| 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, ’tis with
such a heavy mind!
|
| 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?
|
| 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.
|
| 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?
|
| 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?
|
| 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?
|
| 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!’
|
| ‘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!
|
| 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!’
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
| ‘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!
|
| ‘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 stoop?
|
| ‘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.
|
| Robert Browning
| Classic Poems |
| |
|
[ A Toccata of Galuppi's ] [ Epilogue to Asolando ] [ Confessions ] [ Home Thoughts from Abroad ] [ Love among the Ruins ] [ Two in the Campagna ] [ Meeting at Night ] [ Love in a Life ] [ Home Thoughts from the Sea ] [ The Lost Leader ] [ My Last Duchess ] |
