I faint!  I faint! 
        Quick, Fra Bernardo!  The figure stands
          There in the niche—­my patron saint: 
        Put it within my trembling hands
          Till they are steadier.  So! 
                My brain
        Whirled and grew dizzy with sudden pain,
        Trying to span that gulf of years,
        Fronting again those long laid fears.
        Confess?  Why, yes, if I must, I must. 
        Now good Sant’ Andrea be my trust! 
        But fill me first, from that crystal flask,
        Strong wine to strengthen me for my task. 
        (That thing is a gem of craftsmanship: 
        Just mark how its curvings fit the lip.)

        Ah, you, in your dreamy, tranquil life,
        How can you fathom the rage and strife,
        The blinding envy, the burning smart,
        That, worm-like, gnaws the Maestro’s heart
        When he sees another snatch the prize
        Out from under his very eyes,
          For which he would barter his soul?  You see
        I taught him his art from first to last: 
          Whatever he was he owed to me. 
        And then to be browbeat, overpassed,
        Stealthily jeered behind the hand! 
        Why that was more than a saint could stand;
        And I was no saint.  And if my soul,
        With a pride like Lucifer’s, mocked control,
        And goaded me on to madness, till
        I lost all measure of good or ill,
        Whose gift was it, pray?  Oh, many a day
        I’ve cursed it, yet whose is the blame, I say?

        His name?  How strange that you question so,
        When I’m sure I have told it o’er and o’er,
        And why should you care to hear it more?

        III.

        Well, as I was saying, Domenico
        Was wont of my skill to make such light,
        That, seeing him go on a certain night
        Out with his lute, I followed.  Hot
        From a war of words, I heeded not
          Whither I went, till I heard him twang
        A madrigal under the lattice where
          Only the night before I sang. 
        —­A double robbery! and I swear
        ’Twas overmuch for the flesh to bear.

        Don’t ask me.  I knew not what I did,
        But I hastened home with my rapier hid
        Under my cloak, and the blade was wet. 
          Just open that cabinet there and see
        The strange red rustiness on it yet.

        A calm that was dead as dead could be
        Numbed me:  I seized my chalks to trace—­
        What think you?—­Judas Iscariot’s face! 
        I just had finished the scowl, no more,
        When the shuffle of feet drew near my door
          (We lived together, you know I said): 
        Then wide they flung it, and on the floor
          Laid down Domenico—­dead!