[Leonardo da Vinci speaks] 

  

       There's truth in every line that song hath sung.     

       The hand that wrote it's twelve years turned to     

       dust,     

       The brain's become a hollow nothingness—     

       A little grayness lying in a skull;     

       And yet Lorenzo guides my steps to-night     

       Unto my love as truly as in life.     

       Oh wonderful and strange that men should die     

       And, being buried, still should talk with us!     

       When I am free, and future ages come     

       To stand amazed before the girl I loved,     

       Then I will speak with them, say thus and thus,     

       And, though departed, never shall be dead.     

       For this I'll paint her portrait till 'tis done,     

       Singing, like Raphael, from gray dawn to dusk,     

       Pausing to kiss her forehead, lips, throat, eyes,     

       Learning their beauty, where mine own lips touch;     

       So I, like Angelo, with measured stride     

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