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Were not the paintings on the Sistine ceiling Enough for them? They saw the Hebrew leader

Waiting, and clutching his tempestuous beard, But heeded not. The bones of Julius

Shook in their sepulchre. I heard the sound; They only heard the sound of their own voices.

Are there no other artists here in Rome To do this work, that they must needs seek me?

Fra Bastian, my Fra Bastian, might have done it;

But he is lost to art. The Papal Seals,
Like leaden weights upon a dead man's eyes,
Press down his lids; and so the burden falls
On Michael Angelo, Chief Architect
And Painter of the Apostolic Palace.
That is the title they cajole me with,
To make me do their work and leave my own;
But having once begun, I turn not back.
Blow, ye bright angels, on your golden trum-
pets

To the four corners of the earth, and wake

The dead to judgment! Ye recording angels, Open your books and read! Ye dead, awake! Rise from your graves, drowsy and drugged with death,

As men who suddenly aroused from sleep Look round amazed, and know not where they are!

In happy hours, when the imagination
Wakes like a wind at midnight, and the soul
Trembles in all its leaves, it is a joy
To be uplifted on its wings, and listen
To the prophetic voices in the air
That call us onward. Then the work we do
Is a delight, and the obedient hand.
Never grows weary. But how different is it
In the disconsolate, discouraged hours,
When all the wisdom of the world appears
As trivial as the gossip of a nurse
In a sick-room, and all our work seems useless.

What is it guides my hand, what thoughts

possess me,

That I have drawn her face among the angels,

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To me, the artisan, to whom all women Have been as if they were not, or at most A sudden rush of pigeons in the air,

A flutter of wings, a sound, and then a silence?

I am too old for love; I am too old
To flatter and delude myself with visions
Of never-ending friendship with fair women,
Imaginations, fantasies, illusions,

In which the things that cannot be take shape,
And seem to be, and for the moment are.
[Convent bells ring.

Distant and near and low and loud the bells,
Dominican, Benedictine, and Franciscan,
Jangle and wrangle in their airy towers,
Discordant as the brotherhoods themselves
In their dim cloisters. The descending sun

Seems to caress the city that he loves,
And crowns it with the aureole of a saint.
I will go forth and breathe the air a while.

III.

SAN SILVESTRO.

A Chapel in the Church of San Silvestro on Monte Cavallo. VITTORIA COLONNA, CLAUDIO TOLOMMEI, and others.

VITTORIA.

Here let us rest a while, until the crowd Has left the church. I have already sent For Michael Angelo to join us here.

MESSER CLAUDIO.

After Fra Bernardino's wise discourse
On the Pauline Epistles, certainly
Some words of Michael Angelo on Art
Were not amiss, to bring us back to earth.

MICHAEL ANGELO, at the door. How like a Saint or Goddess she appears ; Diana or Madonna, which I know not! In attitude and aspect formed to be At once the artist's worship and despair!

VITTORIA.

Welcome, Maestro. We were waiting for you.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I met your messenger upon the way, And hastened hither.

VITTORIA.

It is kind of you

To come to us, who linger here like gossips
Wasting the afternoon in idle talk.
These are all friends of mine and friends of
yours.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

If friends of yours, then are they friends of mine.

Pardon me, gentlemen. But when I entered I saw but the Marchesa.

VITTORIA.

Take this seat

Between me and Ser Claudio Tolommei, Who still maintains that our Italian tongue

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