by Robert Browning, 1844
Rome, 15--
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
1
Draw round my bed: is
Anselm keeping back?
Nephews2 -- sons mine . . . ah God,
I know not! Well --
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me,
so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am
Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And
thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this
state-chamber,
dying by degrees,
Hours and
long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, am I dead?"
Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this
tomb of mine. I fought
With
tooth and nail to save my
niche, ye know:
-- Old Gandolf
cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his
carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my
niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the
pulpit o' the
epistle-side
3,
And somewhat of the
choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of
basalt there,
And 'neath my
tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where
Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom
marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
-- Old Gandolf with his paltry
onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close: that
conflagration of my church
-- What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
The white-grape
vineyard where the
oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
Bedded in store of
rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of
lapis lazuli,
Big as
a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the
Madonna's breast ...
Sons, all have I bequeathed you,
villas, all,
That brave
Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
Ye worship in the
Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
Swift as a weaver's
shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say
basalt for my slab, sons? Black --
'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my
frieze to come beneath?
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those
Pans and
Nymphs ye
wot of, and
perchance
Some
tripod,
thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The
Saviour at his
sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one
Pan
Ready to twitch the
Nymph's last garment off,
And
Moses with the
tables . . . but I know
Ye
mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels,
Anselm? Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o'er with beggar's
mouldy
travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Nay, boys, ye love me -- all of
jasper, then!
'Tis
jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a
pistachio-nut,
There's plenty
jasper somewhere in the world --
And have I not
Saint Praxed's ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek
manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
-- That's if ye carve my
epitaph aright,
Choice
Latin, picked phrase,
Tully's every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line --
Tully, my masters?
Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear
the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see
God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying
incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a
mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:
And as yon
tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too,
popes,
cardinals and priests,
Saint Praxed at
his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found
agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble's language,
Latin pure, discreet,
-- Aha,
ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No
Tully, said I,
Ulpian at the best!
Evil and brief hath been my
pilgrimage.
All
lapis, all, sons! Else I give the
Pope
My
villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished
frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a
vizor and a
Term,
And to the
tripod ye would tie a
lynx
That in his struggle throws the
thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my
entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
For
ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death -- ye wish it -- God, ye wish it! Stone --
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through --
And no more
lapis to delight the world!
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer
tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
-- Ay, like departing altar-
ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he
leers --
Old Gandolf, at me, from his
onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!
1 Ecclesiastes
2 Among
nominally
celibate clergy of the time, "
nephew" was a polite term for "son".
3 We are informed that the
Epistles are read from the right-hand side of the
altar, as seen from the
nave (or the bleachers, if you're not in a
cathedral).