"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" is one of Robert Browning's dramatic monologues (poems written in the voice of a character, like speeches from a play). The speaker here is a corrupt old Italian Renaissance bishop, who, on his death bed, can think only about the lavish tomb he wants his many illegitimate sons to build for him. Having spent his life seeking status, wealth, and power, he can't face the fact that he'll lose them all in death; his obsession with his tomb's design is only a cover for his terror of decay and his own empty soul. Selfishness, greed, and hypocrisy, the poem suggests, become their own punishment. Browning first published this poem in his 1845 collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.
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The Full Text of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”
Rome, 15—
1Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
2Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
3Nephews—sons mine...ah God, I know not! Well—
4She, men would have to be your mother once,
5Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
6What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
7Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
8And as she died so must we die ourselves,
9And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
10Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
11In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
12Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
13"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
14Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
15And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
16With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
17—Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
18Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
19He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
20Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
21One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
22And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
23And up into the aery dome where live
24The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
25And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
26And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
27With those nine columns round me, two and two,
28The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
29Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
30As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
31—Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
32Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
33Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
34Draw close: that conflagration of my church
35—What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
36My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
37The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
38Drop water gently till the surface sink,
39And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
40Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
41And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
42Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
43Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
44Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...
45Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
46That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
47So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
48Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
49Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
50For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
51Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
52Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
53Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
54'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
55Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
56The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
57Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
58Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
59The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
60Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
61Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
62And Moses with the tables...but I know
63Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
64Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
65To revel down my villas while I gasp
66Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
67Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
68Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
69'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve
70My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
71One block, pure green as a pistachio nut,
72There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world—
73And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
74Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
75And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
76—That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
77Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
78No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—
79Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
80And then how I shall lie through centuries,
81And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
82And see God made and eaten all day long,
83And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
84Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
85For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
86Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
87I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
88And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
89And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
90Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:
91And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
92Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
93About the life before I lived this life,
94And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
95Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
96Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
97And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
98And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
99—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
100No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
101Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
102All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
103My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
104Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
105They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
106Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
107Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
108With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
109And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
110That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
111To comfort me on my entablature
112Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
113"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
114For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
115To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
116Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
117As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
118And no more lapis to delight the world!
119Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
120But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
121—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
122And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
123That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
124Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
125As still he envied me, so fair she was!
The Full Text of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”
Rome, 15—
1Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
2Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
3Nephews—sons mine...ah God, I know not! Well—
4She, men would have to be your mother once,
5Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
6What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
7Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
8And as she died so must we die ourselves,
9And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
10Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
11In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
12Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
13"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
14Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
15And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
16With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
17—Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
18Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
19He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
20Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
21One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
22And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
23And up into the aery dome where live
24The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
25And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
26And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
27With those nine columns round me, two and two,
28The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
29Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
30As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
31—Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
32Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
33Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
34Draw close: that conflagration of my church
35—What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
36My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
37The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
38Drop water gently till the surface sink,
39And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
40Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
41And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
42Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
43Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
44Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...
45Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
46That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
47So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
48Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
49Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
50For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
51Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
52Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
53Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
54'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
55Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
56The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
57Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
58Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
59The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
60Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
61Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
62And Moses with the tables...but I know
63Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
64Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
65To revel down my villas while I gasp
66Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
67Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
68Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
69'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve
70My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
71One block, pure green as a pistachio nut,
72There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world—
73And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
74Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
75And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
76—That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
77Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
78No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—
79Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
80And then how I shall lie through centuries,
81And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
82And see God made and eaten all day long,
83And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
84Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
85For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
86Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
87I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
88And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
89And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
90Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:
91And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
92Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
93About the life before I lived this life,
94And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
95Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
96Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
97And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
98And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
99—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
100No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
101Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
102All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
103My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
104Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
105They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
106Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
107Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
108With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
109And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
110That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
111To comfort me on my entablature
112Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
113"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
114For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
115To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
116Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
117As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
118And no more lapis to delight the world!
119Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
120But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
121—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
122And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
123That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
124Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
125As still he envied me, so fair she was!
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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Summary
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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Themes
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Greed, Vanity, and Materialism
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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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”
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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! -
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. -
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. -
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! -
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: -
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. -
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! -
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, -
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... -
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! -
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? -
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... -
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! -
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— -
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? -
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! -
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! -
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: -
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, -
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. -
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, -
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 -
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! -
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! -
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
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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
-
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Speaker
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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”
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More “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Resources
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External Resources
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Browning's Reception — Read a Victorian reviewer's take on Browning, and learn more about how Browning's contemporaries understood his poetry.
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The Poem Aloud — Watch an actor performing this dramatic monologue as if it were a scene from a play.
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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.
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A Brief Biography — Visit the Poetry Foundation to learn more about Browning's life and work.
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Browning's Legacy — Read an article exploring how Browning's poetic reputation has changed since his death.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Browning
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