A Toccata of Galuppi’s.
1.
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!
— St. 1. Galuppi, Baldassaro (rather Baldassare): b. 1703, in Burano, an island near Venice, and thence called Buranello; d. 1785; a distinguished composer, whose operas, about fifty in number, and mostly comic, were at one time the most popular in Italy; Galuppi is regarded as the father of the Italian comic opera.
2.
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?
— St. 2. Saint Mark’s: see Ruskin’s description of this glorious basilica, in ‘The Stones of Venice’.
3.
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.
4.
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?
5.
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?
6.
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?