The Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's…

Rome, 15 --

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! / Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? / Nephews -- 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, / 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 -- / 'T was 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! / 'T is 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 visor 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!