Andrea del Sarto

1		But do not let us quarrel any more,
2		No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
3		Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
4		You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
5		I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,
6		Treat his own subject after his own way,
7		Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
8		And shut the money into this small hand
9		When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
10		Oh, I'll content him,--but to-morrow, Love!
11		I often am much wearier than you think,
12		This evening more than usual, and it seems
13		As if--forgive now--should you let me sit
14		Here by the window with your hand in mine
15		And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
16		Both of one mind, as married people use,
17		Quietly, quietly the evening through,
18		I might get up to-morrow to my work
19		Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
20		To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!
21		Your soft hand is a woman of itself,
22		And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.
23		Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve
24		For each of the five pictures we require:
25		It saves a model. So! keep looking so--
26		My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
27		--How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
28		Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet--
29		My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,
30		Which everybody looks on and calls his,
31		And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
32		While she looks--no one's: very dear, no less.
33		You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,
34		There's what we painters call our harmony!
35		A common greyness silvers everything,--
36		All in a twilight, you and I alike
37		--You, at the point of your first pride in me
38		(That's gone you know),--but I, at every point;
39		My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
40		To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.
41		There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
42		That length of convent-wall across the way
43		Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;
44		The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,
45		And autumn grows, autumn in everything.
46		Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape
47		As if I saw alike my work and self
48		And all that I was born to be and do,
49		A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.
50		How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;
51		So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
52		I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!
53		This chamber for example--turn your head--
54		All that's behind us! You don't understand
55		Nor care to understand about my art,
56		But you can hear at least when people speak:
57		And that cartoon, the second from the door
58		--It is the thing, Love! so such things should be--
59		Behold Madonna!--I am bold to say.
60		I can do with my pencil what I know,
61		What I see, what at bottom of my heart
62		I wish for, if I ever wish so deep--
63		Do easily, too--when I say, perfectly,
64		I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,
65		Who listened to the Legate's talk last week,
66		And just as much they used to say in France.
67		At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!
68		No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:
69		I do what many dream of, all their lives,
70		--Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
71		And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
72		On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
73		Who strive--you don't know how the others strive
74		To paint a little thing like that you smeared
75		Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,--
76		Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
77		(I know his name, no matter)--so much less!
78		Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
79		There burns a truer light of God in them,
80		In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
81		Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
82		This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
83		Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
84		Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,
85		Enter and take their place there sure enough,
86		Though they come back and cannot tell the world.
87		My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.
88		The sudden blood of these men! at a word--
89		Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
90		I, painting from myself and to myself,
91		Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame
92		Or their praise either. Somebody remarks
93		Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,
94		His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
95		Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
96		Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
97		Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
98		Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey,
99		Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
100		I know both what I want and what might gain,
101		And yet how profitless to know, to sigh
102		"Had I been two, another and myself,
103		"Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.
104		Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth
105		The Urbinate who died five years ago.
106		('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)
107		Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
108		Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
109		Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
110		Above and through his art--for it gives way;
111		That arm is wrongly put--and there again--
112		A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,
113		Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,
114		He means right--that, a child may understand.
115		Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:
116		But all the play, the insight and the stretch--
117		(Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?
118		Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
119		We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
120		Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think--
121		More than I merit, yes, by many times.
122		But had you--oh, with the same perfect brow,
123		And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
124		And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
125		The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare --
126		Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!
127		Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
128		"God and the glory! never care for gain.
129		"The present by the future, what is that?
130		"Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!
131		"Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!"
132		I might have done it for you. So it seems:
133		Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.
134		Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;
135		The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
136		What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?
137		In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
138		And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
139		Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power--
140		And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,
141		God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.
142		'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,
143		That I am something underrated here,
144		Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.
145		I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,
146		For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.
147		The best is when they pass and look aside;
148		But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.
149		Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,
150		And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!
151		I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,
152		Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,
153		In that humane great monarch's golden look,--
154		One finger in his beard or twisted curl
155		Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile,
156		One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,
157		The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,
158		I painting proudly with his breath on me,
159		All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
160		Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls
161		Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,--
162		And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,
163		This in the background, waiting on my work,
164		To crown the issue with a last reward!
165		A good time, was it not, my kingly days?
166		And had you not grown restless... but I know--
167		'Tis done and past: 'twas right, my instinct said:
168		Too live the life grew, golden and not grey,
169		And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
170		Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.
171		How could it end in any other way?
172		You called me, and I came home to your heart.
173		The triumph was--to reach and stay there; since
174		I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?
175		Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,
176		You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
177		"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;
178		"The Roman's is the better when you pray,
179		"But still the other's Virgin was his wife--"
180		Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
181		Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
182		My better fortune, I resolve to think.
183		For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
184		Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
185		To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . .
186		(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
187		Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,
188		Too lifted up in heart because of it)
189		"Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub
190		"Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
191		"Who, were he set to plan and execute
192		"As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
193		"Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"
194		To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.
195		I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see,
196		Give the chalk here--quick, thus, the line should go!
197		Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
198		Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
199		(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?
200		Do you forget already words like those?)
201		If really there was such a chance, so lost,--
202		Is, whether you're--not grateful--but more pleased.
203		Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
204		This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
205		If you would sit thus by me every night
206		I should work better, do you comprehend?
207		I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
208		See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;
209		Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
210		The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
211		Come from the window, love,--come in, at last,
212		Inside the melancholy little house
213		We built to be so gay with. God is just.
214		King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
215		When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
216		The walls become illumined, brick from brick
217		Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
218		That gold of his I did cement them with!
219		Let us but love each other. Must you go?
220		That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
221		Must see you--you, and not with me? Those loans?
222		More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?
223		Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
224		While hand and eye and something of a heart
225		Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?
226		I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
227		The grey remainder of the evening out,
228		Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
229		How I could paint, were I but back in France,
230		One picture, just one more--the Virgin's face,
231		Not yours this time! I want you at my side
232		To hear them--that is, Michel Agnolo--
233		Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
234		Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.
235		I take the subjects for his corridor,
236		Finish the portrait out of hand--there, there,
237		And throw him in another thing or two
238		If he demurs; the whole should prove enough
239		To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,
240		What's better and what's all I care about,
241		Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!
242		Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
243		The Cousin! what does he to please you more?

244		I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.
245		I regret little, I would change still less.
246		Since there my past life lies, why alter it?
247		The very wrong to Francis!--it is true
248		I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
249		And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
250		My father and my mother died of want.
251		Well, had I riches of my own? you see
252		How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
253		They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:
254		And I have laboured somewhat in my time
255		And not been paid profusely. Some good son
256		Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try!
257		No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,
258		You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night.
259		This must suffice me here. What would one have?
260		In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance--
261		Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
262		Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
263		For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me
264		To cover--the three first without a wife,
265		While I have mine! So--still they overcome
266		Because there's still Lucrezia,--as I choose.

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

Reading: William Clyde DeVane Andrea del Sarto in A Browning Handbook