BUT let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowèd roof, With antick pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow To the full-voiced Quire below, In service high and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstacies, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. MILTON. [Illustration: XIII RANCONEZZO _The Cloisters of Santa Prassede_] THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB IN SANTA PRASSEDE YET still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome, where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk; And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands; Peach blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh poured red wine of a mighty pulse. Old Gandolph with his paltry onion-stone Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and faultless: . . . * * * * * Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black 'T was ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze you promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables,--but I know Ye mark me not! ROBERT BROWNING. [Illustration: XIV RANCONEZZO _The Tomb of Cardinal Schalchi-Visconti in Santa Prassede_] ROCHER-ST.-POL FRENCH TOWNS IT is a drowsy little Burgundian town, very old and ripe, with crooked streets, vistas always oblique, and steep moss-covered roofs. . . . I carried away from Beaune the impression of something autumnal,--something rusty yet kindly, like the taste of a sweet russet pear. * * * * *