1. ۱Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
2. ۲I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
3. ۳But altho' I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!
4. ۴
5. ۵Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.
6. ۶What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,
7. ۷Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?
8. ۸
9. ۹Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by ... what you call
10. ۱۰... Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
11. ۱۱I was never out of England--it's as if I saw it all.
12. ۱۲
13. ۱۳Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
14. ۱۴Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
15. ۱۵When they make up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?
16. ۱۶
17. ۱۷Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,--
18. ۱۸On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
19. ۱۹O'er the ...'s superb abundance where a man might base his head?
20. ۲۰
21. ۲۱Well, and it was graceful of them: they'd break talk off and afford
22. ۲۲--She, to bite her mask's black velvet--he, to finger on his sword,
23. ۲۳While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?
24. ۲۴
25. ۲۵What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished sigh on sigh,
26. ۲۶Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions--"Must we die?"
27. ۲۷Those commiserating sevenths--"Life might last! we can but try!"
28. ۲۸
29. ۲۹"Were you happy?"--"Yes."--"And are you still as happy?"--"Yes. And you?"
30. ۳۰--"Then, more kisses !"--"DidI_ stop them, when, a million seemed so few?"
31. ۳۱Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!
32. ۳۲
33. ۳۳So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
34. ۳۴"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and ...!
35. ۳۵I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"
36. ۳۶
37. ۳۷Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
38. ۳۸Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
39. ۳۹Death, stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.
40. ۴۰
41. ۴۱But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
42. ۴۲While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
43. ۴۳In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every nerve.
44. ۴۴
45. ۴۵Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:
46. ۴۶"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.
47. ۴۷The soul, doubtless, is immortal--where a soul can be discerned.
48. ۴۸
49. ۴۹"Yours, for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
50. ۵۰Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
51. ۵۱Butterflies may dread extinction,--you'll not die, it cannot be!
52. ۵۲
53. ۵۳"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
54. ۵۴Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
55. ۵۵What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
56. ۵۶
57. ۵۷"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
58. ۵۸Dear dead women, with such hair, too--what's become of all the gold
59. ۵۹Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.