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 came tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.
But when I sit down to reason,—think to take my stand nor swerve
Till 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—