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(CALLED “THE FAULTLESS PAINTER”)

 

 But do not let us quarrel any more,
 

 No, my Lucrezia! bear with me for once:
 

 Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
 

 You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
 

 I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear.
 

 Treat his own subject after his own way,
 

 Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
 

 And shut the money into this small hand
 

 When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
 

 Oh, I'll content him,--but to-morrow, Love!       10
 

 I often am much wearier than you think,
 

 This evening more than usual: and it seems
 

 As if--forgive now--should you let me sit
 

 Here by the window, with your hand in mine,
 

 And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,          15
 

 Both of one mind, as married people use,
 

 Quietly, quietly the evening through,
 

 I might get up to-morrow to my work
 

 Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
 

 To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!       20
 

 Your soft hand is a woman of itself,
 

 And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.
 

 Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve
 

 For each of the five pictures we require:
 

 It saves a model. So! keep looking so--
 

 My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
 

 --How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
 

 Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet--
 

 My face, my moon, my everybody's moon.
 

 Which everybody looks on and calls his,          30
 

 And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
 

 While she looks--no one's: very dear, no less.
 

 You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,
 

 There's what we painters call our harmony!
 

 A common grayness silvers everything,--
 

 All in a twilight, you and I alike
 

 --You, at the point of your first pride in me
 

 (That's gone, you know)--but I, at every point;
 

 My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
 

 To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.            40
 

 There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
 

 That length of convent-wall across the way
 

 Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;
 

 The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,
 

 And autumn grows, autumn in everything.
 

 Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape,
 

 As if I saw alike my work and self
 

 And all that I was born to be and do,
 

 A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.
 

 How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;     50
 

 So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
 

 I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!
 

 This chamber for example--turn your head--
 

 All that's behind us! You don't understand
 

 Nor care to understand about my art,
 

 But you can hear at least when people speak:
 

 And that cartoon, the second from the door
 

 --It is the thing, Love! so such things should be--
 

 Behold Madonna!--I am bold to say.
 

 I can do with my pencil what I know,           60
 

 What I see, what at bottom of my heart
 

 I wish for, if I ever wish so deep--
 

 Do easily, too--when I say, perfectly,
 

 I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,
 

 Who listened to the Legate's talk last week;
 

 And just as much they used to say in France.
 

 At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!
 

 No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:
 

 I do what many dream of, all their lives,
 

 --Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,         70
 

 And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
 

 On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
 

 Who strive--you don't know how the others strive
 

 To paint a little thing like that you smeared
 

 Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,--
 

 Yet do much less, so much less. Someone says,
 

 (I know his name, no matter)--so much less!
 

 Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
 

 There burns a truer light of God in them,
 

 In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,   80
 

 Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
 

 This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
 

 Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
 

 Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,
 

 Enter and take their place there sure enough,
 

 Tho' they come back and cannot tell the world.
 

 My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.
 

 The sudden blood of these men! at a word--
 

 Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
 

 I, painting from myself and to myself,          90
 

 Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame
 

 Or their praise either. Somebody remarks
 

 Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,
 

 His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
 

 Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
 

 Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
 

 Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
 

 Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray,
 

 Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
 

 I know both what I want and what might gain,       100
 

 And yet how profitless to know, to sigh
 

 "Had I been two, another and myself,
 

 Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.