The Statue And The Bust

Theres a palace in Florence, the world knows well,     And a statue watches it from the square,     And this story of both do our townsmen tell.     Ages ago, a lady there,     At the farthest window facing the East,     Asked, Who rides by with the royal air?     The bridesmaids prattle around her ceased;     She leaned forth, one on either hand;     They saw how the blush of the bride increased     They felt by its beats her heart expand     As one at each ear and both in a breath     Whispered, The Great-Duke Ferdinand.     That self-same instant, underneath,     The Duke rode past in his idle way,     Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.     Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,     Till he threw his head back, Who is she?     A bride the Riccardi brings home today.     Hair in heaps lay heavily     Over a pale brow spirit-pure     Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree,     Crisped like a war-steeds encolure     And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes     Of the blackest black our eyes endure.     And lo, a blade for a knights emprise     Filled the fine empty sheath of a man,     The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.     He looked at her, as a lover can;     She looked at him, as one who awakes:     The past was a sleep, and their life began.     Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,     A feast was held that selfsame night     In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.     (For Via Larga is three-parts light,     But the palace overshadows one,     Because of a crime which may God requite!     To Florence and God the wrong was done,     Through the first republics murder there     By Cosimo and his cursd son.)     The Duke (with the statues face in the square)     Turned in the midst of his multitude     At the bright approach of the bridal pair.     Face to face the lovers stood     A single minute and no more,     While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued     Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor     For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,     As the courtly custom was of yore.     In a minute can lovers exchange a word?     If a word did pass, which I do not think,     Only one out of the thousand heard.     That was the bridegroom. At days brink     He and his bride were alone at last     In a bedchamber by a tapers blink.     Calmly he said that her lot was cast,     That the door she had passed was shut on her     Till the final catafalque repassed.     The world meanwhile, its noise and stir,     Through a certain window facing the East,     She could watch like a convents chronicler.     Since passing the door might lead to a feast,     And a feast might lead to so much beside,     He, of many evils, chose the least.     Freely I choose too, said the bride     Your window and its world suffice,     Replied the tongue, while the heart replied     If I spend the night with that devil twice,     May his window serve as my loop of hell     Whence a damned soul looks on paradise!     I fly to the Duke who loves me well,     Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow     Ere I count another ave-bell.     Tis only the coat of a page to borrow,     And tie my hair in a horse-boys trim,     And I save my soul, but not tomorrow     (She checked herself and her eye grew dim)     My father tarries to bless my state:     I must keep it one day more for him.     Is one day more so long to wait?     Moreover the Duke rides past, I know;     We shall see each other, sure as fate.     She turned on her side and slept. Just so!     So we resolve on a thing and sleep:     So did the lady, ages ago.     That night the Duke said, Dear or cheap     As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove     To body or soul, I will drain it deep.     And on the morrow, bold with love,     He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,     As his duty bade, by the Dukes alcove)     And smiled Twas a very funeral,     Your lady will think, this feast of ours,     A shame to efface, whateer befall!     What if we break from the Arno bowers,     And try if Petraja, cool and green,     Cure last nights fault with this mornings flowers?     The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen     On his steady brow and quiet mouth,     Said, Too much favour for me so mean!     But, alas! my lady leaves the South;     Each wind that comes from the Apennine     Is a menace to her tender youth:     Nor a way exists, the wise opine,     If she quits her palace twice this year,     To avert the flower of lifes decline.     Quoth the Duke, A sage and a kindly fear.     Moreover Petraja is cold this spring:     Be our feast tonight as usual here!     And then to himself, Which night shall bring     Thy bride to her lovers embraces, fool     Or I am the fool, and thou art the king!     Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool     For tonight the Envoy arrives from France     Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool.     I need thee still and might miss perchance.     Today is not wholly lost, beside,     With its hope of my ladys countenance:     For I ride, what should I do but ride?     And passing her palace, if I list,     May glance at its window, well betide!     So said, so done: nor the lady missed     One ray that broke from the ardent brow,     Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.     Be sure that each renewed the vow,     No morrows sun should arise and set     And leave them then as it left them now.     But next day passed, and next day yet,     With still fresh cause to wait one day more     Ere each leaped over the parapet.     And still, as loves brief morning wore,     With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh,     They found love not as it seemed before.     They thought it would work infallibly,     But not in despite of heaven and earth:     The rose would blow when the storm passed by.     Meantime they could profit in winters dearth     By store of fruits that supplant the rose:     The world and its ways have a certain worth:     And to press a point while these oppose     Were simple policy; better wait:     We lose no friends and we gain no foes.     Meantime, worse fates than a lovers fate,     Who daily may ride and pass and look     Where his lady watches behind the grate!     And she, she watched the square like a book     Holding one picture and only one,     Which daily to find she undertook:     When the picture was reached the book was done,     And she turned from the picture at night to scheme     Of tearing it out for herself next sun.     So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam     The glory dropped from their youth and love,     And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;     Which hovered as dreams do, still above:     But who can take a dream for a truth?     Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove!     One day as the lady saw her youth     Depart, and the silver thread that streaked     Her hair, and, worn by the serpents tooth,     The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked,     And wondered who the woman was,     Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked,     Fronting her silent in the glass     Summon here, she suddenly said,     Before the rest of my old self pass,     Him, the Carver, a hand to aid,     Who fashions the clay no love will change,     And fixes a beauty never to fade.     Let Robbias craft so apt and strange     Arrest the remains of young and fair,     And rivet them while the seasons range.     Make me a face on the window there,     Waiting as ever, mute the while,     My love to pass below in the square!     And let me think that it may beguile     Dreary days which the dead must spend     Down in their darkness under the aisle,     To say, What matters it at the end?     I did no more while my heart was warm     Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.     Where is the use of the lips red charm,     The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow,     And the blood that blues the inside arm     Unless we turn, as the soul knows how,     The earthly gift to an end divine?     A lady of clay is as good, I trow.     But long ere Robbias cornice, fine,     With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace,     Was set where now is the empty shrine     (And, leaning out of a bright blue space,     As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky,     The passionate pale ladys face     Eyeing ever, with earnest eye     And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch,     Some one who ever is passing by)     The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch     In Florence, Youth, my dream escapes!     Will its record stay? And he bade them fetch     Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes,     Can the soul, the will, die out of a man     Ere his body find the grave that gapes?     John of Douay shall effect my plan,     Set me on horseback here aloft,     Alive, as the crafty sculptor can,     In the very square I have crossed so oft:     That men may admire, when future suns     Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft,     While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze,     Admire and say, When he was alive     How he would take his pleasure once!     And it shall go hard but I contrive     To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb     At idleness which aspires to strive.     So! While these wait the trump of doom,     How do their spirits pass, I wonder,     Nights and days in the narrow room?     Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder     What a gift life was, ages ago,     Six steps out of the chapel yonder.     Only they see not God, I know,     Nor all that chivalry of his,     The soldier-saints who, row on row,     Burn upward each to his point of bliss     Since, the end of life being manifest,     He had burned his way through the world to this.     I hear you reproach, But delay was best,     For their end was a crime. Oh, a crime will do     As well, I reply, to serve for a test,     As a virtue golden through and through,     Sufficient to vindicate itself     And prove its worth at a moments view!     Must a game be played for the sake of pelf?     Where a button goes, twere an epigram     To offer the stamp of the very Guelph.     The true has no value beyond the sham:     As well the counter as coin, I submit,     When your tables a hat, and your prize a dram.     Stake your counter as boldly every whit,     Venture as warily, use the same skill,     Do your best, whether winning or losing it,     If you choose to play! is my principle.     Let a man contend to the uttermost     For his lifes set prize, be it what it will!     The counter our lovers staked was lost     As surely as if it were lawful coin:     And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost     Is the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,     Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.     You of the virtue (we issue join)     How strive you? De te, fabula.