I MONOLOGUE Macello de' Corvi.

A room in MICHAEL ANGELO'S house.

MICHAEL ANGELO, standing before a model of St.Peter's.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Better than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi, And less than thou I will not! If the thought Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous stones And swing them to their places; if a breath Could blow this rounded dome into the air, As if it were a bubble, and these statues Spring at a signal to their sacred stations, As sentinels mount guard upon a wall.
Then were my task completed.

Now, alas! Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding Upon his hand the model of a church, As German artists paint him; and what years, What weary years, must drag themselves along, Ere this be turned to stone! What hindrances Must block the way; what idle interferences Of Cardinals and Canons of St.Peter's, Who nothing know of art beyond the color Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any building Save that of their own fortunes! And what then?
I must then the short-coming of my means Piece out by stepping forward, as the Spartan Was told to add a step to his short sword.
[A pause.
And is Fra Bastian dead?
Is all that light Gone out, that sunshine darkened; all that music And merriment, that used to make our lives Less melancholy, swallowed up in silence Like madrigals sung in the street at night By passing revellers?
It is strange indeed That he should die before me.

'T is against The laws of nature that the young should die, And the old live; unless it be that some Have long been dead who think themselves alive, Because not buried.