Freed, by the throbbing impulse we call death, We burst there as the worm into the fly, Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no! Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas, He must have done so, were it possible! 335 Live long and happy, and in that thought die: Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest, I cannot tell thy messenger aright Where to deliver what he bears of thine To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame 340 Indeed, if Christus be not one with him-- I know not, nor am troubled much to know. Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew, As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised, Hath access to a secret shut from us? 345 Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king, In stooping to inquire of such an one, As if his answer could impose at all! He writeth, doth he? Well, and he may write. Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! Certain slaves 350 Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ; And (as I gathered from a bystander) Their doctrine could be held by no sane man. ONE WORD MORE I There they are, my fifty men and women Naming me the fifty poems finished! Take them, Love, the book and me together: Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. II Rafael made a century of sonnets, 5 Made and wrote them in a certain volume Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil Else he only used to draw Madonnas: These, the world might view--but one, the volume. Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you. 10 Did she live and love it all her lifetime? Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, Die, and let it drop beside her pillow Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving-- 15 Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's? III You and I would rather read that volume (Taken to his beating bosom by it), Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20 Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas-- Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, Her, that visits Florence in a vision, Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre-- Seen by us and all the world in circle. 25 IV You and I will never read that volume. Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. Guido Reni dying, all Bologna Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!" 30 Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. V