en you least expect,
As one by a dark stair into a great light,
Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!--
Mazed, motionless, and moon-struck--I'm the man!
Back I shrink--what is this I see and hear?
I, caught up with my monk's things by mistake,
My old serge gown and rope that goes all round,
I, in this presence, this pure company!
Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape?
Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing {370}
Forward, puts out a soft palm--"Not so fast!"
--Addresses the celestial presence, "nay--
He made you and devised you, after all,
Though he's none of you! could Saint John there, draw--
His camel-hair make up a painting-brush?
We come to brother Lippo for all that,
Iste perfecit opus!" So, all smile--
I shuffle sideways with my blushing face
Under the cover of a hundred wings
Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay {380}
And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut,
Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops
The hot-head husband! Thus I scuttle off
To some safe bench behind, not letting go
The palm of her, the little lily thing
That spoke the good word for me in the nick,
Like the Prior's niece. . .Saint Lucy, I would say.
And so all's saved for me, and for the church
A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence!
Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights! {390}
The street's hushed, and I know my own way back,
Don't fear me! There's the gray beginning. Zooks!

--
17. Cosimo of the Medici: Cosimo, or Cosmo, de' Medici,
surnamed the Elder, a celebrated Florentine statesman,
and a patron of learning and the arts; b. 1389, d. 1464.

23. pilchards: a kind of fish.

34. John Baptist's head: an imaginary picture.

67. Saint Lawrence: church of San Lorenzo, in Florence, famous for
the tombs of the Medici, adorned with Michel Angelo's Day and Night,
Morning and Evening, etc. See `Hawthorne's Italian Note-Books'.

88. Old aunt Lapaccia: Mona Lapaccia, his father's sister.

121. the Eight: `gli Otto di guerra', surnamed `i Santi', the Saints;
a magistracy composed of Eight citizens, instituted by the Florentines,
during their war with the Church, in 1376, for the administration
of the city government. Two were chosen from the `Signori',
three, from the `Mediocri' (Middle Classes), and three,
from the `Bassi' (Lower Classes).