this
What need of art at all?  A skull and bones, 320
Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what’s best,
A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. 
I painted a Saint Laurence six months since
At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style: 
" How looks my painting, now the scaffold’s down?”
I ask a brother:  “Hugely,” he returns—­
“Already not one phiz of your three slaves
Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side,
But’s scratched and prodded to our heart’s content,
The pious people have so eased their own 330
With coming to say prayers there in a rage: 
We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 
Expect another job this time next year,
For pity and religion grow i’ the crowd—­
Your painting serves its purpose!  Hang the fools!

—­That is—­you’ll not mistake an idle word
Spoke in a huff by a poor monk.  God wot,
Tasting the air this spicy night which turns
The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! 
Oh, the church knows! don’t misreport me, now! 340
It’s natural a poor monk out of bounds
Should have his apt word to excuse himself: 
And hearken how I plot to make amends. 
I have bethought me:  I shall paint a piece
. . .  There’s for you!  Give me six months, then go, see
Something in Sant’ Ambrogio’s!  Bless the nuns! 
They want a cast o’ my office.  I shall paint
God in the midst.  Madonna and her babe,
Ringed by a bowery flowery angel-brood,
Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 350
As puff on puff of grated orris-root
When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer. 
And then i’ the front, of course a saint or two—­
Saint John, because he saves the Florentines,
Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white
The convent’s friends and gives them a long day,
And Job, I must have him there past mistake,
The man of Uz (and Us without the z,
Painters who need his patience).  Well, all these
Secured at their devotion, up shall come 360
Out of a corner when you least expect,
As one by a dark stair into a great light,
Music and talking, who but Lippo!  I!—­
Mazed, motionless and moonstruck—­I’m the man! 
Back I shrink—­what is this I see and hear? 
I, caught up with my monk’s-things by mistake,
My old serge gown and rope that goes all round,
I, in this presence, this pure company! 
Where’s a hole, where’s a corner for escape? 
Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 370
Forward, puts out a soft palm—­“Not so fast!”
—­Addresses the celestial presence, “nay—­
He made you and devised you, after all,
Though he’s none of you!  Could Saint John there draw—­
His camel-hair make up a painting-brush? 
We come to brother Lippo for all that,
Iste perfecit opus.” So, all smile—­
I shuffle sideways with my blushing face