| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| An Episode |
| | | John Addington Symonds (1840–93) |
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| VASARI tells that Luca Signorelli, | |
| The morning star of Michael Angelo, | |
| Had but one son, a youth of seventeen summers, | |
| Who died. That day the master at his easel | |
| Wielded the liberal brush wherewith he painted | 5 |
| At Orvieto, on the Duomo’s walls, | |
| Stern forms of Death and Heaven and Hell and Judgment. | |
| Then came they to him, and cried: “Thy son is dead, | |
| Slain in a duel; but the bloom of life | |
| Yet lingers round red lips and downy cheek.” | 10 |
| Luca spoke not, but listen’d. Next they bore | |
| His dead son to the silent painting-room, | |
| And left on tiptoe son and sire alone. | |
| Still Luca spoke and groan’d not; but he rais’d | |
| The wonderful dead youth, and smooth’d his hair, | 15 |
| Wash’d his red wounds, and laid him on a bed, | |
| Naked and beautiful, where rosy curtains | |
| Shed a soft glimmer of uncertain splendor | |
| Life-like upon the marble limbs below. | |
| Then Luca seiz’d his palette: hour by hour | 20 |
| Silence was in the room; none durst approach: | |
| Morn wore to noon, and noon to eve, when shyly | |
| A little maid peep’d in, and saw the painter | |
| Painting his dead son with unerring hand-stroke, | |
| Firm and dry-ey’d before the lordly canvas. | 25 |
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