I, the Last Duchess

I am that Duchess painted on the wall,

as if I’m still alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there I still stand.

The painting ordered for my husband’s glance

But jalousie was all it would advance.

He brought a stranger here to cherish me

Entranced was Pandolf, wouldn’t let me be

Each stroke reflecting more than just a glow

But little did I see and little know

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not

my husband’s presence only, called that spot

Of joy into my cheek: perhaps

Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps

Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff

Was courtesy, I thought, and cause enough

for calling up that spot of joy. I had

A heart—how would he say?—too soon made glad,

too easily impressed; that I would liked whate’er

I looked on, and that my looks went everywhere.

I am that Duchess painted on the wall,

as if I’m still alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there I still stand.

The painting ordered for my husband’s glance

But jalousie was all it would advance.

Then Pandolf’s hands would start to shake, he’d call

For me to steady him – a tale so tall

He pinned me down, the shrew and reckless eel,

Another’s wife and virtue he would steal.

With brush and paint sarcastic he would leave

the traces of his deed and lust. Deceive

he did my husband - questioning my blush

Until my loved one could not bear and thus

his lovely hands above my pearls he thrust

and squeezed my life and let me turn to dust

He claimed the fault was mine, he doesn’t greave

But I do know my love do just deceive

He suckles comfort on a straw so thin

It breaks no sooner than new love begin

His hurt is older than his retched name

So pass it on to just another dame

Who equally will sit for portraits dim

I didn’t care for it, I cared for him.