Him that was once the Cardinal Caraffa?
You would but see a man of fourscore years, With sunken eyes, burning like carbuncles, Who sits at table with his friends for hours, Cursing the Spaniards as a race of Jews And miscreant Moors.And with what soldiery Think you he now defends the Eternal City?
MONK.
With legions of bright angels.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
So he calls them;
And yet in fact these bright angelic legions Are only German Lutherans.
MONK, crossing himself.
Heaven protect us?
MICHAEL ANGELO.
What further would you see?
MONK.
The Cardinals, Going in their gilt coaches to High Mass.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Men do not go to Paradise in coaches.
MONK.
The catacombs, the convents, and the churches;The ceremonies of the Holy Week In all their pomp, or, at the Epiphany, The Feast of the Santissima Bambino At Ara Coeli.But I shall not see them.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
These pompous ceremonies of the Church Are but an empty show to him who knows The actors in them.Stay here in your convent, For he who goes to Rome may see too much.
What would you further?
MONK.
I would see the painting of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
The smoke of incense and of altar candles Has blackened it already.
MONK.
Woe is me!
Then I would hear Allegri's Miserere, Sung by the Papal choir.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
A dismal dirge!
I am an old, old man, and I have lived In Rome for thirty years and more, and know The jarring of the wheels of that great world, Its jealousies, its discords, and its strife.
Therefore I say to you, remain content Here in your convent, here among your woods, Where only there is peace.Go not to Rome.
There was of old a monk of Wittenberg Who went to Rome; you may have heard of him;His name was Luther; and you know what followed.
[The convent bell rings.
MONK, rising.
It is the convent bell; it rings for vespers.
Let us go in; we both will pray for peace.
VIII
THE DEAD CHRIST.
MICHAEL ANGELO'S studio.MICHAEL ANGELO, with a light, working upon the Dead Christ.Midnight.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
O Death, why is it I cannot portray Thy form and features? Do I stand too near thee?
Or dost thou hold my hand, and draw me back, As being thy disciple, not thy master?
Let him who knows not what old age is like Have patience till it comes, and he will know.
I once had skill to fashion Life and Death And Sleep, which is the counterfeit of Death;And I remember what Giovanni Strozzi Wrote underneath my statue of the Night In San Lorenzo, ah, so long ago!
Grateful to me is sleep! More grateful now Than it was then; for all my friends are dead;And she is dead, the noblest of them all.
I saw her face, when the great sculptor Death, Whom men should call Divine, had at a blow Stricken her into marble; and I kissed Her cold white hand.What was it held me back From kissing her fair forehead, and those lips, Those dead, dumb lips? Grateful to me is sleep!
Enter GIORGIO VASARI.
GIORGIO.
Good-evening, or good-morning, for I know not Which of the two it is.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
How came you in?
GIORGIO.
Why, by the door, as all men do.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Ascanio Must have forgotten to bolt it.
GIORGIO.
Probably.
Am I a spirit, or so like a spirit, That I could slip through bolted door or window?
As I was passing down the street, I saw A glimmer of light, and heard the well-known chink Of chisel upon marble.So I entered, To see what keeps you from your bed so late.
MICHAEL ANGELO, coming forward with the lamp.
You have been revelling with your boon companions, Giorgio Vasari, and you come to me At an untimely hour.
GIORGIO.
The Pope hath sent me.
His Holiness desires to see again The drawing you once showed him of the dome Of the Basilica.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
We will look for it.
GIORGIO.
What is the marble group that glimmers there Behind you?
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Nothing, and yet everything,--
As one may take it.It is my own tomb, That I am building.
GIORGIO.
Do not hide it from me.
By our long friendship and the love I bear you, Refuse me not!
MICHAEL ANGELO, letting fall the lamp.
Life hath become to me An empty theatre,--its lights extinguished, The music silent, and the actors gone;And I alone sit musing on the scenes That once have been.I am so old that Death Oft plucks me by the cloak, to come with him And some day, like this lamp, shall I fall down, And my last spark of life will be extinguished.
Ah me! ah me! what darkness of despair!
So near to death, and yet so far from God!
*****
TRANSLATIONS
PRELUDE
As treasures that men seek, Deep-buried in sea-sands, Vanish if they but speak, And elude their eager hands,So ye escape and slip, O songs, and fade away, When the word is on my lip To interpret what ye say.
Were it not better, then, To let the treasures rest Hid from the eyes of men, Locked in their iron chest?
I have but marked the place, But half the secret told, That, following this slight trace, Others may find the gold.
FROM THE SPANISH
COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.
O let the soul her slumbers break, Let thought be quickened, and awake;Awake to see How soon this life is past and gone, And death comes softly stealing on, How silently!
Swiftly our pleasures glide away, Our hearts recall the distant day With many sighs;The moments that are speeding fast We heed not, but the past,--the past, More highly prize.
Onward its course the present keeps, Onward the constant current sweeps, Till life is done;And, did we judge of time aright, The past and future in their flight Would be as one.
Let no one fondly dream again, That Hope and all her shadowy train Will not decay;Fleeting as were the dreams of old, Remembered like a tale that's told, They pass away.
Our lives are rivers, gliding free To that unfathomed, boundless sea, The silent grave!
Thither all earthly pomp and boast Roll, to be swallowed up and lost In one dark wave.
Thither the mighty torrents stray, Thither the brook pursues its way, And tinkling rill, There all are equal; side by side The poor man and the son of pride Lie calm and still.