IN THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL

He came to Florence long ago,
And painted here these walls, that shone
For Raphael and for Angelo,
With secrets deeper than his own,
Then shrank into the dark again,
And died, we know not how or when.

The shadows deepened, and I turned
Half sadly from the fresco grand;
‘And is this,’ mused I, ’all ye earned,
High-vaulted brain and cunning hand,
That ye to greater men could teach
The skill yourselves could never reach?’

‘And who were they,’ I mused, ’that wrought
Through pathless wilds, with labor long,
The highways of our daily thought? 
Who reared those towers of earliest song
That lift us from the crowd to peace
Remote in sunny silences?’

Out clanged the Ave Mary bells,
And to my heart this message came: 
Each clamorous throat among them tells
What strong-souled martyrs died in flame
To make it possible that thou
Shouldst here with brother sinners bow.

Thoughts that great hearts once broke for, we
Breathe cheaply in the common air;
The dust we trample heedlessly
Throbbed once in saints and heroes rare,
Who perished, opening for their race
New pathways to the commonplace.

Henceforth, when rings the health to those
Who live in story and in song,
O nameless dead, that now repose,
Safe in Oblivion’s chambers strong,
One cup of recognition true
Shall silently be drained to you!

WITHOUT AND WITHIN

My coachman, in the moonlight there,
  Looks through the side-light of the door;
I hear him with his brethren swear,
  As I could do,—­but only more.

Flattening his nose against the pane,
  He envies me my brilliant lot,
Breathes on his aching fists in vain,
  And dooms me to a place more hot.

He sees me in to supper go,
  A silken wonder by my side,
Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row
  Of flounces, for the door too wide.

He thinks how happy is my arm
  ’Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load;
And wishes me some dreadful harm,
  Hearing the merry corks explode.

Meanwhile I inly curse the bore
  Of hunting still the same old coon,
And envy him, outside the door,
  In golden quiets of the moon.

The winter wind is not so cold
  As the bright smile he sees me win,
Nor the host’s oldest wine so old
  As our poor gabble sour and thin.

I envy him the ungyved prance
  With which his freezing feet he warms,
And drag my lady’s chains and dance
  The galley-slave of dreary forms.

Oh, could he have my share of din,
  And I his quiet!—­past a doubt
’Twould still be one man bored within,
  And just another bored without.

Nay, when, once paid my mortal fee,
  Some idler on my headstone grim
Traces the moss-blurred name, will he
  Think me the happier, or I him?