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| GUIDO RENI in a Roman palace chamber | |
| Sat one pleasant summer afternoon | |
| (’T was the old Farnese’s sumptuous palace). | |
| The walls were blazoned with the gilded moon | |
| In crescent, and sweet tangles of those flowers | 5 |
| That blossom into faces, while birds play, | |
| Fluttering from twig to twig, and lizards run | |
| Below, and jewelled beetles crawl from spray to spray. | |
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| The great hall window, reaching to the floor, | |
| Stood open for the vine to ramble in; | 10 |
| The birds were in the garden down below; | |
| The silver-columned fountain, tall and thin | |
| As a magician’s wand, rose in the air; | |
| Great yellow clouds, laden with sunshine, passed; | |
| The sky, one flawless sapphire, floated there. | 15 |
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| Guido was painting, half entranced in thought; | |
| Quietly painting that pure, gentle face | |
| You ’ve seen in lonely chapels oft and oft; | |
| Calm, sweet, and radiant, with a saintly grace; | |
| Chaste as a virgin martyr glorified; | 20 |
| Without one thought of earth, pure as the snow | |
| Upon the Alp-peak, with no stain of sin | |
| Sullying her form, save where one rapturous glow | |
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| Of coldest sunshine lit her marbly breast; | |
| The dove-like eyes were all intent on heaven. | 25 |
| A Sabbath sanctity was in the air, | |
| And not one glare of passion’s burning leven. | |
| Where was the proud and dark-eyed beauty then, | |
| The painter’s model? Where the peasant girl | |
| All love and happiness? Where, then, was she | 30 |
| With throbbing bosom and with lavish curl? | |
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| Only a blear-eyed crone in a low chair, | |
| Facing the central window, dozed or prayed. | |
| Her cheeks were wrinkled leather, and her hair, | |
| In one gray half-starved knot of grizzled braid, | 35 |
| Crowned her old nodding, semi-palsied head. | |
| Her breviary was resting on her knees, | |
| Nor recked she what the chiding painter said. | |
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| In came the cardinal, grave, and coldly wise. | |
| His scarlet gown and robes of cobweb lace | 40 |
| Trailed on the marble floor; with convex glass | |
| He bent o’er Guido’s shoulder; soon his face | |
| Grew wistful, and then curdled to a smile, | |
| As he beheld the crone, and looked again. | |
| “Where is thy model, Guido?” Guido said, | 45 |
| “I keep her, cardinal, locked up in my brain.” | |
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