A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S
O Galuppi, Baldassare, 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,5
Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?
Aye, 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?10
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?15
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?"20
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! [25]
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"