Treat his own subject after his own way,

5

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,
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!
Your soft hand is a woman of itself,

15

20

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

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

serve

25

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,
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 every thing,—

30

35

1 Andrea, called "del sarto," or, as we would say, the tailor's son, was born at Florence in 1487. After working at goldsmithing, wood-carving, and drawing. and studying under several painters, he executed some frescoes for the Church of the Annunciation at Florence, with such accuracy and skill that he gained the name of "the faultless painter." At twenty-three he is said to have had no superior in Central Italy in technique. In 1512 he married Lucrezia, "a beautiful widow." "But," says Vasari, he destroyed his own peace, as well as estranged his friends, by this act, seeing that he soon became jealous, and found that he had fallen into the hands of an artful woman, who made him do as she pleased in all things." In 1518 he went to Paris without Lucrezia, at the invitation of Francis I. This is the period of adulation and substantial rewards that he looks back upon in the poem as his long festal year, when he could "sometimes leave the ground." But Lucrezia wrote urging his return. The king granted him a brief leave of absence, and commissioned him to buy certain works of art in Italy. Andrea, beguiled by his wife, used the money which Francis had entrusted to him, to build a house for himself at Florence. His career in France being thus miserably interrupted, he remained in Florence, where he died of the plague in 1531.

2 A small town on a hill-top about three miles to the west of Florence. Browning apparently makes Andrea build his house on the outskirts of Florence immediately facing the Convent of San Domenico, with Fiesole in the distant background.

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, 85

This is not piety, but Andrea's characteristic way of evading responsibility. Later he attributes his comparative failure to his wife (125), and then, suddenly shifting to the other view, declares that after all "incentives come from the soul's self."

4 Vasari says of Andrea: "Had this master possessed a somewhat bolder and more elevated mind, had he been as much distinguished for higher qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment in the art he practised, he would beyond all doubt have been without an equal."

Though they come back and cannot tell the

world.

90

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,
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!

96

I know both what I want and what might gain;

And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another and myself,

100

Our head would have o'erlooked the world-"

No doubt.

105

Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth
The Urbinate 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
That arm is wrongly put-and there again-
A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,
Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,

115

He means right-that, a child may understand.
Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:
But all the play, the insight and the stretch-
Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?
Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think-
More than I merit, yes, by many times.
But had you-oh, with the same perfect brow,
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare-125
Had you, with these the same, but brought a
mind!

121

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged,

130

"God and the glory! never care for gain.
The present by the future, what is that?
Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!
Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!"
I might have done it for you. So it seems:
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-

135

And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 140 God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.

5 A mountain to the north of Florence. Raphael was so called from his birthplace, Urbino. 7 Michael Angelo.

As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings, Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"

195

To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare. yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk here-quick, thus the line should
go!

Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?
Do you forget already words like those?)
It really there was such a chance, so lost,-
Is, whether you're not grateful-but more
pleased.

200

205

212

Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
this hour has been an hour! Another smile?
If you would sit thus by me every night
I should work better, do you comprehend?
I mean that I should earn more. give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now; there's & star;
Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
The cue-owls11 speak the name we all them by.
Come from the window, Love, ce in, at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick 216
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!
Let us but love each other. Must you go?
That Cousin here again? he waits outside? 220
Must see you-you, and not with me? Those
loans?

More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?

Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?

While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it

worth?

I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The gray remainder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly

225

235

How I could paint, were I but back in France,
One picture, just one more-the Virgin's face,
Not yours this time! I want you at my side 231
To hear them-that is. Michel Agnolo-
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.
I take the subjects for his corridor.
Finish the portrait out of hand-there, there,
And throw him in another thing or two
If he demurs: the whole should prove enough
To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,
What's better and what's all I care about,
Get you the thirteen seudi- for the ruff!
chanced to be empeyed in great undertakings is you
axis well

240

Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,

The Cousin! what does he to please you more!

245

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less. Since there my past life lies, why alter it? The very wrong to Francis!-it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said. My father and my mother died of want.13 Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:

And I have labored somewhat in my time

250

And not been paid profusely. Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures-let him try! No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,

257

You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. This must suffice me here. What would one have?

In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance

260

13 Vasari says on this point: "He (Andrea) abandoned his own poor father and mother, . and adopted the father and sisters of his wife in their stead; insomuch that all who knew the facts mourned over him, and he soon began to be as much avoided as he had previously been sought after."

14 Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). While on earth, this great painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer came more than once into direct competition with Michael Angelo, who is said to have regarded his older rival with jealous dislike.

Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)

Three samples of true snake-stone-rarer still, One of the other sort, the melon-shaped,

(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs)

And writeth now the twenty-second time. 20

My journeyings were brought to Jericho: Thus I resume. Who studious in our art Shall count a little labor unrepaid?

25

I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone
On many a flinty furlong of this land.
Also, the country-side is all on fire
With rumors of a marching hitherward:
Some say Vespasian' cometh, some, his son.
A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear;
Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:
I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.
Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,
And once a town declared me for a spy;
But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,

30

Since this poor covert where I pass the night, 35
This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence
A man with plague-sores at the third degree
Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest
here!

'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,
To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip
And share with thee whatever Jewry yields.
A viscid choler is observable

40

In tertians, I was nearly bold to say;
And falling-sickness3 hath a happier cure
Than our school wots of: there's a spider here 45
Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,
Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back;
Take five and drop them . . . but who knows
his mind,

50

The Syrian runagate I trust this to?
His service payeth me a sublimate
Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.
Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn,
There set in order my experiences,
Gather what most deserves, and give thee all-
Or I might add, Judæa's gum-tragacanth
Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,
Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry,
In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease
Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy-
Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar—
But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.

55

61

Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully, Protesteth his devotion is my priceSuppose I write what harms not, though he

steal?

65

I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, What set me off a-writing first of all. An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang! For, be it this town's barrenness,-or else The Man had something in the look of him1 Vespasian, was Emperor of Rome 70-79 A. D. By the allusion to him, and to the rumored advance of the Roman army against Jerusalem, Browning indicates the date of Karshish' letter. The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, then immanent, took place in 70 A. D. 2 A fever recurring every third day. Epilepsy.