Chapter 6

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim; Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, Its soft meandering Spanish name. 20 What a name! Was it love or praise? Speech half-asleep or song half-awake? I must learn Spanish, one of these days, Only for that slow sweet name's sake.

Roses, if I live and do well, 25 I may bring her, one of these days, To fix you fast with as fine a spell, Fit you each with his Spanish phrase; But do not detain me now; for she lingers There, like sunshine over the ground, 30 And ever I see her soft white fingers Searching after the bud she found.

Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not; Stay as you are and be loved forever! Bud, if I kiss you 'tis that you blow not; 35 Mind, the shut pink month opens never! For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle, Twinkling the audacious leaves between, Till round they turn and down they nestle-- Is not the dear mark still to be seen? 40

Where I find her not, beauties vanish; Whither I follow her, beauties flee; Is there no method to tell her in Spanish June's twice June since she breathed it with me? Come, bud, show me the least of her traces, 45 Treasure my lady's lightest footfall! --Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces-- Roses, you are not so fair after all!

MEETING AT NIGHT

The gray sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, 5 And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, 10 And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!

PARTING AT MORNING

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim; And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me.

EVELYN HOPE

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass; 5 Little has yet been changed, I think; The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; 10 It was not her time to love; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir, Till God's hand beckoned unawares-- 15 And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? What, your soul was pure and true, The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire, and dew-- 20 And just because I was thrice as old And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was naught to each, must I be told? We were fellow mortals, naught beside?

No, indeed! for God above 25 Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love; I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delayed it may be for more lives yet, Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few; 30 Much is to learn, much to forget Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come--at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth, in the years long still, 35 That body and soul so pure and gay? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red-- And what you would do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead. 40

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, Given up myself so many times, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 45 Either I missed or itself missed me; And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while! My heart seemed full as it could hold; 50 There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. So, hush--I will give you this leaf to keep; See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand! There, that is our secret; go to sleep! 55 You will wake, and remember, and understand.

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop 5 As they crop-- Was the site once of a city great and gay (So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince Ages since 10 Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war.

Now--the country does not even boast a tree, As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure; certain rills 15 From the hills Intersect and give a name to (else they run Into one) Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires 20 O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all, Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, Twelve abreast.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass 25 Never was! Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads And embeds Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, Stock or stone-- 30 Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Long ago; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame Struck them tame; And that glory and that shame alike, the gold 35 Bought and sold.

Now--the single little turret that remains On the plains, By the caper overrooted, by the gourd Overscored, 40 While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks-- Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime, And a burning ring, all around, the chariots traced 45 As they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his dames Viewed the games.

And I know, while thus the quiet-colored eve Smiles to leave 50 To their folding all our many-tinkling fleece In such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray Melt away-- That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair 55 Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb Till I come. 60

But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts--and then, 65 All the men! When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, Either hand On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face, 70 Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech Each on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high 75 As the sky, Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force-- Gold, of course. O heart! O blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns 80 For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best.

UP AT A VILLA--DOWN IN THE CITY

(AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY)

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square; Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least! There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; 5 While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! --I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned 10 wool.

But the city, oh, the city--the square with the houses! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye! Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets 15 high; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights, 'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights: You've the brown plowed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray 20 olive-trees.

Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick 25 and sell.

Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash! In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in her conch--fifty gazers do not abash, Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a 30 sort of sash.

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty when they mix i' the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is 35 shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough of the seasons--I spare you the months of the fever and chill.

Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin; No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in; You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 40 By and by there's the traveling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth; Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. At the post office such a scene-picture--the new play, piping hot! And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, 45 And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's! Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so, Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero; "And, moreover" (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the skirts of Saint Paul has reached, Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than 50 ever he preached." Noon strikes--here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart! _Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife; No keeping one's haunches still; it's the greatest pleasure in life.

But bless you, it's dear--it's dear! fowls, wine, at double 55 the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate It's a horror to think of. And so the villa for me, not the city! Beggars can scarcely be choosers; but still--ah, the pity, the pity! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the 60 yellow candles; One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals; _Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife. Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S

O Galuppi, Baldassare, this is very sad to find! I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind; But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings. What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were 5 the kings, Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

Aye, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by ... what you call Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival; I was never out of England--it's as if I saw it all.

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in 10 May? Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day, When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red-- On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed, O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his 15 head?

Well, and it was graceful of them--they'd break talk off and afford --She, to bite her mask's black velvet--he, to finger on his sword, While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh, Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions--"Must 20 we die?" Those commiserating sevenths--"Life might last! we can but try!"

"Were you happy?"--"Yes."--"And are you still as happy?"--"Yes. And you?" --"Then, more kisses!"--"Did _I_ stop them, when a million seemed so few?" Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare 25 say! "Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay! I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"

Then they left you for their pleasure; till in due time, one by one, Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone, Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the 30 sun.

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve, While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve, In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned: "Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice 35 earned. The soul, doubtless, is immortal--where a soul can be discerned.

"Yours for instance; you know physics, something of geology, Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree; Butterflies may dread extinction--you'll not die, it cannot be!

"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop, 40 Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop; What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. Dear dead women, with such hair, too--what's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown 45 old.

OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE

The morn when first it thunders in March, The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say; As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch Of the villa-gate this warm March day, No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 5 In the valley beneath where, white and wide And washed by the morning water-gold, Florence lay out on the mountain-side.

River and bridge and street and square Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, 10 Through the live translucent bath of air, As the sights in a magic crystal ball. And of all I saw and of all I praised, The most to praise and the best to see Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised; 15 But why did it more than startle me?

Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, Could you play me false who loved you so? Some slights if a certain heart endures Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know! 20 I' faith, I perceive not why I should care To break a silence that suits them best, But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear When I find a Giotto join the rest.

On the arch where olives overhead 25 Print the blue sky with twig and leaf (That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed) 'Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief, And mark through the winter afternoons, By a gift God grants me now and then, 30 In the mild decline of those suns like moons, Who walked in Florence, besides her men.

They might chirp and chaffer, come and go For pleasure or profit, her men alive-- My business was hardly with them, I trow, 35 But with empty cells of the human hive-- With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, The church's apsis, aisle, or nave, Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch, Its face set full for the sun to shave. 40

Wherever a fresco peels and drops, Wherever an outline weakens and wanes Till the latest life in the painting stops, Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains; One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, 45 Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, --A lion who dies of an ass's kick, The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.

For oh, this world and the wrong it does! They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, 50 The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz Round the works of, you of the little wit! Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope, Now that they see God face to face, And have all attained to be poets, I hope? 55 'Tis their holiday now, in any case.

Much they reck of your praise and you! But the wronged great souls--can they be quit Of a world where their work is all to do, Where you style them, you of the little wit, 60 Old Master This and Early the Other, Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows: A younger succeeds to an elder brother, Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.

And here where your praise might yield returns, 65 And a handsome word or two give help, Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. What, not a word for Stefano there, Of brow once prominent and starry, 70 Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For his peerless painting? (See Vasari.)

There stands the Master. Study, my friends, What a man's work comes to! So he plans it, Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 75 For the toiling and moiling, and then, _sic transit_! Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor, With upturned eye while the hand is busy, Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbor! 'Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy. 80

"If you knew their work you would deal your dole." May I take upon me to instruct you? When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, Thus much had the world to boast _in fructu_-- The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, 85 Which the actual generations garble, Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken) And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.

So you saw yourself as you wished you were, As you might have been, as you cannot be; 90 Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there: And grew content in your poor degree With your little power, by those statues' godhead, And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, And your little grace, by their grace embodied, 95 And your little date, by their forms that stay.

You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am? Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. You would prove a model? The Son of Priam Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. 100 You're wroth--can you slay your snake like Apollo? You're grieved--still Niobe's the grander! You live--there's the Racers' frieze to follow: You die--there's the dying Alexander.

So, testing your weakness by their strength, 105 Your meager charms by their rounded beauty, Measured by Art in your breadth and length, You learned--to submit is a mortal's duty. --When I say "you" 'tis the common soul, The collective, I mean--the race of Man 110 That receives life in parts to live in a whole, And grow here according to God's clear plan.

Growth came when, looking your last on them all, You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day And cried with a start--What if we so small 115 Be greater and grander the while than they? Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature? In both, of such lower types are we Precisely because of our wider nature; For time, theirs--ours, for eternity. 120

Today's brief passion limits their range; It seethes with the morrow for us and more. They are perfect--how else? they shall never change; We are faulty--why not? we have time in store. The Artificer's hand is not arrested 125 With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished; They stand for our copy, and, once invested With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished.