Fra Lippo Lippi Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNEOKPQR STUVWXYZKA2BB2C2D2E2 A2F2KYG2H2NA2I2J2K2T L2A2D2A2M2N2N2O2O2A2 P2Q2A2A2A2R2S2A2T2A2 U2U2V2W2X2A2I2KA2A2S 2CY2A2A2TZ2A2A2A2A2T A3D2B3P2C3A2NKA2JKA2 D3K2A2A2A2E3F3A2S2S2 UG3H3I3J3K3A2I2V2A2L 3A2M3E3I2D3N3F3O3P3Q 3A2G2R3A2S3T3T3K3KA2 U3U3A2I2T3T3A2D2YS2T 2V3A2T3T3A2S2S2T3W3S 2A2K2A2KX3U3T3S2A2A2 T3Y3K2TZ3YA2K2I2V2A2 A4B4K2K2A2C4A2A2T3C3 T3A2S2U3A2P2A2U3T3A2 D4E4U3T3A2F4T3TI2A2K 2Z3T3T3A2T3A2T3T3A2T 3T3T3A2A2T3T3U3T2A2A 2F4A2K3K3YYG4A2A2H4T 3A2I2I2P2I4A2A2T3YC4 S2YU3T3S2I2A2K2A2D2A 2I2T3 YK2K3Y3TL3T3U3T3U3J4 U3A2P2T3K2YK3S2A2A2K 4A2T3A2C3T3A2A2V2S2A 2K2T3A2YY2U3B2L4T3YT T3A2U3D2M4T3T3T3A2K2 T3K2G2T3T3A2A2N4G4O4 F4A2T3 A2A2T3K3Y2T3S2T3T3T3 T3A2A4A2A2A2P2TT3A2A 2U3T3T3H4A2A2NX3Y3U3 A2T3P4U3A2A2K2Q4I2A2 K2T3T3A2A2T3S2YU3U3A 2I2T3T3U3T3

I am poor brother Lippo by your leave	A
You need not clap your torches to my face	B
Zooks what's to blame you think you see a monk	C
What 'tis past midnight and you go the rounds	D
And here you catch me at an alley's end	E
Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar	F
The Carmine's my cloister hunt it up	G
Do harry out if you must show your zeal	H
Whatever rat there haps on his wrong hole	I
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse	J
Weke weke that's crept to keep him company	K
Aha you know your betters Then you'll take	L
Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat	M
And please to know me likewise Who am I	N
Why one sir who is lodging with a friend	E
Three streets off he's a certain how d'ye call	O
Master a Cosimo of the Medici	K
I' the house that caps the corner Boh you were best	P
Remember and tell me the day you're hanged	Q
How you affected such a gullet's gripe	R
But you sir it concerns you that your knaves	S
Pick up a manner nor discredit you	T
Zooks are we pilchards that they sweep the streets	U
And count fair price what comes into their net	V
He's Judas to a tittle that man is	W
Just such a face Why sir you make amends	X
Lord I'm not angry Bid your hang dogs go	Y
Drink out this quarter florin to the health	Z
Of the munificent House that harbours me	K
And many more beside lads more beside	A2
And all's come square again I'd like his face	B
His elbowing on his comrade in the door	B2
With the pike and lantern for the slave that holds	C2
John Baptist's head a dangle by the hair	D2
With one hand Look you now as who should say	E2
And his weapon in the other yet unwiped	A2
It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk	F2
A wood coal or the like or you should see	K
Yes I'm the painter since you style me so	Y
What brother Lippo's doings up and down	G2
You know them and they take you like enough	H2
I saw the proper twinkle in your eye	N
'Tell you I liked your looks at very first	A2
Let's sit and set things straight now hip to haunch	I2
Here's spring come and the nights one makes up bands	J2
To roam the town and sing out carnival	K2
And I've been three weeks shut within my mew	T
A painting for the great man saints and saints	L2
And saints again I could not paint all night	A2
Ouf I leaned out of window for fresh air	D2
There came a hurry of feet and little feet	A2
A sweep of lute strings laughs and whifts of song	M2
Flower o' the broom	N2
Take away love and our earth is a tomb	N2
Flower o' the quince	O2
I let Lisa go and what good in life since	O2
Flower o' the thyme and so on Round they went	A2
Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter	P2
Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight three slim shapes	Q2
And a face that looked up zooks sir flesh and blood	A2
That's all I'm made of Into shreds it went	A2
Curtain and counterpane and coverlet	A2
All the bed furniture a dozen knots	R2
There was a ladder Down I let myself	S2
Hands and feet scrambling somehow and so dropped	A2
And after them I came up with the fun	T2
Hard by Saint Laurence hail fellow well met	A2
Flower o' the rose	U2
If I've been merry what matter who knows	U2
And so as I was stealing back again	V2
To get to bed and have a bit of sleep	W2
Ere I rise up to morrow and go work	X2
On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast	A2
With his great round stone to subdue the flesh	I2
You snap me of the sudden Ah I see	K
Though your eye twinkles still you shake your head	A2
Mine's shaved a monk you say the sting 's in that	A2
If Master Cosimo announced himself	S2
Mum's the word naturally but a monk	C
Come what am I a beast for tell us now	Y2
I was a baby when my mother died	A2
And father died and left me in the street	A2
I starved there God knows how a year or two	T
On fig skins melon parings rinds and shucks	Z2
Refuse and rubbish One fine frosty day	A2
My stomach being empty as your hat	A2
The wind doubled me up and down I went	A2
Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand	A2
Its fellow was a stinger as I knew	T
And so along the wall over the bridge	A3
By the straight cut to the convent Six words there	D2
While I stood munching my first bread that month	B3
So boy you're minded quoth the good fat father	P2
Wiping his own mouth 'twas refection time	C3
To quit this very miserable world	A2
Will you renounce the mouthful of bread thought I	N
By no means Brief they made a monk of me	K
I did renounce the world its pride and greed	A2
Palace farm villa shop and banking house	J
Trash such as these poor devils of Medici	K
Have given their hearts to all at eight years old	A2
Well sir I found in time you may be sure	D3
'Twas not for nothing the good bellyful	K2
The warm serge and the rope that goes all round	A2
And day long blessed idleness beside	A2
Let's see what the urchin's fit for that came next	A2
Not overmuch their way I must confess	E3
Such a to do They tried me with their books	F3
Lord they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste	A2
Flower o' the clove	S2
All the Latin I construe is amo I love	S2
But mind you when a boy starves in the streets	U
Eight years together as my fortune was	G3
Watching folk's faces to know who will fling	H3
The bit of half stripped grape bunch he desires	I3
And who will curse or kick him for his pains	J3
Which gentleman processional and fine	K3
Holding a candle to the Sacrament	A2
Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch	I2
The droppings of the wax to sell again	V2
Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped	A2
How say I nay which dog bites which lets drop	L3
His bone from the heap of offal in the street	A2
Why soul and sense of him grow sharp alike	M3
He learns the look of things and none the less	E3
For admonition from the hunger pinch	I2
I had a store of such remarks be sure	D3
Which after I found leisure turned to use	N3
I drew men's faces on my copy books	F3
Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge	O3
Joined legs and arms to the long music notes	P3
Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's	Q3
And made a string of pictures of the world	A2
Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun	G2
On the wall the bench the door The monks looked black	R3
Nay quoth the Prior turn him out d'ye say	A2
In no wise Lose a crow and catch a lark	S3
What if at last we get our man of parts	T3
We Carmelites like those Camaldolese	T3
And Preaching Friars to do our church up fine	K3
And put the front on it that ought to be	K
And hereupon he bade me daub away	A2
Thank you my head being crammed the walls a blank	U3
Never was such prompt disemburdening	U3
First every sort of monk the black and white	A2
I drew them fat and lean then folk at church	I2
From good old gossips waiting to confess	T3
Their cribs of barrel droppings candle ends	T3
To the breathless fellow at the altar foot	A2
Fresh from his murder safe and sitting there	D2
With the little children round him in a row	Y
Of admiration half for his beard and half	S2
For that white anger of his victim's son	T2
Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm	V3
Signing himself with the other because of Christ	A2
Whose sad face on the cross sees only this	T3
After the passion of a thousand years	T3
Till some poor girl her apron o'er her head	A2
Which the intense eyes looked through came at eve	S2
On tiptoe said a word dropped in a loaf	S2
Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers	T3
The brute took growling prayed and so was gone	W3
I painted all then cried 'Tis ask and have	S2
Choose for more's ready laid the ladder flat	A2
And showed my covered bit of cloister wall	K2
The monks closed in a circle and praised loud	A2
Till checked taught what to see and not to see	K
Being simple bodies That's the very man	X3
Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog	U3
That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes	T3
To care about his asthma it's the life	S2
But there my triumph's straw fire flared and funked	A2
Their betters took their turn to see and say	A2
The Prior and the learned pulled a face	T3
And stopped all that in no time How what's here	Y3
Quite from the mark of painting bless us all	K2
Faces arms legs and bodies like the true	T
As much as pea and pea it's devil's game	Z3
Your business is not to catch men with show	Y
With homage to the perishable clay	A2
But lift them over it ignore it all	K2
Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh	I2
Your business is to paint the souls of men	V2
Man's soul and it's a fire smoke no it's not	A2
It's vapour done up like a new born babe	A4
In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth	B4
It's well what matters talking it's the soul	K2
Give us no more of body than shows soul	K2
Here's Giotto with his Saint a praising God	A2
That sets us praising why not stop with him	C4
Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head	A2
With wonder at lines colours and what not	A2
Paint the soul never mind the legs and arms	T3
Rub all out try at it a second time	C3
Oh that white smallish female with the breasts	T3
She's just my niece Herodias I would say	A2
Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off	S2
Have it all out Now is this sense I ask	U3
A fine way to paint soul by painting body	A2
So ill the eye can't stop there must go further	P2
And can't fare worse Thus yellow does for white	A2
When what you put for yellow's simply black	U3
And any sort of meaning looks intense	T3
When all beside itself means and looks nought	A2
Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn	D4
Left foot and right foot go a double step	E4
Make his flesh liker and his soul more like	U3
Both in their order Take the prettiest face	T3
The Prior's niece patron saint is it so pretty	A2
You can't discover if it means hope fear	F4
Sorrow or joy won't beauty go with these	T3
Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue	T
Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash	I2
And then add soul and heighten them three fold	A2
Or say there's beauty with no soul at all	K2
I never saw it put the case the same	Z3
If you get simple beauty and nought else	T3
You get about the best thing God invents	T3
That's somewhat and you'll find the soul you have missed	A2
Within yourself when you return him thanks	T3
Rub all out Well well there's my life in short	A2
And so the thing has gone on ever since	T3
I'm grown a man no doubt I've broken bounds	T3
You should not take a fellow eight years old	A2
And make him swear to never kiss the girls	T3
I'm my own master paint now as I please	T3
Having a friend you see in the Corner house	T3
Lord it's fast holding by the rings in front	A2
Those great rings serve more purposes than just	A2
To plant a flag in or tie up a horse	T3
And yet the old schooling sticks the old grave eyes	T3
Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work	U3
The heads shake still It's art's decline my son	T2
You're not of the true painters great and old	A2
Brother Angelico's the man you'll find	A2
Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer	F4
Fag on at flesh you'll never make the third	A2
Flower o' the pine	K3
You keep your mistr manners and I'll stick to mine	K3
I'm not the third then bless us they must know	Y
Don't you think they're the likeliest to know	Y
They with their Latin So I swallow my rage	G4
Clench my teeth suck my lips in tight and paint	A2
To please them sometimes do and sometimes don't	A2
For doing most there's pretty sure to come	H4
A turn some warm eve finds me at my saints	T3
A laugh a cry the business of the world	A2
Flower o' the peach	I2
Death for us all and his own life for each	I2
And my whole soul revolves the cup runs over	P2
The world and life's too big to pass for a dream	I4
And I do these wild things in sheer despite	A2
And play the fooleries you catch me at	A2
In pure rage The old mill horse out at grass	T3
After hard years throws up his stiff heels so	Y
Although the miller does not preach to him	C4
The only good of grass is to make chaff	S2
What would men have Do they like grass or no	Y
May they or mayn't they all I want's the thing	U3
Settled for ever one way As it is	T3
You tell too many lies and hurt yourself	S2
You don't like what you only like too much	I2
You do like what if given you at your word	A2
You find abundantly detestable	K2
For me I think I speak as I was taught	A2
I always see the garden and God there	D2
A making man's wife and my lesson learned	A2
The value and significance of flesh	I2
I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards	T3
	-
You understand me I'm a beast I know	Y
But see now why I see as certainly	K2
As that the morning star's about to shine	K3
What will hap some day We've a youngster here	Y3
Comes to our convent studies what I do	T
Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop	L3
His name is Guidi he'll not mind the monks	T3
They call him Hulking Tom he lets them talk	U3
He picks my practice up he'll paint apace	T3
I hope so though I never live so long	U3
I know what's sure to follow You be judge	J4
You speak no Latin more than I belike	U3
However you're my man you've seen the world	A2
The beauty and the wonder and the power	P2
The shapes of things their colours lights and shades	T3
Changes surprises and God made it all	K2
For what Do you feel thankful ay or no	Y
For this fair town's face yonder river's line	K3
The mountain round it and the sky above	S2
Much more the figures of man woman child	A2
These are the frame to What's it all about	A2
To be passed over despised or dwelt upon	K4
Wondered at oh this last of course you say	A2
But why not do as well as say paint these	T3
Just as they are careless what comes of it	A2
God's works paint any one and count it crime	C3
To let a truth slip Don't object His works	T3
Are here already nature is complete	A2
Suppose you reproduce her which you can't	A2
There's no advantage you must beat her then	V2
For don't you mark we're made so that we love	S2
First when we see them painted things we have passed	A2
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see	K2
And so they are better painted better to us	T3
Which is the same thing Art was given for that	A2
God uses us to help each other so	Y
Lending our minds out Have you noticed now	Y2
Your cullion's hanging face A bit of chalk	U3
And trust me but you should though How much more	B2
If I drew higher things with the same truth	L4
That were to take the Prior's pulpit place	T3
Interpret God to all of you Oh oh	Y
It makes me mad to see what men shall do	T
And we in our graves This world's no blot for us	T3
Nor blank it means intensely and means good	A2
To find its meaning is my meat and drink	U3
Ay but you don't so instigate to prayer	D2
Strikes in the Prior when your meaning's plain	M4
It does not say to folk remember matins	T3
Or mind you fast next Friday Why for this	T3
What need of art at all A skull and bones	T3
Two bits of stick nailed crosswise or what's best	A2
A bell to chime the hour with does as well	K2
I painted a Saint Laurence six months since	T3
At Prato splashed the fresco in fine style	K2
How looks my painting now the scaffold's down	G2
I ask a brother Hugely he returns	T3
Already not one phiz of your three slaves	T3
Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side	A2
But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content	A2
The pious people have so eased their own	N4
With coming to say prayers there in a rage	G4
We get on fast to see the bricks beneath	O4
Expect another job this time next year	F4
For pity and religion grow i' the crowd	A2
Your painting serves its purpose Hang the fools	T3
	-
That is you'll not mistake an idle word	A2
Spoke in a huff by a poor monk God wot	A2
Tasting the air this spicy night which turns	T3
The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine	K3
Oh the church knows don't misreport me now	Y2
It's natural a poor monk out of bounds	T3
Should have his apt word to excuse himself	S2
And hearken how I plot to make amends	T3
I have bethought me I shall paint a piece	T3
There's for you Give me six months then go see	T3
Something in Sant' Ambrogio's Bless the nuns	T3
They want a cast o' my office I shall paint	A2
God in the midst Madonna and her babe	A4
Ringed by a bowery flowery angel brood	A2
Lilies and vestments and white faces sweet	A2
As puff on puff of grated orris root	A2
When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer	P2
And then i' the front of course a saint or two	T
Saint John' because he saves the Florentines	T3
Saint Ambrose who puts down in black and white	A2
The convent's friends and gives them a long day	A2
And Job I must have him there past mistake	U3
The man of Uz and Us without the z	T3
Painters who need his patience Well all these	T3
Secured at their devotion up shall come	H4
Out of a corner when you least expect	A2
As one by a dark stair into a great light	A2
Music and talking who but Lippo I	N
Mazed motionless and moonstruck I'm the man	X3
Back I shrink what is this I see and hear	Y3
I caught up with my monk's things by mistake	U3
My old serge gown and rope that goes all round	A2
I in this presence this pure company	T3
Where's a hole where's a corner for escape	P4
Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing	U3
Forward puts out a soft palm Not so fast	A2
Addresses the celestial presence nay	A2
He made you and devised you after all	K2
Though he's none of you Could Saint John there draw	Q4
His camel hair make up a painting brush	I2
We come to brother Lippo for all that	A2
Iste perfecit opus So all smile	K2
I shuffle sideways with my blushing face	T3
Under the cover of a hundred wings	T3
Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay	A2
And play hot cockles all the doors being shut	A2
Till wholly unexpected in there pops	T3
The hothead husband Thus I scuttle off	S2
To some safe bench behind not letting go	Y
The palm of her the little lily thing	U3
That spoke the good word for me in the nick	U3
Like the Prior's niece Saint Lucy I would say	A2
And so all's saved for me and for the church	I2
A pretty picture gained Go six months hence	T3
Your hand sir and good bye no lights no lights	T3
The street's hushed and I know my own way back	U3
Don't fear me There's the grey beginning Zooks	T3

Robert Browning

Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme

Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation

<< A Lover's Quarrel Poem Up At A Villa -- Down In The City Poem>>

Write your comment about Fra Lippo Lippi poem by Robert Browning

Best Poems of Robert Browning

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 86 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

Wonderful Women
by Umaru Kanneh Boima
Freedom To Scratch In Peace
by Olute Aete
Happy New Year
by Felix Menda
Human Beings
by Dana Graslie
Lust
by Wisdom Greatness
An Isolated Tree's Song
by Sayeed Abubakar
A Strange Boy
by Sayeed Abubakar
O Soil
by Sayeed Abubakar
No War, No War-monger
by Sayeed Abubakar
Night's Town
by Sayeed Abubakar

Popular Poets

1. Emily Dickinson(2414 poems)
2. Madison Julius Cawein(1231 poems)
3. Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1136 poems)
4. William Wordsworth(1016 poems)
5. Robert Burns(986 poems)
6. Edgar Albert Guest(945 poems)
7. Thomas Moore(849 poems)
8. Robert Service(831 poems)