Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 2.djvu/115

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LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI

To make an O, I dipped the splinter thrice
In that thick mud; worse woe could scarcely grind
Spirits in hell debarred from Paradise.

Seeing I'm not the first by fraud confined,
This I'll omit; and once more seek the cell
Wherein I rack for rage both heart and mind.

I praise it more than other tongues will tell;
And, for advice to such as do not know,
Swear that without it none can labour well.

Yet oh! for one like Him I learned but now.
Who'd cry to me as by Bethesda s shore:
Take thy clothes, Benvenuto, rise and go!

Credo I'd sing, Salve reginas pour
And Paternosters; alms I'd then bestow
Morn after morn on blind folk, lame, and poor.

Ah me! how many a time my cheek must grow
Blanched by those lilies! Shall I then forswear
Florence and France through them for evermore?[1]

If to the hospital I come, and fair
Find the Annunziata limned, I'll fly:
Else shall I show myself a brute beast there.[2]

These words flout not Her worshipped sanctity,
Nor those Her lilies, glorious, holy, pure,
The which illumine earth and heaven high!

[ 81 ]

  1. Here he begins to play upon the lilies, which were arms of the Farnesi, of Florence, and of France.
  2. Gabriel holds the lily in Italian paintings when he salutes the Virgin Mary with Ave Virgo!