Andrea Del Sarto - 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?     Ill work then for your friends 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, Ill content him, but to-morrow, Love!     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,     And mine the mans bared breast she curls inside.     Dont 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 everybodys moon,     Which everybody looks on and calls his,     And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,     While she looks no ones: very dear, no less.     You smile? why, theres my picture ready made,     Theres what we painters call our harmony!     A common greyness silvers everything,     All in a twilight, you and I alike      You, at the point of your first pride in me     (Thats gone you know), but I, at every point;     My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down     To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.     Theres 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 Gods hand.     How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;     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 thats behind us! You dont 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,     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 Legates 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, thats long past:     I do what many dream of, all their lives,      Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,     And fail in doing. I could count twenty such     On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,     Who strive you dont 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,     Heart, or whateer else, than goes on to prompt     This low-pulsed forthright craftsmans hand of mine.     Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,     Reach many a time a heaven thats shut to me,     Enter and take their place there sure enough,     Though 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,     Know what I do, am unmoved by mens blame     Or their praise either. Somebody remarks     Morellos 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 mans reach should exceed his grasp,     Or whats a heaven for? All is silver-grey,     Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!     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,     Our head would have oerlooked the world! No doubt.     Yonders 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;     That arm is wrongly put and there again     A fault to pardon in the drawings lines,     Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,     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 fowlers pipe, and follows to the snare     Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!     Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged     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 over-rules.     Beside, incentives come from the souls 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 wills somewhat somewhat, too, the power     And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,     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.     I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,     For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.     The best is when they pass and look aside;     But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.     Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,     And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!     I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,     Put on the glory, Rafaels daily wear,     In that humane great monarchs golden look,     One finger in his beard or twisted curl     Over his mouths good mark that made the smile,     One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,     The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,     I painting proudly with his breath on me,     All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,     Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls     Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,     And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,     This in the background, waiting on my work,     To crown the issue with a last reward!     A good time, was it not, my kingly days?     And had you not grown restless... but I know     Tis done and past: Twas right, my instinct said:     Too live the life grew, golden and not grey,     And Im the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt     Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.     How could it end in any other way?     You called me, and I came home to your heart.     The triumph was to reach and stay there; since     I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?     Let my hands frame your face in your hairs gold,     You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!     Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;     The Romans is the better when you pray,     But still the others Virgin was his wife     Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge     Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows     My better fortune, I resolve to think.     For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,     Said one day Agnolo, his very self,     To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . .     (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts     Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,     Too lifted up in heart because of it)     Friend, theres a certain sorry little scrub     Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,     Who, were he set to plan and execute     As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,     Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!     To Rafaels! 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! hes 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?)     If really there was such a chance, so lost,     Is, whether youre not grateful but more pleased.     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; theres a star;     Morellos gone, the watch-lights show the wall,     The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.     Come from the window, love, come 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     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?     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, works my ware, and whats it worth?     Ill pay my fancy. Only let me sit     The grey remainder of the evening out,     Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly     How I could paint, were I but back in France,     One picture, just one more the Virgins face,     Not yours this time! I want you at my side     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 Cousins freak. Beside,     Whats better and whats all I care about,     Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!     Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,     The Cousin! what does he to please you more?     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.     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 laboured somewhat in my time     And not been paid profusely. Some good son     Paint my two hundred pictures let him try!     No doubt, theres something strikes a balance. Yes,     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     Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,     Meted on each side by the angels reed,     For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me     To cover the three first without a wife,     While I have mine! So still they overcome     Because theres still Lucrezia, as I choose.     Again the Cousins whistle! Go, my Love.