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,
5 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.
10 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;
15 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!
20 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:
25 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
30 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
35 --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! ...
40 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 ...
45 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,
50 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
55 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,
60 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
65 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.
70 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,
75 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!
80 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!
85 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
90 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,
95 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?
100 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,
105 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
110 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
115 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,
120 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,
125 As still he envied me, so fair she was!
