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| VANITY, saith the preacher,
vanity! |
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| Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? |
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| Nephews—sons mine … ah God, I know not! Well— |
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| She, men would have to be your mother once, |
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| Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! |
5 |
| What ’s done is done, and she is dead beside, |
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| Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, |
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| And as she died so must we die ourselves, |
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| And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream. |
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| Life, how and what is it? As here I lie |
10 |
| In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, |
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| Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask, |
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| “Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace seems all. |
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| Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace; |
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| And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought |
15 |
| With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: |
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| —Old Gandolf cozen’d me, despite my care; |
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| Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South |
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| He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! |
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| Yet still my niche is not so cramp’d but thence |
20 |
| One sees the pulpit on the epistle-side, |
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| And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, |
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| And up into the aëry dome where live |
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| The angels, and a sunbeam’s sure to lurk: |
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| And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, |
25 |
| And ’neath my tabernacle take my rest, |
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| With those nine columns round me, two and two, |
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| The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: |
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| Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe |
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| As fresh-pour’d red wine of a mighty pulse, |
30 |
| —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone. |
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| Put me where I may look at him! True peach, |
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| Rosy and flawless: how I earn’d the prize! |
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| Draw close: that conflagration of my church |
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| —What then? So much was sav’d if aught were miss’d! |
35 |
| My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig |
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| The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, |
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| Drop water gently till the surface sink, |
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| And if ye find … Ah God, I know not, I!… |
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| Bedded in store of rotten figleaves soft, |
40 |
| And corded up in a tight olive-frail, |
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| Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, |
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| Big as a Jew’s head cut off at the nape, |
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| Blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast.. |
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| Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, |
45 |
| That brave Frascati villa with its bath, |
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| So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, |
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| Like God the Father’s globe on both his hands |
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| Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, |
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| For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! |
50 |
| Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years: |
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| Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? |
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| Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons? Black— |
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| ’T was ever antique-black I meant! How else |
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| Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? |
55 |
| The bas-relief in bronze ye promis’d me, |
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| Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance |
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| Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, |
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| The saviour at his sermon on the mount, |
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| Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan |
60 |
| Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off, |
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| And Moses with the tables … but I know |
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| Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, |
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| Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope |
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| To revel down my villas while I gasp |
65 |
| Brick’d o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine |
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| Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! |
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| Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! |
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| ’T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve |
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| My bath must needs be left behind, alas! |
70 |
| One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, |
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| There ’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world— |
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| And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray |
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| Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, |
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| And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? |
75 |
| —That ’s if ye carve my epitaph ariant, |
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| Choice Latin, pick’d phrase, Tully’s every word, |
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| No gaudy ware like Gandolf’s second line— |
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| Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! |
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| And then how shall I lie through centuries, |
80 |
| And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, |
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| And see God made and eaten all day long, |
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| And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste |
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| Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! |
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| For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, |
85 |
| Dying in state and by such slow degrees, |
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| I fold my arms as if they clasp’d a crook, |
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| And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can
point, |
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| And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop |
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| Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s work: |
90 |
| And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts |
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| Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, |
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| About the life before I liv’d this life, |
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| And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, |
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| Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, |
95 |
| Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, |
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| And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, |
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| And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet, |
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| —Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our
friend? |
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| No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! |
100 |
| Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. |
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| All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope |
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| My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart? |
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| Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick, |
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| They glitter like your mother’s for my soul, |
105 |
| Or ye would heighten my impoverish’d frieze, |
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| Piece out its starv’d design, and fill my vase |
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| With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, |
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| And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx |
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| That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, |
110 |
| To comfort me on my entablature |
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| Wherein I am to lie till I must ask, |
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| “Do I live, am I dead?” There, leave me, there! |
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| For ye have stabb’d me with ingratitude |
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| To death: ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone— |
115 |
| Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat |
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| As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— |
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| And no more lapis to delight the world! |
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| Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, |
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| But in a row: and, going, turn your backs |
120 |
| —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, |
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| And leave me in my church, the church for peace |
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| That I may watch at leisure if he leers— |
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| Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone, |
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| As still he envied me, so fair she was! |
125 |
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