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ah these old hands can fashion fairer shapes in marble and can paint diviner pictures since i have known her
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his wealth is scattered to the winds his children are long since dead but those celestial gates survive and keep his name and memory green
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sharp is the vinegar of sweet wine and sharp the words you speak because the heart within you is sweet unto the core
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raphael is not dead he doth but sleep for how can he be dead who lives immortal in the hearts of men
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he only drank the precious wine of youth the outbreak of the grapes before the vintage was trodden to bitterness by the feet of men
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i have but words of praise and admiration for his great genius and the world is fairer that he lived in it
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each one performs his life-work and then leaves it those that come after him will estimate his influence on the age in which he lived
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so you have left at last your still lagoons your city of silence floating in the sea and come to us in rome
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there are things in rome that one might walk bare-footed here from venice but to see once and then to die content
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i felt so once but i have grown familiar with desolation and it has become no more a pain to me but a delight
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and paints with fires sudden and splendid as the lightning paints the cloudy vault of heaven
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indeed i know not 't was a foolish boast and does no harm to any but himself
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when you two are gone who is there that remains behind to seize the pencil falling from your fingers
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i hear your son orazio and your nephew marco mentioned with honor
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that acrisius did well to lock such beauty in a brazen tower and hide it from all eyes
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and more that you were present and saw the showery jove from high olympus descend in all his splendor
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messer michele all the arts are yours not one alone and therefore i may venture to put a question to you
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how from the canvas they detach themselves till they deceive the eye and one would say it is a statue with a screen behind it
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and now maestro i will say once more how admirable i esteem your work and leave you without further interruption
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death is the chillness that precedes the dawn we shudder for a moment then awake in the broad sunshine of the other life
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hand me the mirror i would fain behold what change comes o'er our features when we die
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do you remember julia when we walked one afternoon upon the castle terrace at ischia on the day before you left me
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oh do not speak of him his sudden death o'ercomes me now as it o'ercame me then
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therefore be cautious keep your secret thought locked in your breast
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not pale but whiter than the sheet of snows that without wind on some fair hill-top lies her weary body seemed to find repose
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like a sweet slumber in her lovely eyes when now the spirit was no longer there was what is dying called by the unwise
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how wonderful the light upon her face shines from the windows of another world
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i must then the short-coming of my means piece out by stepping forward as the spartan was told to add a step to his short sword
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death's lightnings strike to right and left of me and like a ruined wall the world around me crumbles away and i am left alone
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when one pope dies another is soon made and i can make a dozen cardinals but cannot make one michael angelo
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you cardinal salviati are an old man are you incapable
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i have seen his model and have approved it but here comes the artist
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beware of him he may make persians of you to carry burdens on your backs forever
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come forward dear maestro in these gardens all ceremonies of our court are banished
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how graciously your holiness commiserates old age and its infirmities
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i would advise your holiness not to cross it or not often it is not safe
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there is some mystery here these cardinals stand lowering at me with unfriendly eyes
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deputies of the commissioners and they complain of insufficient light in the three chapels
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monsignore perhaps you do not know that in the vaulting above there are to go three other windows
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therefore i pray your holiness release me take off from me the burden of this work let me go back to florence
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and the grasshopper shall be a burden and desire shall fail because man goeth unto his long home
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i have had my dream and cannot carry out my great conception and put it into act
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the same reason that keeps you standing sentinel at your door the air of this delicious summer morning
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i say no news from florence: i am wrong for benvenuto writes that he is coming to be my guest in rome
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ah benvenuto 't is a masterpiece
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tradition says that fifteen thousand men were toiling for ten years incessantly upon this amphitheatre
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think you that i approve such cruelties because i marvel at the architects who built these walls and curved these noble arches
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your work i say again is nobler work in so far as its end and aim are nobler and this is but a ruin like the rest
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its vaulted passages are made the caverns of robbers and are haunted by the ghosts of murdered men
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a certain man copernicus by name sometime professor here in rome has whispered it is the earth and not the sun that moves
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half sunk beneath the horizon and yet not gone twelve years are a long while
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ah generous master how shall i e'er thank you for such kind language
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dear benvenuto i recognized the latent genius in you but feared your vices
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a strange adventure that could have happened to no man alive but you my benvenuto
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the grand duke cosimo now reigns supreme all liberty is dead ah woe is me
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well now he writes to me that as a christian he is ashamed of the unbounded freedom with which i represent it
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he says i show mankind that i am wanting in piety and religion in proportion as i profess perfection in my art
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i represent the angels without their heavenly glory and the saints without a trace of earthly modesty
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he is at home there and he ought to know what men avert their eyes from in such places from the last judgment chiefly i imagine
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i will not think of it but let it pass for a rude speech thrown at me in the street as boys threw stones at dante
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but i grow old and weak what wilt thou do when i am dead urbino
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ay it will make thee rich thou shalt not die a beggar in a hospital
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thou hast served michael angelo remember henceforward thou shalt serve no other master
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i have just fled from it it is beleaguered by spanish troops led by the duke of alva
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so he calls them and yet in fact these bright angelic legions are only german lutherans
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there was of old a monk of wittenberg who went to rome you may have heard of him his name was luther and you know what followed
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o death why is it i cannot portray thy form and features do i stand too near thee
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you have been revelling with your boon companions giorgio vasari and you come to me at an untimely hour
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his holiness desires to see again the drawing you once showed him of the dome of the basilica
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ah me ah me what darkness of despair
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our lives are rivers gliding free to that unfathomed boundless sea the silent grave
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thither all earthly pomp and boast roll to be swallowed up and lost in one dark wave
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did we but use it as we ought this world would school each wandering thought to its high state
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faith wings the soul beyond the sky up to that better world on high for which we wait
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wealth and the high estate of pride with what untimely speed they glide how soon depart
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bid not the shadowy phantoms stay the vassals of a mistress they of fickle heart
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these gifts in fortune's hands are found her swift revolving wheel turns round and they are gone
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no rest the inconstant goddess knows but changing and without repose still hurries on
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where are the high-born dames and where their gay attire and jewelled hair and odors sweet
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where are the gentle knights that came to kneel and breathe love's ardent flame low at their feet
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where is the mazy dance of old the flowing robes inwrought with gold the dancers wore
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but o how false and full of guile that world which wore so soft a smile but to betray
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she that had been his friend before now from the fated monarch tore her charms away
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what was their prosperous estate when high exalted and elate with power and pride
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what but a transient gleam of light a flame which glaring at its height grew dim and died
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their deeds of mercy and of arms in peaceful days or war's alarms when thou dost show
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o death thy stern and angry face one stroke of thy all-powerful mace can overthrow
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to friends a friend how kind to all the vassals of this ancient hall and feudal fief
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what prudence with the old and wise what grace in youthful gayeties in all how sage
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benignant to the serf and slave he showed the base and falsely brave a lion's rage
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his soul to him who gave it rose god lead it to its long repose its glorious rest
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and though the warrior's sun has set its light shall linger round us yet bright radiant blest
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clear fount of light my native land on high bright with a glory that shall never fade
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mansion of truth without a veil or shade thy holy quiet meets the spirit's eye
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heavenward the bright perfections i adore direct and the sure promise cheers the way that whither love aspires there shall my dwelling be
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how without guile thy bosom all transparent as the pure crystal lets the curious eye thy secrets scan thy smooth round pebbles count
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many a corpse is bathed in thee both of moors and eke of christians slain with swords most cruelly
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the peasant leaves his plough afield the reaper leaves his hook and from his hand the shepherd-boy
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the young set up a shout of joy the old forget their years the feeble man grows stout of heart
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some day some day o troubled breast shalt thou find rest
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