The taciturn one,his few words pithy and cryptic,
Cosimo shuns the ostentatious, the indiscreet,
For the secrecy of profitable purpose.
His dead twin stands behind him in the mirror,
Watches as his hand signs another document,
Ambition and caution equally immense.
Born with the soul of a hundred-year-old,
He takes the diamond as his emblem,
And patiently prudently crafts a domain
Physical and metaphysical, eternal and doomed.
He makes money as shamans make rain.
Accused of tyranny,avarice,usury and all,
Of seeking to turn republic into princedom,
And elevating his dynasty above the city.
He sits and thinks, in his fortress palazzo,
Never troubling to defend himself,assured
That he is loved as much as resented,
Indispensable father to a fractious brood.
Can the world be healed with florins and ducats?
The excellent qualities of money are such
That it can work miracles and teach in parables
And even, with right ceremony,raise the dead.
To God Himself the banker lends with interest,
Trading marble and mosaic for salvation,
The humble black-clad rider on a mule,
Half-hidden in the entourage of the Magi.
Beauty’s commodity serves all in different kinds;
The patron,making play with piety and glory,
The Church gladly counting its receipts.
Gold pays for prayers;for talismanic magic,
Precious and rare as the rhinoceros horn.
Old,sick,crying out in gout’s hell at least touch,
Cosimo sits propped up in his private chapel,
Alone in candle-haloed dark,hearing Mass
Beneath the altar with its costly art and relics,
And the secret tunnel to escape down
Should some audacious assassin dare strike.
There is still time to commission a translation
Of Plato, and buy,perhaps, a little more life,
Do a deal,reach a compromise,strike a bargain.
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