Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo? 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.

Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!

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

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love. 1855.

Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial

fiat.

Never dares the man put off the prophet.

XI

Did he love one face from out the thousands,

(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely,

Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave,) He would envy yon dumb patient camel, Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert; Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened)

Hoard and life together for his mistress.

XII

I shall never, in the years remaining, Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues,

Make you music that should all-express

me;

So it seems I stand on my attainment. This of verse alone, one life allows me ; Verse and nothing else have I to give you. Other heights in other lives, God willing: All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!

XIII

Yet a semblance of resource avails usShade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.

Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,

Lines I write the first time and the last time.

He who works in fresco, steals a hairbrush,

Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,

Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,
Makes a strange art of an art familiar,
Fills his lady's missal-marge with
flowerets.

He who blows through bronze, may
breathe through silver,
Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.
He who writes, may write for once as I

do.

XIV

Love, you saw me gather men and

women,

Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, Enter each and all, and use their service,

This I say of me, but think of you, Love! This to you-yourself my moon of poets! Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder,

Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you

Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. But the best is when I glide from out them,

Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,

Where I hush and bless myself with silence.

XIX

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song-and in my brain I sing it,

Drew one angel-borne, see, on my bosom!

R. B. 1855.

WOULD that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,

Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,

Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed

Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,

Man, brute, reptile, fly,-alien of end and of aim,

Adverse, each from the other heavenhigh, hell-deep removed,

Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,

And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,

This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise ! Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!

And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,

Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,

Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,

Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.

And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,

Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest :

For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,

When a great illumination surprises a festal night-

Outlined round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)

Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,