Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 050.djvu/342

308

(taking him by the hand.) Receive my thanks, my hearty thanks, Bernardo.

If ever, in return, I can do ought—

Pray, do not speak of my small services,

They are not worth a thought.

Not worth a thought!

Is it not worth a thought, that, when I lay

Sick and disabled for a month and upwards,

You tended me with more than woman's care,

Showering on me, a stranger and unknown,

All the affection of a long-tried friend?

You heal'd me with no mercenary hand,

But, watching every breath I drew; sat bound,

Through the long day and through the dreary night,

Fast to my bed as if chains held you there.

These, my Bernardo, these are offices

One does not easily forget.

. Salvator!

Your language pains me—"Stranger" did you say?

A man "unknown" to me? Wherefore unknown?

Unless it be that, as a surgeon, I

Can nothing know of artists or of art.

By falling from your horse you broke your arm:

My business was to set the limb—no more—

Whether 'twas Rosa or a common man

Who sutfer'd that was no concern of mine—

At least so you appear to think-in short,

What can a surgeon know of art or artists?

. (half in jest.) I'll grant you may have heard of me: I am,

I must confess, a somewhat noted person.

I sing, make verses, play the flute; besides,

I am a painter; and my new profession

Reveals, I fear somewhat too palpably,

The secrets of my former trade: the woods,

They are the haunts of a loose jovial race,

Whose figures, often glimpsing from my canvass,

Attest how well I knew them: the bald rocks,

The very deserts which I draw, bespeak

The hand of one who wielded in his youth

Another weapon than the brush-enroll'd

In Masaniello's sanguinary crew.