Tho' averted with wonder and dread; in To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this! That rose heavily, as I approached them, Your soft hand is a woman of itself, the birds stiff and chill 20 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 soMy 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, And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, 31 While she looks-no one's: 2 very dear, no less. 2 not even his You smile? why, there's my picture ready Do easily, too-when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are The last monk leaves the garden: days To paint a little thing like that you Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape Yet do much less, so much less, Someone -It is the thing, Love! no such thing Though they come back and cannot tell 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. Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate 2 who died five years ago. ('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and through his art-for it gives way; 110 Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; The rest avail not. Why do I need you? What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat-somewhat, too, the power And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 140 God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict, That I am something underrated here, Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. Michael Angelo |