Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!

Mazed, motionless and moon-struck I'm the man!

Back I shrink-what is this I see and hear?

I, caught up with my monk's things by mistake,
My old serge gown and rope that goes all round,
I, in this presence, this pure company !
Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape?
Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing
Forward, puts out a soft palm- "Not so fast!"

Addresses the celestial presence, “nay ·

He made you and devised you, after all,

Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there, draw―
His camel-hair make up a painting-brush?

We come to brother Lippo for all that,
Iste perfecit opus!" So, all smile -

I shuffle sideways with my blushing face
Under the cover of a hundred wings

Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay
And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut,
Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops

The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off

To some safe bench behind, not letting go

The palm of her, the little lily thing

That spoke the good word for me in the nick,
Like the Prior's niece... Saint Lucy, I would say.
And so all's saved for me, and for the church
A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence!
Your hand, sir, and good bye: no lights, no lights!
The street's hushed, and I know my own way back
Don't fear me! There's the gray beginning. Zooks!

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S.

1.

Он, Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!

I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;

But although I give you credit, 'tis with such a heavy

mind!

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 St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

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,

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?

7.

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths dimin

ished, sigh on sigh,

Told them something? Those suspensions, those solu

tions "Must we die?"

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 an

"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave

and gay!

I can always leave off talking, when I hear a master

play."

10.

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

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.

12.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house

"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned!

The soul, doubtless, is immortal - where a soul can be

discerned.

13.

"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 !

14.

"As for Venice and its people, merely born to bloom and

drop,

Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to

stop?