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en a soul has seen By the means of Evil that Good is best, 170 And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene-- When our faith in the same has stood the test-- Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, The uses of labor are surely done; There remaineth a rest for the people of God; 175 And I have had troubles enough, for one. But at any rate I have loved the season Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy; My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, My painter--who but Cimabue? 180 Nor ever was a man of them all indeed, From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, Could say that he missed my critic-meed. So, now to my special grievance--heigh-ho! Their ghosts still stand, as I said before, 185 Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er: --No getting again what the church has grasped! The works on the wall must take their chance; "Works never conceded to England's thick clime!" 190 (I hope they prefer their inheritance Of a bucketful of Italian quicklime.) When they go at length, with such a shaking Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly Each master his way through the black streets taking, 195 Where many a lost work breathes though badly-- Why don't they bethink them of who has merited? Why not reveal while their pictures dree Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted? Why is it they never remember me? 200 Not that I expect the great Bigordi, Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose; Nor the wronged Lippino; and not a word I Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's; But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 205 To grant me a taste of your intonaco, Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye? Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco? Could not the ghost with the close red cap, My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman, 210 Save me a sample, give me the hap Of a muscular Christ that shows the draftsman? No Virgin by him the somewhat petty, Of finical touch and tempera crumbly-- Could not Alesso Baldovinetti 215 Contribute so much, I ask him humbl
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