Xxxvi

Imagine that a voice reproached me from its frame: "Here do I hang, and may! Your Rafael, just the same, 'T is only you that change; no ecstasies of yore! No purposed suicide distracts you any more!" Prompt would my answer meet such frivolous attack: "You misappropriate sensations. What men lack, And labor to obtain, is hoped and feared about After a fashion; what they once obtain, makes doubt, Expectancy's old fret and fume, henceforward void. But do they think to hold such havings unalloyed By novel hopes and fears, of fashion just as new, To correspond i' the scale? Nowise, I promise you! Mine you are, therefore mine will be, as fit to cheer My soul and glad my sense to-day as this-day-year. So, any sketch or scrap, pochade, caricature, Made in a moment, meant a moment to endure, I snap at, seize, enjoy, then tire of, throw aside, Find you in your old place. But if a servant cried 'Fire in the gallery!'--methinks, were I engaged In Doré, elbow-deep, picture-books million-paged To the four winds would pack, sped by the heartiest curse Was ever launched from lip, to strew the universe. Would not I brave the best o' the burning, bear away Either my perfect piece in safety, or else stay And share its fate, be made its martyr, nor repine? Inextricably wed, such ashes mixed with mine!"