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 hеre I lie
In this state-chambеr, 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—
'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!