Poem written on perambulating the Papal Palace at Avignon and discovering that one artist, enraptured with his mirror, had cloned each Holy Father as spitting-image of himself
Sic transit gloria! grand popes behold!
And captured in one shape, one skin, one mold;
Though separate in year and hour and place,
See separate minds and will caught in one face.
Hung here pontifical in palace dark
Their individual flints now struck? one spark!
Their separate sins now painted to one sin,
A lean chin here, a fat one there? one chin!
Twelve sets of eyes, but all do similar shine,
Because the artist here pomped up a shrine
And propped the popes along his ego’s shelf
With each a fond remembrance of—himself!
Same hair, same ears, same brows, same teeth, same nose,
And though their robes are their’s, why, look—his clothes!
O, modest artist, come! let’s see your face
In race of papal flesh, all made one race;
This rosy lobe, that nostril flared to snuff,
This cheek grown wine with port (but not enough!),
That lost-from-thinking mouth, this idiot smile—
Not good enough? then yours, greased up with guile.
Lend us your tongue from which a wench’s mash
Drips down into your palm and turns to—cash.
Your eyebrows borrow—raised in irony—
Your skin! ten years more fair than it should be.
Great artist, brightly mirrored, grand, alone,
Now humbly paint your puff on pontiff’s throne.
Now Alexander be! or—steal more gall
To use as tincture-tint—be Peter, Paul!
Now Pius Third or Fourth. No! Ambrose First.
Your face upon twelve sires won’t stop your thirst!
So on you go and in a painting storm
Make old flesh yours, to keep your ego warm.
And should some criticize your bold disgrace—
Assembly-line of popes, masked with your face,
Great artist, how you’d smirk, and find no fault
With dozens of old bones crammed in one vault
And worried to a dust, all difference flown.
God!
How much alike the separate saints have grown!