I.
The morn when first it thunders in March, The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch Of the villa-gate this warm March day, No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled In the valley beneath where, white and wide And washed by the morning water-gold, Florence lay out on the mountain-side.
II.
River and bridge and street and square Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, Through the live translucent bath of air, As the sights in a magic crystal ball.
And of all I saw and of all I praised, The most to praise and the best to see Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised:
But why did it more than startle me?
III.
Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, Could you play me false who loved you so?
Some slights if a certain heart endures Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know!
I' faith, I perceive not why I should care To break a silence that suits them best, But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear When I find a Giotto join the rest.
IV.
On the arch where olives overhead Print the blue sky with twig and leaf, (That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed)'Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief, And mark through the winter afternoons, By a gift God grants me now and then, In the mild decline of those suns like moons, Who walked in Florence, besides her men.
V.
They might chirp and chaffer, come and go For pleasure or profit, her men alive---My business was hardly with them, I trow, But with empty cells of the human hive;---With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, The church's apsis, aisle or nave, Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch, Its face set full for the sun to shave.
VI.
Wherever a fresco peels and drops, Wherever an outline weakens and wanes Till the latest life in the painting stops, Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains:
One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick, Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster, ---A lion who dies of an ass's kick, The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.
VII.
For oh, this world and the wrong it does They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz Round the works of, you of the little wit!
Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope, Now that they see God face to face, And have all attained to be poets, I hope?
'Tis their holiday now, in any case.
VIII.
Much they reck of your praise and you!
But the wronged great souls---can they be quit Of a world where their work is all to do, Where you style them, you of the little wit, Old Master This and Early the Other, Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows:
A younger succeeds to an elder brother, Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.
IX.
And here where your praise might yield returns, And a handsome word or two give help, Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns And the puppy pack of poodles yelp.
What, not a word for Stefano there, Of brow once prominent and starry, Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For his peerless painting? (See Vasari.)X.
There stands the Master. Study, my friends, What a man's work comes to! So he plans it, Performs it, perfects it, makes amends For the toiling and moiling, and then, _sic transit!_Happier the thrifty blind-folk labour, With upturned eye while the hand is busy, Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbour!
'Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy.
XI.
``If you knew their work you would deal your dole.''
May I take upon me to instruct you?
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, Thus much had the world to boast _in fructu_---The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, Which the actual generations garble, Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken)And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.
XII.
So, you saw yourself as you wished you were, As you might have been, as you cannot be;Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there:
And grew content in your poor degree With your little power, by those statues' godhead, And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, And your little grace, by their grace embodied, And your little date, by their forms that stay.
XIII.
You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am?
Even so, you will not sit like Theseus.
You would prove a model? The Son of Priam Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use.
You're wroth---can you slay your snake like Apollo?
You're grieved---still Niobe's the grander!
You live---there's the Racers' frieze to follow:
You die---there's the dying Alexander.
XIV.
So, testing your weakness by their strength, Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty, Measured by Art in your breadth and length, You learned---to submit is a mortal's duty.
---When I say ``you'' 'tis the common soul, The collective, I mean: the race of Man That receives life in parts to live in a whole, And grow here according to God's clear plan.
XV.
Growth came when, looking your last on them all, You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day And cried with a start---What if we so small Be greater and grander the while than they?
Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature?
In both, of such lower types are we Precisely because of our wider nature;For time, theirs---ours, for eternity.
XVI.
To-day's brief passion limits their range;
It seethes with the morrow for us and more.
They are perfect---how else? they shall never change:
We are faulty---why not? we have time in store.
The Artificer's hand is not arrested With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished:
They stand for our copy, and, once invested With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished.
XVII.
'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven---The better! What's come to perfection perishes.
Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven:
Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes.
Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto!
Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) ``O!''
Thy great Campanile is still to finish.
XVIII. it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter, But what and where depend on life's minute?
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter Our first step out of the gulf or in it?
