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 hothead 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!

NOTES

"Fra Lippo Lippi" is a dramatic monologue which incidentally conveys
the whole story of the occurrence the poem starts from--the seizure
of Fra Lippo by the City Guards, past midnight, in an equivocal
neighborhood--and the lively talk that arose thereupon, outlines the
character and past life of the Florentine artist-monk (1412-1469)
and the subordinate personalities of the group of officers; and
makes all this contribute towards the presentation of Fra Lippo as a
type of the more realistic and secular artist of the Renaissance who
valued flesh, and protested against the ascetic spirit which strove
to isolate the soul.

7. The Carmine: monastery of the Del Carmine friars.