Analysis of Old Pictures In Florence
Robert Browning 1812 (Camberwell) – 1889 (Venice)
The morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm March day,
No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled
In the valley beneath where, white and wide
And washed by the morning water-gold,
Florence lay out on the mountain-side.
River and bridge and street and square
Lay mine, as much at my beck and call,
Through the live translucent bath of air,
As the sights in a magic crystal ball.
And of all I saw and of all I praised,
The most to praise and the best to see
Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised:
But why did it more than startle me?
Giotto, how, with that soul of yours,
Could you play me false who loved you so?
Some slights if a certain heart endures
Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know!
I' faith, I perceive not why I should care
To break a silence that suits them best,
But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear
When I find a Giotto join the rest.
On the arch where olives overhead
Print the blue sky with twig and leaf,
(That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed)
'Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief,
And mark through the winter afternoons,
By a gift God grants me now and then,
In the mild decline of those suns like moons,
Who walked in Florence, besides her men.
They might chirp and chaffer, come and go
For pleasure or profit, her men alive---
My business was hardly with them, I trow,
But with empty cells of the human hive;
---With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch,
The church's apsis, aisle or nave,
Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch,
Its face set full for the sun to shave.
Wherever a fresco peels and drops,
Wherever an outline weakens and wanes
Till the latest life in the painting stops,
Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains:
One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick,
Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster,
---A lion who dies of an ass's kick,
The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.
For oh, this world and the wrong it does
They are safe in heaven with their backs to it,
The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz
Round the works of, you of the little wit!
Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope,
Now that they see God face to face,
And have all attained to be poets, I hope?
'Tis their holiday now, in any case.
Much they reck of your praise and you!
But the wronged great souls---can they be quit
Of a world where their work is all to do,
Where you style them, you of the little wit,
Old Master This and Early the Other,
Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows:
A younger succeeds to an elder brother,
Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.
And here where your praise might yield returns,
And a handsome word or two give help,
Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns
And the puppy pack of poodles yelp.
What, not a word for Stefano there,
Of brow once prominent and starry,
Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair
For his peerless painting? (See Vasari.)
There stands the Master. Study, my friends,
What a man's work comes to! So he plans it,
Performs it, perfects it, makes amends
For the toiling and moiling, and then, _sic transit!_
Happier the thrifty blind-folk labour,
With upturned eye while the hand is busy,
Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbour!
'Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy.
``If you knew their work you would deal your dole.''
May I take upon me to instruct you?
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal,
Thus much had the world to boast _in fructu_---
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken,
Which the actual generations garble,
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken)
And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.
So, you saw yourself as you wished you were,
As you might have been, as you cannot be;
Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there:
And grew content in your poor degree
With your little power, by those statues' godhead,
And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway,
And your little grace, by their grace embodied,
And your little date, by their forms that stay.
You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am?
Even so, you will not sit like Theseus.
You would pro
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJIJEKEK LMLMNONO JPJPQRQR STSTUVUV WXWXYZYZ 1 X1 XVXVB X2 B2 EHEE 3 X3 CXHEH 4 1 4 CX5 O5 VHEHLBXB XBJ |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011111001 0100110111 1110110011 101011111 11111101 0010011101 011010101 101110101 10010101 111111101 101010111 1010010101 0111101111 011100111 101011011 111111101 1111111 111111111 111010101 1111111101 1110111111 110101111 101111111 11101101 101110101 10111101 111111101 101111101 01101001 101111101 0010111111 110100101 11101101 1101100101 1101101111 1110110101 101010101 0101111 1111001101 111110111 010010101 010111001 1010100101 111110111 110111101 1111001010 010111111 0111111010 111100111 11101011111 010011101 1011110101 111110111 11111111 01101111011 111010101 11111101 101111111 1011111111 1111110101 1101010010 1101101110 01001111010 110101111 011111101 001011111 110110101 001011101 110111001 111100010 110100101 11101011 110101011 1011111111 01111101 1010010111 100010111 111101110 110001101111 1101011110 1111111111 1110111011 11110101 111011111 0111111110 1010001010 111001111 0110111010 1110111110 1111111101 110110101 011001101 1110101111 0110111111 01101111010 0110111111 111111111 101111111 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,184 |
Words | 785 |
Sentences | 42 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 3 |
Lines Amount | 99 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 245 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 59 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 07, 2023
- 3:57 min read
- 167 Views
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"Old Pictures In Florence" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/30393/old-pictures-in-florence>.
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