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But in a row and, going, turn your backs

-Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,

And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers--
Old Gandolf at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S.

I.

O 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!

II.

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?

III.

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.

IV.

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?

V.

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?

VI.

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?

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VII.

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,

Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions— 66 'Must we die?'

Those commiserating sevenths-“ Life might last! we can but try!"

VIII.

"Were you happy?"—"Yes."-"And are you still as happy?" "Yes. And you?

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-"Then, more kisses!"-" Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few ?"

Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

IX.

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!

X.

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.

XI.

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 through every nerve.

XII.

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:

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'Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.

The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.

XIII.

"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 ! XIV.

“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 stop ?

XV.

"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.

HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY.

I ONLY knew one poet in my life:

And this, or something like it, was his way.

You saw go up and down Valladolid,

A man of mark, to know next time you saw.
His very serviceable suit of black

Was courtly once and conscientious still,

And many might have worn it, though none did :

The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads,

Had purpose, and the ruff, significance.

He walked, and tapped the pavement with his cane,
Scenting the world, looking it full in face :

An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.

They turned up, now, the alley by the church,

That leads no whither; now, they breathed themselves
On the main promenade just at the wrong time.
You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat,
Making a peaked shade blacker than itself
Against the single window spared some house
Intact yet with its moldered Moorish work,-
Or else surprise the ferrule of his stick

Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks
Of some new shop a-building, French and fine.
He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade,
The man who slices lemons into drink,
The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys
That volunteer to help him turn its winch.
He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye,
And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string,
And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.
He took such cognizance of men and things,
If any beat a horse, you felt he saw;
If any cursed a woman, he took note;
Yet stared at nobody,—you stared at him,
And found, less to your pleasure than surprise,
He seemed to know you and expect as much.
So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed,
It marked the shameful and notorious fact

We had among us, not so much a spy,

As a recording chief-inquisitor,

The town's true master if the town but knew!
We merely kept a governor for form,

While this man walked about and took account
Of all thought, said and acted, then went home,
And wrote it fully to our Lord the King

Who has an itch to know things, he knows why,
And reads them in his bedroom of a night.
Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch,
A tang of... well, it was not wholly ease,
As back into your mind the man's look came.
Stricken in years a little, such a brow

His eyes

had to live under !-clear as flint
On either side o' the formidable nose
Curved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw.
Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate?
When altogether old B. disappeared,

And young C. got his mistress,-was't our friend,
His letter to the King, that did it all?

What paid the bloodless man for so much pains?
Our Lord the King has favorites manifold,
And shifts his ministry some once a month :
Our city gets new governors at whiles,-
But never word or sign, that I could hear,
Notified, to this man about the streets,
The King's approval of those letters conned
The last thing duly at the dead of night.
Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord,
Exhorting when none heard-" Beseech me not !
Too far above my people,- beneath me!

I set the watch,-how should the people know?
Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!"
Was some such understanding 'twixt the two?

I found no truth in one report at least— That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, You found he ate his supper in a room Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall, And twenty naked girls to change his plate! Pour man, he lived another kind of life

In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge, Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise! The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat, Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back, Playing a decent cribbage with his maid

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