“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Introduction

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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Summary

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Themes

• 

  Greed, Vanity, and Materialism

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• 

  Death and Decay

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  The Lasting Power of Art

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”

• Lines 1-5

  Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
  Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
  Nephews—sons mine...ah God, I know not! Well—
  She, men would have to be your mother once,
  Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 6-9

  What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
  Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
  And as she died so must we die ourselves,
  And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 10-15

  Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
  In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
  Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
  "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
  Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
  And so, about this tomb of mine.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 15-19

  I fought
  With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
  —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
  Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
  He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 20-24

  Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
  One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
  And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
  And up into the aery dome where live
  The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 25-30

  And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
  And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
  With those nine columns round me, two and two,
  The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
  Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
  As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 31-35

  —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
  Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
  Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
  Draw close: that conflagration of my church
  —What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 36-41

  My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
  The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
  Drop water gently till the surface sink,
  And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
  Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
  And corded up in a tight olive-frail,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 42-44

  Some lump, ah God, of 
  lapis lazuli,
  Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
  Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 45-50

  Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
  That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
  So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
  Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
  Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
  For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 51-55

  Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
  Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
  Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
  'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
  Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 56-62

  The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
  Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
  Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
  The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
  Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
  Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
  And Moses with the tables...

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 62-67

  but I know
  Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
  Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
  To revel down my villas while I gasp
  Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
  Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 68-72

  Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
  'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve
  My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
  One block, pure green as a pistachio nut,
  There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world—

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 73-75

  And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
  Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
  And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 76-79

  —That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
  Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
  No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—
  Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 80-84

  And then how I shall lie through centuries,
  And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
  And see God made and eaten all day long,
  And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
  Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 85-90

  For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
  Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
  I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
  And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
  And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
  Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 91-96

  And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
  Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
  About the life before I lived this life,
  And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
  Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
  Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 97-101

  And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
  And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
  —Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
  No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
  Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 102-105

  All 
  lapis
  , all, sons! Else I give the Pope
  My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
  Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
  They glitter like your mother's for my soul,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 106-111

  Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
  Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
  With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
  And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
  That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
  To comfort me on my entablature

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 112-115

  Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
  "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
  For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
  To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 115-118

  Stone—
  Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
  As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
  And no more 
  lapis
   to delight the world!

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 119-125

  Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
  But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
  —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
  And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
  That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
  Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
  As still he envied me, so fair she was!

  

  

  

  

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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Symbols

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  The Stones

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  The Bishop's Tomb

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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Irony

  

  

  

  

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• Imagery

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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• Aphorism

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Parallelism

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Vanity
• Nephews—sons mine
• Fair
• Thence
• Ye
• State-chamber
• Saint Praxed's
• Niche
• Cozened
• Care
• Shrewd
• Carrion
• The pulpit o' the epistle-side
• Choir
• Aery
• Basalt
• Tabernacle
• Pulse
• Paltry
• Onion-stone
• Conflagration
• Aught
• Corded up in a tight olive-frail
• Lapis lazuli
• Bequeathed
• Villas
• Frascati
• Jesu Church
• Shuttle
• Fleet
• Goeth
• Antique-black
• Frieze
• Bas-relief
• Pans and Nymphs
• Ye wot of
• Perchance
• Some tripod, thyrsus
• Twitch
• Tables
• Ye mark me not!
• Child of my bowels
• Revel
• Travertine
• Tomb-top
• Jasper
• Stand pledged to
• Tully
• Ulpian
• The blessed mutter of the mass
• God made and eaten
• Stupefying
• Dying in state
• Crook
• Mortcloth
• Great laps and folds of sculptor's-work
• Yon tapers dwindle
• Agate urns
• ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
• Impoverished
• A vizor and a Term
• Lynx
• Entablature
• Gritstone, a-crumble!
• Altar-ministrants
• Leers

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Speaker

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”

More “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Resources

• External Resources

  • Browning's Reception — Read a Victorian reviewer's take on Browning, and learn more about how Browning's contemporaries understood his poetry.

  • The Poem Aloud — Watch an actor performing this dramatic monologue as if it were a scene from a play.

  • The Browning Museum — Visit the website of Baylor University's Browning Museum, an archive and library devoted to Browning and his wife and fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  • A Brief Biography — Visit the Poetry Foundation to learn more about Browning's life and work.

  • Browning's Legacy — Read an article exploring how Browning's poetic reputation has changed since his death.

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