look upon life and keep your pride if you can, then:
See how to-day's achievement is only to-morrow's confusion;
See how possession always cheapens the thing that was precious
To our endeavor; how losses and gains are equally losses;
How in ourselves we are nothing, and how we are anything only
As indifferent parts of the whole, that still, on our ceasing,
Whole remains as before, no less without us than with us.
Were it not for the delight of doing, the wonderful instant
Ere the thing done is done and dead, life scarce were worth living.
Ah, but that makes life divine! We are gods, for that instant
immortal,
Mortal for evermore, with a few days' rumor--or ages'--
What does it matter? We, too, have our share of eating and
drinking,
Love, and the liking of friends--mankind's common portion and
pleasure.
Come, Pordenone, with me; I would fain have you see my Assumption
While it is still unfinished, and stay with me for the evening:
You shall send home for your lute, and I'll ask Sansovino to
supper.[8]
After what happened just now I scarcely could ask Aretino;
Though, for the matter of that, the dog is not one to bear malice.
Will you not come?"

V.

I listen with Titian, and wait for the answer.
But, whatever the answer that comes to Titian, I hear none.
Nay, while I linger, all those presences fade into nothing,
In the dead air of the past; and the old Augustinian Convent
Lapses to picturesque profanation again as a barrack;
Lapses and changes once more, and this time vanishes wholly,
Leaving me at the end with the broken, shadowy legend,
Broken and shadowy still, as in the beginning. I linger,
Teased with its vague unfathomed suggestion, and wonder,
As at first I wondered, what happened about Violante,
And am but ill content with those metaphysical phrases
Touching the strictly impersonal nature of personal effort,
Wherewithal Titian had fain avoided the matter at issue.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Giovanni Antonio Licinio, called _Pordenone_ from his birth-place
in the Friuli, was a contemporary of Titian's, whom he equalled
in many qualities, and was one of the most eminent Venetian
painters in fresco.

[6] Pietro Aretino, the satirical poet, was a friend of Titian, whose
house he frequented. The story of Tintoretto's measuring him for
a portrait with his dagger is well known.