Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/435

 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 ?)

Is welcome index to the wealthy mob