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I
Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and
blind;
But although I give you credit, 'tis with such a heavy
mind!
II
Here you come with your old music, and here's all the
good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice, where the
merchants were the kings,
Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the
sea with rings?
III
Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched
by... what you call
... Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept
the carnival;
I was never out of England -it's as if I saw it all!
IV
Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was
warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to
mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do
you say?
V
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,
-
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower
on its bed,
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might
base his head?
VI
Well (and it was graceful of them) they'd break talk off
and afford
- She, to bite her mask's black velvet, he to finger on
his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the
clavichord?
VII
What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths
diminished sigh on sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions
-"Must we die?"
Those commiserating sevenths -"Life might last! we can
but try!"
VIII
"Were you happy?" -"Yes." -"And are you still as happy?"
-"Yes -and you?"
- "Then, more kisses!" -"Did I stop them, when a million
seemed so few?"
Hark -the dominant's persistence till it must be
answered to!
IX
So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I
dare say!
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and
gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master
play!"
X
Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time,
one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as
well undone,
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see
the sun.
XI
But when I sit down to reason, -think to take my stand
nor swerve
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close
reserve,
In you come with your cold music, till I creep thro'
every nerve.
XII
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house
was burned -
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what
Venice earned!
The soul, doubtless, is immortal -where a soul can be
discerned.
XIII
"Yours for instance: you know physics, something of
geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their
degree;
Butterflies may dread extinction, -you'll not die, it
cannot be!
XIV
"As for Venice and its people, merely born to bloom and
drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly
were the crop:
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to
stop?
XV
"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart
to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too -what's become of
all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and
grown old.
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