| |
Macello de’ Corvi. A room in MICHAEL ANGELO’S house.
MICHAEL ANGELO, standing before a model of St. Peter’s.
MICHAEL ANGELO. BETTER than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi, | |
| And less than thou I will not! If the thought | |
| Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous stones | |
| And swing them to their places; if a breath | |
| Could blow this rounded dome into the air, | 5 |
| As if it were a bubble, and these statues | |
| Spring at a signal to their sacred stations, | |
| As sentinels mount guard upon a wall, | |
| Then were my task completed. Now, alas! | |
| Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding | 10 |
| Upon his hand the model of a church, | |
| As German artists paint him; and what years, | |
| What weary years, must drag themselves along, | |
| Ere this be turned to stone! What hindrances | |
| Must block the way; what idle interferences | 15 |
| Of Cardinals and Canons of St. Peter’s, | |
| Who nothing know of art beyond the color | |
| Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any building | |
| Save that of their own fortunes! And what then? | |
| I must then the short-coming of my means | 20 |
| Piece out by stepping forward, as the Spartan | |
| Was told to add a step to his short sword. [A pause. | |
| And is Fra Bastian dead? Is all that light | |
| Gone out? that sunshine darkened? all that music | |
| And merriment, that used to make our lives | 25 |
| Less melancholy, swallowed up in silence | |
| Like madrigals sung in the street at night | |
| By passing revellers? It is strange indeed | |
| That he should die before me. ’T is against | |
| The laws of nature that the young should die, | 30 |
| And the old live; unless it be that some | |
| Have long been dead who think themselves alive, | |
| Because not buried. Well, what matters it, | |
| Since now that greater light, that was my sun, | |
| Is set, and all is darkness, all is darkness! | 35 |
| Death’s lightnings strike to right and left of me, | |
| And, like a ruined wall, the world around me | |
| Crumbles away, and I am left alone. | |
| I have no friends, and want none. My own thoughts | |
| Are now my sole companions,—thoughts of her, | 40 |
| That like a benediction from the skies | |
| Come to me in my solitude and soothe me. | |
| When men are old, the incessant thought of Death | |
| Follows them like their shadow; sits with them | |
| At every meal; sleeps with them when they sleep; | 45 |
| And when they wake already is awake, | |
| And standing by their bedside. Then, what folly | |
| It is in us to make an enemy | |
| Of this importunate follower, not a friend! | |
| To me a friend, and not an enemy, | 50 |
| Has he become since all my friends are dead. | |
| |
