MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                     Poor Topolino! 
All men are not born artists, nor will labor
E’er make them artists.

URBINO. 
                        No, no more
Than Emperors, or Popes, or Cardinals. 
One must be chosen for it.  I have been
Your color-grinder six and twenty years,
And am not yet an artist.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                       Some have eyes
That see not; but in every block of marble
I see a statue,—­see it as distinctly
As if it stood before me shaped and perfect
In attitude and action.  I have only
To hew away the stone walls that imprison
The lovely apparition, and reveal it
To other eyes as mine already see it. 
But I grow old and weak.  What wilt thou do
When I am dead, Urbino?

URBINO. 
                       Eccellenza,
I must then serve another master.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                               Never! 
Bitter is servitude at best.  Already
So many years hast thou been serving me;
But rather as a friend than as a servant. 
We have grown old together.  Dost thou think
So meanly of this Michael Angelo
As to imagine he would let thee serve,
When he is free from service?  Take this purse,
Two thousand crowns in gold.

URBINO. 
              Two thousand crowns!

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
Ay, it will make thee rich.  Thou shalt not die
A beggar in a hospital.

URBINO. 
                        Oh, Master!

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
I cannot have them with me on the journey
That I am undertaking.  The last garment
That men will make for me will have no pockets.

URBINO, kissing the hand of MICHAEL ANGELO. 
My generous master!

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                   Hush!

URBINO. 
                     My Providence!

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
Not a word more.  Go now to bed, old man. 
Thou hast served Michael Angelo.  Remember,
Henceforward thou shalt serve no other master.

VII

THE OAKS OF MONTE LUCA

MICHAEL ANGELO, alone in the woods.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
How still it is among these ancient oaks! 
Surges and undulations of the air
Uplift the leafy boughs, and let them fall
With scarce a sound.  Such sylvan quietudes
Become old age.  These huge centennial oaks,
That may have heard in infancy the trumpets
Of Barbarossa’s cavalry, deride
Man’s brief existence, that with all his strength
He cannot stretch beyond the hundredth year. 
This little acorn, turbaned like the Turk,
Which with my foot I spurn, may be an oak
Hereafter, feeding with its bitter mast
The fierce wild boar, and tossing in its arms
The cradled nests of birds, when all the men
That now inhabit this vast universe,