Of making violins ? " or flung them down
To suit with hurling act a well-hurled curse
At labor on such perishable stuff.
Hence neighbors in Cremona held him dull,
Called him a slave, a mill-horse, a machine,
Begged him to tell his motives or to lend
A few gold pieces to a loftier mind.
Yet he had pithy words full fed by fact ;
For Fact, well-trusted, reasons and persuades,
Is gnomic, cutting, or ironical,
Draws tears, or is a tocsin to arouse—
Can hold all figures of the orator
In one plain sentence ; has her pauses too—
Eloquent silence at the chasm abrupt
Where knowledge ceases. Thus Antonio
Made answers as Fact willed, and made them strong.
Naldo, a painter of eclectic school.
Taking his dicers, candlelight and grins
From Caravaggio, and in holier groups
Combining Flemish flesh with martyrdom—
Knowing all tricks of style at thirty-one.
And weary of them, while Antonio
At sixty-nine wrought, placidly his best,
Making the violin you heard to-day —
Naldo would tease him oft to tell his aims.
"Perhaps thou hast some pleasant vice to feed —
The love of louis d'ors in heaps of four,
Each violin a heap — I 've naught to blame ;
My vices waste such heaps. But then, why work
With painful nicety ? Since fame once earned
By luck or merit — oftenest by luck —
(Else why do I put Bonifazio's name
To work that 'pinxit Naldo' would not sell ?)
