| 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 St. Marks 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 came 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
Till 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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