These are good tidings; for I sometimes fear
That, when we die, with us all art will die.
'Tis but a fancy. Nature will provide
Others to take our places. I rejoice

To see the young spring forward in the race,
Eager as we were, and as full of hope
And the sublime audacity of youth.

TITIAN.

Men die and are forgotten. The great world Goes on the same. Among the myriads

Of men that live, or have lived, or shall live,

What is a single life, or thine or mine,

That we should think all nature would stand still

If we were gone? We must make room for others.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And now, Maestro, pray unveil your picture Of Danaë, of which I hear such praise.

TITIAN, drawing back the curtain.

What think you?

Possibly.

TITIAN.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Or from sunshine through a shower On the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic. Nature reveals herself in all our arts. The pavements and the palaces of cities Hint at the nature of the neighboring hills. Red lavas from the Euganean quarries Of Padua pave your streets; your palaces Are the white stones of Istria, and gleam Reflected in your waters and your pictures. And thus the works of every artist show Something of his surroundings and his habits.

The uttermost that can be reached by color Is here accomplished. Warmth and light and softness

Mingle together. Never yet was flesh
Painted by hand of artist, dead or living,
With such divine perfection.

TITIAN.

I am grateful

MICHAEL ANGELO.

That Acrisius did well

To lock such beauty in a brazen tower, And hide it from all eyes.

For so much praise from you, who are a master;

While mostly those who praise and those who blame

Know nothing of the matter, so that mainly Their censure sounds like praise, their praise like censure.

I.

MONOLOGUE.

Macello de' Corvi. A room in MICHAEL ANGELO's house. MICHAEL ANGELO, standing before a model of St. Peter's.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Better than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi,
And less than thou I will not! If the thought
Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous
stones

And swing them to their places; if a breath
Could blow this rounded dome into the air,
As if it were a bubble, and these statues
Spring at a signal to their sacred stations,
As sentinels mount guard upon a wall,
Then were my task completed. Now, alas!
Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding

Upon his hand the model of a church, As German artists paint him; and what years,

What weary years, must drag themselves along,

Ere this be turned to stone! What hindrances

Must block the way; what idle interferences
Of Cardinals and Canons of St. Peter's,
Who nothing know of art beyond the color
Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any building
Save that of their own fortunes! And what
then?

I must then the short-coming of my means
Piece out by stepping forward, as the Spar-

tan

Was told to add a step to his short sword. [A pause.