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's!

Is Saul dead? in the depth of the vale make his tomb-bid arise

A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till built to the skies.

Let it mark where the great First King slumbers -whose fame would ye know?

Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go

In great characters cut by the scribe-Such was Saul, so he did;

With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid

For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend,

In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend

(See, in tablets 't is level before them) their praise, and record

With the gold of the graver, Saul's story-the

to my heart,

The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent

Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose,

To

receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose,

So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile

Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile,

And so sat out my singing-one arm round the tent-prop, to raise

His bent head, and the other hung slack-till I touched on the praise

I foresaw from all men in all times, to the man patient there,

And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware

That he sat, as I say, with my.head just above his vast knees

Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak-roots which please

To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know

If the best I could do had brought solace; he spoke not, but slow

Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care