Parleyings with Certain People of Importance…

I

Nay, _that_, Furini, never I at least / Mean to believe! What man you were I know, / While you walked Tuscan earth, a painter-priest, / Something about two hundred years ago. / Priest -- you did duty punctual as the sun / That rose and set above Saint Sano's church, / Blessing Mugello: of your flock not one / But showed a whiter fleece because of smirch, / Your kind hands wiped it clear from: were they poor? / Bounty broke bread apace, -- did marriage lag / For just the want of moneys that ensure / Fit hearth-and-home provision? -- straight your bag / Unplumped itself, -- reached hearts by way of palms / Goodwill's shake had but tickled. All about / Mugello valley, felt some parish qualms / At worship offered in bare walls without / The comfort of a picture? -- prompt such need / Our painter would supply, and throngs to see / Witnessed that goodness -- no unholy greed / Of gain -- had coaxed from Don Furini -- he / Whom princes might in vain implore to toil / For worldly profit -- such a masterpiece. / Brief -- priest, you poured profuse God's wine and oil / Praiseworthily, I know: shall praising cease / When, priestly vesture put aside, mere man, / You stand for judgment? Rather -- what acclaim / -- "Good son, good brother, friend in whom we scan / No fault nor flaw" -- salutes Furini's name, / The loving as the liberal! Enough: / Only to ope a lily, though for sake / Of setting free its scent, disturbs the rough / Loose gold about its anther. I shall take / No blame in one more blazon, last of all -- / Good painter were you: if in very deed / I styled you great -- what modern art dares call / My word in question? Let who will take heed / Of what he seeks and misses in your brain / To balance that precision of the brush / Your hand could ply so deftly: all in vain / Strives poet's power for outlet when the push / Is lost upon a barred and bolted gate / Of painter's impotency. Agnolo -- / Thine were alike the head and hand, by fate / Doubly endowed! Who boasts head only -- woe / To hand's presumption should brush emulate / Fancy's free passage by the pen, and show / Thought wrecked and ruined where the inexpert / Foolhardy fingers half grasped, half let go / Film-wings the poet's pen arrests unhurt! / No -- painter such as that miraculous / Michael, who deems you? But the ample gift / Of gracing walls else blank of this our house / Of life with imagery, one bright drift / Poured forth by pencil, -- man and woman mere, / Glorified till half owned for gods, -- the dear / Fleshly perfection of the human shape, -- / This was apportioned you whereby to praise / Heaven and bless earth. Who clumsily essays, / By slighting painter's craft, to prove the ape / Of poet's pen-creation, just betrays / Twofold ineptitude.