<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116381" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Of Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br> Query: was ever a quainter<br>Crotchet than this of the painter<br>Giacomo Pacchiarotto<br>Who took "Reform" for his motto?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II<br> He, pupil of old Fungaio,<br>Is always confounded (heigho!)<br>With Pacchia, contemporaneous<br>No question, but how extraneous<br>In the grace of soul, the power<br>Of hand,—undoubted dower<br>Of Pacchia who decked (as we know,<br>My Kirkup!) San Bernardino,<br>Turning the small dark Oratory<br>To Siena's Art-laboratory,<br>As he made its straitness roomy<br>And glorified its gloomy,<br>With Bazzi and Beccafumi.<br>(Another heigho for Bazzi:<br>How people miscall him Razzi!)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III<br> This Painter was of opinion<br>Our earth should be his dominion<br>Whose Art could correct to pattern<br>What Nature had slurred—the slattern!<br>And since, beneath the heavens,<br>Things lay now at sixes and sevens,<br>Or, as he said, sopra-sotto—<br>Thought the painter Pacchiarotto<br>Things wanted reforming, therefore.<br>"Wanted it"—ay, but wherefore?<br>When earth held one so ready<br>As he to step forth, stand steady<br>In the middle of God's creation<br>And prove to demonstration<br>What the dark is, what the light is,<br>What the wrong is, what the right is,<br>What the ugly, what the beautiful,<br>What the restive, what the dutiful,<br>In Mankind profuse around him?<br>Man, devil as now he found him,<br>Would presently soar up angel<br>At the summons of such evangel,<br>And owe—what would Man not owe<br>To the painter Pacchiarotto?<br>Ay, look to thy laurels, Giotto!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV<br> But Man, he perceived, was stubborn,<br>Grew regular brute, once cub born;<br>And it struck him as expedient—<br>Ere he tried to make obedient;<br>The wolf, fox, bear, and monkey<br>By piping advice in one key,—<br>That his pipe should play a prelude<br>To something heaven-tinged not hell-hued,<br>Something not harsh but docile,<br>Man-liquid, not Man-fossil—<br>Not fact, in short, but fancy.<br>By a laudable necromancy<br>He would conjure up ghosts—a circle<br>Deprived of the means to work ill<br>Should his music prove distasteful<br>And pearls to the swine go wasteful.<br>To be rent of swine—that was hard!<br>With fancy he ran no hazard:<br>Fact might knock him o'er the mazard.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V<br> So, the painter Pacchiarotto<br>Constructed himself a grotto<br>In the quarter of Stalloreggi—<br>As authors of note allege ye.<br>And on each of the whitewashed sides of it<br>He painted—(none far and wide so fit<br>As he to perform in fresco)—<br>He painted nor cried quiesco<br>Till he peopled its every square foot<br>With Man—from the Beggar barefoot<br>To the Noble in cap and feather;<br>All sorts and conditions together.<br>The Soldier in breastplate and helmet<br>Stood frowningly—hail fellow well met—<br>By the Priest armed with bell, book, and candle.<br>Nor did he omit to handle<br>The Fair Sex, our brave distemperer:<br>Not merely King, Clown, Pope, Emperor—<br>He diversified too his Hades<br>Of all forms, pinched Labor and paid Ease,<br>With as mixed an assemblage of Ladies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI<br> Which work done, dry,—he rested him,<br>Cleaned palette, washed brush, divested him<br>Of the apron that suits frescanti,<br>And, bonnet on ear stuck jaunty,<br>This hand upon hip well planted,<br>That, free to wave as it wanted,<br>He addressed in a choice oration<br>His folk of each name and nation,<br>Taught its duty to every station.<br>The Pope was declared an arrant<br>Impostor at once, I warrant.<br>The Emperor—truth might tax him<br>With ignorance of the maxim<br>"Shear sheep but nowise flay them!"<br>And the Vulgar that obey them,<br>The Ruled, well-matched with the Ruling,<br>They failed not of wholesome schooling<br>On their knavery and their fooling.<br>As for Art—where's decorum? Pooh-poohed it is<br>By Poets that plague us with lewd ditties,<br>And Painters that pester with nudities!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII<br> Now, your rater and debater<br>Is balked by a mere spectator<br>Who simply stares and listens<br>Tongue-tied, while eye nor glistens<br>Nor brow grows hot and twitchy,<br>Nor mouth, for a combat itchy,<br>Quivers with some convincing<br>Reply—that sets him wincing?<br>Nay, rather—reply that furnishes<br>Your debater with just what burnishes<br>The crest of him, all one triumph,<br>As you see him rise, hear him cry "Humph!<br>Convinced am I? This confutes me?<br>Receive the rejoinder that suits me!<br>Confutation of vassal for prince meet—<br>Wherein all the powers that convince meet,<br>And mash my opponent to mincemeat!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII<br> So, off from his head flies the bonnet,<br>His hip loses hand planted on it,<br>While t' other hand, frequent in gesture,<br>Slinks modestly back beneath vesture,<br>As—hop, skip and jump,—he's along with<br>Those weak ones he late proved so strong with!<br>Pope, Emperor, lo, he's beside them,<br>Friendly now, who late could not abide them,<br>King, Clown, Soldier, Priest, Noble, Burgess;<br>And his voice, that out-roared Boanerges,<br>How minikin-mildly it urges<br>In accents how gentled and gingered<br>Its word in defence of the injured!<br>"Oh, call him not culprit, this Pontiff!<br>Be hard on this Kaiser ye won't if<br>Ye take into con-si-der-ation<br>What dangers attend elevation!<br>The Priest—who expects him to descant<br>On duty with more zeal and less cant?<br>He preaches but rubbish he's reared in.<br>The Soldier, grown deaf (by the mere din<br>Of battle) to mercy, learned tippling<br>And what not of vice while a stripling.<br>The Lawyer—his lies are conventional.<br>And as for the Poor Sort—why mention all<br>Obstructions that leave barred and bolted<br>Access to the brains of each dolt-head?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX<br> He ended, you wager? Not half! A bet?<br>Precedence to males in the alphabet!<br>Still, disposed of Man's A B C, there's X<br>Y Z want assistance,—the Fair Sex I<br>How much may be said in excuse of<br>Those vanities—males see no use of—<br>From silk shoe on heel to laced poll's-hood!<br>What's their frailty beside our own falsehood?<br>The boldest, most brazen of . . . trumpets,<br>How kind can they be to their dumb pets!<br>Of their charms—how are most frank, how few venal!<br>While as for those charges of Juvenal—<br>Quœ nemo dixisset in toto<br>Nisi (œdepol) ore illoto—<br>He dismissed every charge with an "A page!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X<br> Then, cocking (in Scotch phrase) his cap a-gee,<br>Right hand disengaged from the doublet<br>—Like landlord, in house he had sublet<br>Resuming of guardianship gestion,<br>To call tenants' conduct in question—<br>Hop, skip, jump, to inside from outside<br>Of chamber, he lords, ladies, louts eyed<br>With such transformation of visage<br>As fitted the censor of this age.<br>No longer an advocate tepid<br>Of frailty, but champion intrepid<br>Of strength,—not of falsehood but verity,—<br>He, one after one, with asperity<br>Stripped bare all the cant-clothed abuses,<br>Disposed of sophistic excuses,<br>Forced folly each shift to abandon,<br>And left vice with no leg to stand on.<br>So crushing the force he exerted,<br>That Man at his foot lay converted!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI<br>True—Man bred of paint-pot and mortar!<br>But why suppose folks of this sort are<br>More likely to hear and be tractable<br>Than folks all alive and, in fact, able<br>To testify promptly by action<br>Their ardor, and make satisfaction<br>For misdeeds non verbis sed factis?<br>"With folks all alive be my practice<br>Henceforward! O mortar, paint-pot O,<br>Farewell to ye I" cried Pacchiarotto,<br>"Let only occasion intérpose!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII<br> It did so: for, pat to the purpose<br>Through causes I need not examine,<br>There fell upon Siena a famine.<br>In vain did the magistrates busily<br>Seek succor, fetch grain out of Sicily,<br>Nay, throw mill and bakehouse wide open—<br>Such misery followed as no pen<br>Of mine shall depict ye. Faint, fainter<br>Waxed hope of relief: so, our painter,<br>Emboldened by triumph of recency,<br>How could he do other with decency<br>Than rush in this strait to the rescue,<br>Play schoolmaster, point as with fescue<br>To each and all slips in Man's spelling<br>The law of the land?—slips now telling<br>With monstrous effect on the city,<br>Whose magistrates moved him to pity<br>As, bound to read law to the letter,<br>They minded their hornbook no better.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII<br> I ought to have told you, at starting,<br>How certain, who itched to be carting<br>Abuses away clean and thorough<br>From Siena, both province and borough,<br>Had formed themselves into a company<br>Whose swallow could bolt in a lump any<br>Obstruction of scruple, provoking<br>The nicer throat's coughing and choking:<br>Fit Club, by as fit a name dignified<br>Of "Freed Ones"—"Bardotti"—which signified<br>"Spare-Horses" that walk by the wagon<br>The team has to drudge for and drag on.<br>This notable Club Pacchiarotto<br>Had joined long since, paid scot and lot to,<br>As free and accepted "Bardotto."<br>The Bailiwick watched with no quiet eye<br>The outrage thus done to society,<br>And noted the advent especially<br>Of Pacchiarotto their fresh ally.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV<br> These Spare-Horses forthwith assembled:<br>Neighed words whereat citizens trembled<br>As oft as the chiefs, in the Square by<br>The Duomo, proposed a way whereby<br>The city were cured of disaster.<br>"Just substitute servant for master,<br>Make Poverty Wealth and Wealth Poverty,<br>Unloose Man from overt and covert tie,<br>And straight out of social confusion<br>True Order would spring!" Brave illusion—<br>Aims heavenly attained by means earthly!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XV<br>Off to these at full speed rushed our worthy,—<br>Brain practised and tongue no less tutored,<br>In argument's armor accoutred,—<br>Sprang forth, mounted rostrum, and essayed<br>Proposals like those to which "Yes" said<br>So glibly each personage painted<br>O' the wall-side wherewith you're acquainted.<br>He harangued on the faults of the Bailiwick:<br>"Red soon were our State-candle's paly wick,<br>If wealth would become but interfluous;<br>Fill voids up with just the superfluous;<br>If ignorance gave way to knowledge<br>—Not pedantry picked up at college<br>From Doctors, Professors et cætera—<br>(They say: 'kai to loipa'—like better a<br>Long Greek string of kappas, taus, lambdas,<br>Tacked on to the tail of each damned ass)—<br>No knowledge we want of this quality,<br>But knowledge indeed—practicality<br>Through insight's fine universality!<br>If you shout 'Bailiffs, out on ye all! Fie,<br>Thou Chief of our forces, Amalfi,<br>Who shieldest the rogue and the clot poll!'<br>If you pounce on and poke out, with what pole<br>I leave ye to fancy, our Siena's<br>Beast-litter of sloths and hyenas—"<br>(Whoever to scan this is ill able<br>Forgets the town's name's a disyllable)—<br>"If, this done, ye did—as ye might—place<br>For once the right man in the right place,<br>If you listened to me" . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVI<br> At which last "I."<br>There flew at his throat like a mastiff<br>One Spare-Horse—another and another!<br>Such outbreak of tumult and pother,<br>Horse-faces a-laughing and fleering,<br>Horse-voices a-mocking and jeering,<br>Horse-hands raised to collar the caitiff<br>Whose impudence ventured the late "If"—<br>That, had not fear sent Pacchiarotto<br>Off tramping, as fast as could trot toe,<br>Away from the scene of discomfiture—<br>Had he stood there stock-still in a dumbfit—sure<br>Am I he had paid in his peison<br>Till his mother might fail to know her son,<br>Though she gazed on him never so wistful,<br>do the figure so tattered and tristful.<br>Each mouth full of curses, each fist full<br>Of cuffings—behold, Pacchiarotto,<br>The pass which thy project has got to,<br>Of trusting, nigh ashes still hot—tow!<br>(The paraphrase—which I much need—is<br>From Horace "per ignes incedis.")</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVII<br> Right and left did he dash helter-skelter<br>In agonized search of a shelter.<br>No purlieu so blocked and no alley<br>So blind as allowed him to rally<br>His spirits and see—nothing hampered<br>His steps if he trudged and not scampered<br>Up here and down there in a city<br>That's all ups and downs, more the pity<br>For folks who would outrun the constable.<br>At last he stopped short at the one stable<br>And sure place of refuge that's offered<br>Humanity. Lately was coffered<br>A corpse in its sepulchre, situate<br>By St. John's Observance. "Habituate<br>Thyself to the strangest of bedfellows,<br>And, kicked by the live, kiss the dead fellows!"<br>So Misery counselled the craven.<br>At once he crept safely to haven<br>Through a hole left unbricked in the structure.<br>Ay, Misery, in have you tucked your<br>Poor client and left him conterminous<br>With—pah!—the thing fetid and verminous!<br>(I gladly would spare you the detail,<br>But History writes what I retail.)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVIII<br> Two days did he groan in his domicile:<br>"Good Saints, set me free and I promise I'll<br>Adjure all ambition of preaching<br>Change, whether to minds touched by teaching<br>—The smooth folk of fancy, mere figments<br>Created by plaster and pigments,—<br>Or to minds that receive with such rudeness<br>Dissuasion from pride, greed and lewdness,<br>—The rough folk of fact, life's true specimens<br>Of mind—'haud in posse sed esse mens'<br>As it was, is, and shall be forever<br>Despite of my utmost endeavor.<br>O live foes I thought to illumine,<br>Henceforth lie untroubled your gloom in!<br>I need my own light, every spark, as<br>I couch with this sole friend—a carcase!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIX<br> Two days thus he maundered and rambled;<br>Then, starved back to sanity, scrambled<br>From out his receptacle loathsome.<br>"A spectre!"—declared upon oath some<br>Who saw him emerge and (appalling<br>To mention) his garments a-crawling<br>With plagues far beyond the Egyptian.<br>He gained, in a state past description,<br>A convent of months, the Observancy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XX<br>Thus far is a fact: I reserve fancy<br>For Fancy's more proper employment:<br>And now she waves wing with enjoyment,<br>To tell ye how preached the Superior,<br>When somewhat our painter's exterior<br>Was sweetened. He needed (no mincing<br>The matter) much soaking and rinsing,<br>Nay, rubbing with drugs odoriferous,<br>Till, rid of his garments pestiferous,<br>And, robed by the help of the Brotherhood<br>In odds and ends,—this gown and t' other hood,—<br>His empty inside first well-garnished,—<br>He delivered a tale round, unvarnished.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXI<br> "Ah, Youth!" ran the Abbot's admonishment,<br>"Thine error scarce moves my astonishment.<br>For—why shall I shrink from asserting?—<br>Myself have had hopes of converting<br>The foolish to wisdom, till, sober,<br>My life found its May grow October.<br>I talked and I wrote, but, one morning,<br>Life's Autumn bore fruit in this warning:<br>'Let tongue rest, and quiet thy quill be!<br>Earth is earth and not heaven, and ne'er will be.'<br>Man's work is to labor and leaven—<br>As best he may—earth here with heaven;<br>'Tis work for work's sake that he's needing:<br>Let him work on and on as if speeding<br>Work's end, but not dream of succeeding!<br>Because if success were intended,<br>Why, heaven would begin ere earth ended.<br>A Spare-Horse? Be rather a thill-horse,<br>Or—what's the plain truth—just a mill-horse!<br>Earth's a mill where we grind and wear mufflers:<br>A whip awaits shirkers and shufflers<br>Who slacken their pace, sick of lugging<br>At what don't advance for their tugging.<br>Though round goes the mill, we must still post<br>On and on as if moving the mill-post.<br>So, grind away, mouth-wise and pen-wise,<br>Do all that we can to make men wise!<br>And if men prefer to be foolish,<br>Ourselves have proved horse-like not mulish:<br>Sent grist, a good sackful, to hopper,<br>And worked as the Master thought proper.<br>Tongue I wag, pen I ply, who am Abbot;<br>Stick, thou, Son, to daub-brush and dab-pot!<br>But, soft! I scratch hard on the scab hot?<br>Though cured of thy plague, there may linger<br>A pimple I fray with rough finger?<br>So soon could my homily transmute<br>Thy brass into gold? Why, the man's mute!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXII<br> "Ay, Father, I'm mute with admiring<br>How Nature's indulgence untiring<br>Still bids us turn deaf ear to Reason's<br>Best rhetoric—clutch at all seasons<br>And hold fast to what's proved untenable!<br>Thy maxim is—Man's not amenable<br>To argument: whereof by consequence—<br>Thine arguments reach me: a non-sequence!<br>Yet blush not discouraged, O Father!<br>I stand unconverted, the rather<br>That nowise I need a conversion.<br>No live man (I cap thy assertion)<br>By argument ever could take hold<br>Of me. 'Twas the dead thing, the clay-cold,<br>Which grinned 'Art thou so in a hurry<br>That out of warm light thou must scurry<br>And join me down here in the dungeon<br>Because, above, one's Jack and one—John,<br>One's swift in the race, one—a hobbler,<br>One's a crowned king and one—a capped cobbler,<br>Rich and poor, sage and fool, virtuous, vicious?<br>Why complain? Art thou so unsuspicious<br>That all's for an hour of essaying<br>Who's fit and who's unfit for playing<br>His part in the after-construction<br>—Heaven's Piece whereof Earth's the Induction?<br>Things rarely go smooth at Rehearsal.<br>Wait patient the change universal,<br>And act, and let act, in existence!<br>For, as thou art clapped hence or hissed hence,<br>Thou host thy promotion or otherwise.<br>And why must wise thou have thy brother wise<br>Because in rehearsal thy cue be<br>To shine by the side of a booby?<br>No polishing garnet to ruby!<br>All's well that ends well—through Art's magic.<br>Some end, whether comic or tragic,<br>The Artist has purposed, be certain!<br>Explained at the fall of the curtain—<br>In showing thy wisdom at odds with<br>That folly: he tries men and gods with<br>No problem for weak wits to solve meant,<br>But one worth such Author's evolvement.<br>So, back nor disturb play's production<br>By giving thy brother instruction<br>To throw up his fool's-part allotted!<br>Lest haply thyself prove besotted<br>When stript, for thy pains, of that costume<br>Of sage, which has bred the imposthume<br>I prick to relieve thee of,—Vanity!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIII<br> "So, Father, behold me in sanity!<br>I'm back to the palette and mahlstick:<br>And as for Man—let each and all stick<br>To what was prescribed them at starting!<br>Once planted as fools—no departing<br>From folly one inch, sæculorum<br>In sæcula! Pass me the jorum,<br>And push me the platter—my stomach<br>Retains, through its fasting, still some ache—<br>And then, with your kind Benedicite.<br>Good-by!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIV<br> I have told with simplicity<br>My tale, dropped those harsh analytics,<br>And tried to content you, my critics,<br>Who greeted my early uprising!<br>I knew you through all the disguising,<br>Droll dogs, as I jumped up, cried, "Heyday!<br>This Monday is—what else but May-day?<br>And these in the drabs, blues, and yellows.<br>Are surely the privileged fellows.<br>So, saltbox and bones, tongs and bellows!"<br>(I threw up the window) "Your pleasure?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> <br>XXV<br>Then he who directed the measure—<br>An old friend—put leg forward nimbly,<br>"We critics as sweeps out your chimbly!<br>Much soot to remove from your flue, sir!<br>Who spares coal in kitchen an't you, sir!<br>And neighbors complain it's no joke, sir,<br>—You ought to consume your own smoke, sir!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVI<br> Ah, rogues, but my housemaid suspects you—<br>Is confident oft she detects you<br>In bringing more filth into my house<br>Than ever you found there! I'm pious,<br>However: 'twas God made you dingy<br>And me—with no need to be stingy<br>Of soap, when 'tis sixpence the packet.<br>So, dance away, boys, dust my jacket,<br>Bang drum and blow fife—ay, and rattle<br>Your brushes, for that's half the battle!<br>Don't trample the grass,—hocus-pocus<br>With grime my Spring snowdrop and crocus,—<br>And, what with your rattling and tinkling,<br>Who knows but you give me an inkling<br>How music sounds, thanks to the jangle<br>Of regular drum and triangle?<br>Whereby, tap-tap, chink-chink, 'tis proven<br>I break rule as bad as Beethoven.<br>"That chord now—a groan or a grunt is 't?<br>Schumann's self was no worse contrapuntist.<br>No ear! or if ear, so tough-gristled—<br>He thought that he sung while he whistled!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVII<br> So, this time I whistle, not sing at all,<br>My story, the largess I fling at all<br>And every the rough there whose aubade<br>Did its best to amuse me,—nor so bad!<br>Take my thanks, pick up largess, and scamper<br>Off free, ere your mirth gets a damper!<br>You've Monday, your one day, your fun-day,<br>While mine is a year that's all Sunday.<br>I've seen you, times—who knows how many?—<br>Dance in here, strike up, play the zany,<br>Make mouths at the Tenant, hoot warning<br>You'll find him decamped next May-morning;<br>Then scuttle away, glad to 'scape hence<br>With—kicks? no, but laughter and ha'pence!<br>Mine's freehold, by grace of the grand Lord<br>Who lets out the ground here,—my landlord:<br>To him I pay quit-rent—devotion;<br>Nor hence shall I budge, I've a notion,<br>Nay, here shall my whistling and singing<br>Set all his street's echoes a-ringing<br>Long after the last of your number<br>Has ceased my front-court to encumber<br>While, treading down rose and ranunculus,<br>You Tommy-make-room-for-your-Uncle us!<br>Troop, all of you—man or homunculus,<br>Quick march! for Xanthippe, my house-maid,<br>If once on your pates she a souse made<br>With what, pan or pot, bowl or skoramis,<br>First comes to her hand—things were more amiss!<br>I would not for worlds be your place in—<br>Recipient of slops from the basin!<br>You, jack-in-the-Green, leaf-and-twiggishness<br>Won't save a dry thread on your priggishness!<br>While as for Quilp-Hop-o'-my-thumb there,<br>Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum there—<br>He'll think as the pickle he curses,<br>I've discharged on his pate his own verses!<br>"Dwarfs are saucy," says Dickens: so, sauced in<br>Your own sauce,[1] . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVIII<br> But, back to my Knight of the Pencil,<br>Dismissed to his fresco and stencil!<br>Whose story—begun with a chuckle,<br>And throughout timed by raps of the knuckle,—<br>To small enough purpose were studied<br>If it ends with crown cracked or nose bloodied.<br>Come, critics,—not shake hands, excuse me!<br>But—say have you grudged to amuse me<br>This once in the forty-and-over<br>Long years since you trampled my clover<br>And scared from my house-eaves each sparrow<br>I never once harmed by that arrow<br>Of song, karterotaton belos,<br>(Which Pindar declares the true melos,)<br>I was forging and filing and finishing,<br>And no whit my labors diminishing<br>Because, though high up in a chamber<br>Where none of your kidney may clamber<br>Your hullabaloo would approach me?<br>Was it "grammar" wherein you would "coach" me—<br>You,—pacing in even that paddock<br>Of language allotted you ad hoc,<br>With a clog at your fetlocks,—you—scorners<br>Of me free of all its four corners?<br>Was it "clearness of words which convey thought"?<br>Ay, if words never needed enswathe aught<br>But ignorance, impudence, envy<br>And malice—what word-swathe would then vie<br>With yours for a clearness crystalline?<br>But had you to put in one small line<br>Some thought big and bouncing—as noddle<br>Of goose, born to cackle and waddle<br>And bite at man's heel as goose-wont is,<br>Never felt plague its puny os frontis—<br>You'd know, as you hissed, spat and sputtered,<br>Clear cackle is easily uttered!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIX<br> Lo, I've laughed out my laugh on this mirth-day!<br>Beside, at week's end, dawns my birthday,<br>That hebdome, hieron emar—<br>(More things in a day than you deem are!)<br>—Tei gar Apollona chrusaora<br>Egeinato Leto. So, gray or ray<br>Betide me, six days hence, I'm vexed here<br>By no sweep, that's certain, till next year!<br>"Vexed?"—roused from what else were insipid ease!<br>Leave snoring abed to Pheidippides!<br>We'll up and work! won't we, Euripides?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+Browning">Robert Browning</a> from <i>Pacchiarotto</i><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116381" data-title="Of Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper de Robert Browning" data-description="I/ Query: was ever a quainter/Crotchet than this of the painter/Giacomo Pacchiarotto/Who took "Reform" for his motto?/II/ He, pupil of old Fungaio,/Is always confounded (heigho!)/With Pacchia, contemporaneous/No question, but how extraneous/In the..."></div> </div> </div>

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