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THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED’S CHURCH

ROME, 15—­

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! 
Draw round my bed:  is Anselm keeping back? 
Nephews—­sons mine ... ah God, I know not!  Well,
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf deg. envied me, so fair she was! deg.5
What’s done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since. 
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream. 
Life, how and what is it?  As here I lie 10
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
“Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace seems all. 
Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine.  I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: 
—­Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! 
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20
One sees the pulpit o’ the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam’s sure to lurk: 
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And ’neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: 
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse, 30
—­Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, deg. deg.31
Put me where I may look at him!  True peach,
Rosy and flawless:  how I earned the prize! 
Draw close:  that conflagration of my church
—­What then?  So much was saved if aught were missed! 
My sons, ye would not be my death?  Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find...  Ah God, I know not, I!... 
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40
And corded up in a tight olive-frail, deg. deg.41
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, deg. deg.42
Big as a Jew’s head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast... 
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati deg. villa, with its bath, deg.46
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father’s globe on both his hands
Ye worship in the Jesu Church, so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! 50