ÀҾ˹éÒ˹ѧÊ×Í
PDF
ePub

Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals,

And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles;

One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,

And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals:

Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the

fife.

Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S.

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 take your meaning, 't is 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. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

III.

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 't is 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

midday

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 your 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 her 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.

OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE.

I.

THE morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm March day,
No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled
In the valley beneath where, white and wide
And washed by the morning water-gold,
Florence lay out on the mountain-side.

II.

River and bridge and street and square
Lay mine, as much at my beck and call,
Through the live translucent bath of air,
As the sights in a magic crystal ball.
And of all I saw and of all I praised,

The most to praise and the best to see,
Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised:
But why did it more than startle me?

III.

Giotto, how, with that soul of yours,

Could you play me false who loved you so? Some slights if a certain heart endures

Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know! I' faith, I perceive not why I should care To break a silence that suits them best, But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear When I find a Giotto join the rest.

« ¡è͹˹éÒ´Óà¹Ô¹¡ÒõèÍ
 »