Explore "Michael Angelo" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Macello de' Corvi. A room in MICHAEL ANGELO'S house. MICHAEL ANGELO, standing before a model of St. Peter's.
MICHAEL ANGELO. / Better than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi, / And less than thou I will not! If the thought / Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous stones / And swing them to their places; if a breath / Could blow this rounded dome into the air, / As if it were a bubble, and these statues / Spring at a signal to their sacred stations, / As sentinels mount guard upon a wall. / Then were my task completed. Now, alas! / Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding / Upon his hand the model of a church, / As German artists paint him; and what years, / What weary years, must drag themselves along, / Ere this be turned to stone! What hindrances / Must block the way; what idle interferences / Of Cardinals and Canons of St. Peter's, / Who nothing know of art beyond the color / Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any building / Save that of their own fortunes! And what then? / I must then the short-coming of my means / Piece out by stepping forward, as the Spartan / Was told to add a step to his short sword.