Michael Angelo - A Dramatic Poem

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Table of Contents:

Dedication


PART FIRST
I - Prologue at Ischia
II - Monologue: The Last Judgment
III - San Silvestro
IV - Cardinal Ippolito
V - Borgo delle Vergine at Naples
VI - Vittoria Colonna


PART SECOND
I. Monologue
II. Viterbo
III. Michael Angelo and Benvenuto Cellini
IV. Fra Sebastiano del Piombo
V. Palazzo Belvedere
VI. Palazzo Cesarini


PART THIRD
I - Monologue
II - Vigna di Papa Giulio
III - Bindo Altoviti
IV - In the Coliseum
V - Macello de' Corvi
VI - Michael Angelo's Studio
VII - The Oaks of Monte Luca
VIII - The Dead Christ



DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.


Michael Angelo.
Victoria Colonna.
Julia Gonzaga.
Fra Sebastiano Del Piombo.
Benvenuto Cellini.
Titian.
Pope Julius III.
Cardinal Ippolito.
Cardinal Salviati.
Cardinal Maricello,
Giovanni Valdesso.
Giorgio Valsari.
Bindo Altoviti.
Tomaso De Cavalieri.
Claudio Tolommei.
Jacopo Nardi.
Urbino.
A Monk.







DEDICATION


Nothing that is shall perish utterly,
But perish only to revive again
In other forms, as clouds restore in rain
The exhalations of the land and sea.
Men build their houses from the masonry
Of ruined tombs; the passion and the pain
Of hearts, that long have ceased to beat, remain
To throb in hearts that are, or are to be.
So from old chronicles, where sleep in dust
Names that once filled the world with trumpet tones,
I build this verse; and flowers of song have thrust
Their roots among the loose disjointed stones,
Which to this end I fashion as I must.
Quickened are they that touch the Prophet's bones.


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An excerpt from the beginning of:


PART FIRST

I - PROLOGUE AT ISCHIA

The Castle Terrace.

VITTORIA COLONNA, and JULIA GONZAGA.

VITTORIA.
Will you then leave me, Julia, and so soon,
To pace alone this terrace like a ghost?

JULIA.
To-morrow, dearest.

VITTORIA.
Do not say to-morrow.
A whole month of to-morrows were too soon.
You must not go. You are a part of me.

JULIA.
I must return to Fondi.

VITTORIA.
The old castle
Needs not your presence. No one waits for you.
Stay one day longer with me. They who go
Feel not the pain of parting; it is they
Who stay behind that suffer. I was thinking
But yesterday how like and how unlike
Have been, and are, our destinies. Your husband,
The good Vespasian, an old man, who seemed
A father to you rather than a husband,
Died in your arms; but mine, in all the flower
And promise of his youth, was taken from me
As by a rushing wind. The breath of battle
Breathed on him, and I saw his face no more,
Save as in dreams it haunts me. As our love
Was for these men, so is our sorrow for them.
Yours a child's sorrow, smiling through its tears;
But mine the grief of an impassioned woman,
Who drank her life up in one draught of love.