The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

FR A LIPP O LIPP I / 127 3 45 Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands To roam the town and sing out carnival,9 And I've been three weeks shut within my mew,� private den A-painting for the great man, saints and saints And saints again. I could not paint all night� 50 Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song� Flower o' the broom, Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! 55 Flower o' the qiunce, I let Lisa go, and what good in life since?1 Flower o' the thyme�and so on. Round they went. Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter

Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight�three slim shapes,

60 And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood, That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went, Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, All the bed-furniture�a dozen knots, There was a ladder! Down I let myself,

65 Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, And after them. I came up with the fun Hard by Saint Laurence,2 hail fellow, well met�

Flower o' the rose, If I've been merry, what matter who knows!

70 And so as I was stealing back again To get to bed and have a bit of sleep Ere I rise up tomorrow and go work On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast With his great round stone to subdue the flesh,3

75 You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head� Mine's shaved�a monk, you say�the sting's in that! If Master Cosimo announced himself, Mum's the word naturally; but a monk!

so Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two On fig skins, melon parings, rinds and shucks,

85 Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, My stomach being empty as your hat, The wind doubled me up and down I went. Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand (Its fellow0 was a stinger as I knew), i.e., her other hand

90 And so along the wall, over the bridge, By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, While I stood munching my first bread that month:

9. Season of revelry before the commencement of next to. Lent. 3. A picture of Saint Jerome (ca. 340-420), whose 1. This and other interspersed flower songs are ascetic observances were hardly a congenial sub- called stornelli in Italy. ject for a painter such as Lippi. 2. San Lorenzo, a church in Florence. "Hard by":

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127 4 / ROBERT BROWNING

"So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection time0� mealtime

95 "To quit this very miserable world? Will you renounce" . . . "the mouthful of bread?" thought I; By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me; I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking house,

100 Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici Have given their hearts to�all at eight years old. Well, sir, 1 found in time, you may be sure, 'Twas not for nothing�the good bellyful, The warm serge and the rope that goes all round,4

105 And day-long blessed idleness beside! "Let's see what the urchin's fit for"�that came next. Not overmuch their way, I must confess. Such a to-do! They tried me with their books: Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste!

i io Flower o' the clove, All the Latin I construe is "amo," I love!

But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets Eight years together, as my fortune was, Watching folk's faces to know who will fling

115 The bit of half-stripped grape bunch he desires, And who will curse or kick him for his pains� Which gentleman processional and fine, Holding a candle to the Sacrament, Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch

120 The droppings of the wax to sell again, Or holla for the Eight0 and have him whipped� Florentine magistrates How say I?�nay, which dog bites, which lets drop His bone from the heap of offal in the street� Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike,

125 He learns the look of things, and none the less For admonition from the hunger-pinch. I had a store of such remarks, be sure, Which, after I found leisure, turned to use. I drew men's faces on my copybooks,

130 Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge,5 Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, And made a string of pictures of the world Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun,

135 On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. "Nay," quoth the Prior,6 "turn him out, d' ye say? In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark.

What if at last we get our man of parts,0 skill, genius We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese MO And Preaching Friars,7 to do our church up fine And put the front on it that ought to be!"

4. The material ("serge") and belt ("rope") of a 6. Head of a Carmelite convent. monk's clothing. 7. Benedictine and Dominican religious orders, 5. Margin of a music book used for choral singing. respectively.

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8. 9. 1. FRA LIPPO LIPPI / 1275