The Statue and the Bust

There's 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 EastAsked, "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 breathWhispered, "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 to-day."

Hair in heaps lay heavilyOver a pale brow spirit-pure--Carved like the heart of a coal-black tree,

Crisped like a war-steed's encolure--And vainly sought to dissemble her eyesOf the blackest black our eyes endure.

And lo, a blade for a knight's empriseFilled 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 her life began.

Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,A feast was held that selfsame nightIn 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 republic's murder thereBy Cosimo and his cursed son.)

The Duke (with the statue's face in the square)Turned in the midst of his multitudeAt the bright approach of the bridal pair.

Face to face the lovers stoodA 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 day's brinkHe and his bride were alone at lastIn a bedchamber by a taper's blink.

Calmly he said that her lot was cast,That the door she had passed was shut on herTill the final catafalk repassed.

The world meanwhile, its noise and stir,Through a certain window facing the East,She could watch like a convent's chronicler.

Since passing the door might lead to a feastAnd 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 hellWhence 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-boy's trim,And I save my soul--but not to-morrow"--

(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 cheapAs the cost of this cup of bliss may proveTo 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 Duke's alcove)

And smiled, "'Twas a very funeral,Your lady will think, this feast of ours,A shame to efface, whate'er befall!

"What if we break from the Arno bowers,And try if Petraja, cool and green,Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?"

The bridegroom, not a thought to be seenOn 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 ApennineIs 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 life's decline."

Quoth the Duke, "A sage and a kindly fear.Moreover Petraja is cold this spring:Be our feast to-night as usual here!"

And then to himself--"Which night shall bringThy bride to her lover's embraces, fool--Or I am the fool, and thou art the king!

"Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool--For to-night the Envoy arrives from FranceWhose heart I unlock with thyself my tool.

"I need thee still and might miss perchance.To-day is not wholly lost, beside,With its hope of my lady's 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 missedOne 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 morrow's sun should arise and setAnd leave them then as it left them now.

But next day passed, and next day yet,With still fresh cause to wait one day moreEre each leaped over the parapet.

And still, as love's 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 winter's dearthBy store of fruits that supplant the rose:The world and its ways have a certain worth:

And to press a point while these opposeWere simple policy; better wait:We lose no friends and we gain no foes.

Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fateWho daily may ride and pass and lookWhere his lady watches behind the grate!

And she--she watched the square like a bookHolding 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 schemeOf tearing it out for herself next sun.

So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleamThe 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 youthDepart, and the silver thread that streakedHer hair, and, worn by the serpent's 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 changeAnd fixes a beauty never to fade.

"Let Robbia's craft so apt and strangeArrest 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 beguileDreary days which the dead must spendDown in their darkness under the aisle,

"To say, 'What matters it at the end?'I did no more while my heart was warmThan does that image, my pale-faced friend.'

"Where is the use of the lip's 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 Robbia's 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 lady's face--

Eyeing ever, with earnest eyeAnd quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch,Some one who ever is passing by)

The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretchIn 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 manEre 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 sunsShall touch the eyes to a purpose soft,

"While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze--Admire and say, 'When he was aliveHow he would take his pleasure once!'

"And it shall go hard but I contriveTo listen the while, and laugh in my tombAt 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 ponderWhat 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 thro' the world to this.

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best,For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will doAs well, I reply, to serve for a test,

As a virtue golden through and through,Sufficient to vindicate itselfAnd prove its worth at a moment's view!

Must a game be played for the sake of pelfWhere a button goes, 'twere an epigramTo 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 table's 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 uttermostFor his life's set prize, be it what it will!

The counter our lovers staked was lostAs 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!

I. There's a palace in Florence: refers to the oldRiccardi Palace, now the Palazzo Antinori, in the squareof the Annunziata, where the statue still stands.

Because of a crime, etc.: refers to the destroying ofthe liberties of the Florentine republic by Cosimo deiMedici and his grandson, Lorenzo, who lived in the thenMedici (now Riccardi) Palace, whose darkening of thestreet with its bulk symbolizes the crime which took thelight from Florence.

Robbia's craft: the Robbia family were skilled inshaping the bisque known as Della Robbia ware whichwas long one of the Florentine manufactures, and tracesof which, when Browning wrote, still adorned the outercornice of the palace.