THE KEY-BOARD FIVE-AND-THIRTY black slaves, All their duty but to sing For their Queen's delight, When she quits her palace, Dusky slaves and pallid, Ebon slaves and white, How you sang to-night! Ah, the throats of thunder! Ah, the dulcet lips! Silent, silent, silent, All your voices now; Was it then her life alone Did your life endow? Waken, throats of thunder! Waken, dulcet lips! Touched to immortality By her finger-tips. William Watson (1858 Toccata of Galuppi's 2947 OCCATA OF GALUPPI'S assare, this is very sad to find! conceive you; it would prove me deaf and ake your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy ith your old music, and here's all the good once thus at Venice where the merchants gs, s is, where the Doges used to wed the sea sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by you call ridge with houses on it, where they kept f England-it's as if I saw it all. le take their pleasure when the sea was y? begun at midnight, burning ever to mid è up fresh adventures for the morrow, do a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its superb abundance where a man might base graceful of them-they'd break talk off r mask's black velvet-he, to finger on his nd played Toccatas, stately at the clavi What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh, Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions -"Must we die?" 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! "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, 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. Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned: "Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned! The soul, doubtless, is immortal-where a soul can be dis cerned. Abt Vogler 2949 ce: you know physics, something of ge your pastime; souls shall rise in their de read extinction,-you'll not die, it cannot nd her people, merely born to bloom and ey bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were s left, I wonder, when the kissing had to So you creak it, and I want the heart en, with such hair, too-what's become of nd brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and Robert Browning [1812-1889] ABT VOGLER BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL STRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION) he structure brave, the manifold music I organ obey, calling its keys to their work, slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solo 1 gels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, ptile, fly,-alien of end and of aim, h from the other heaven-high, hell-deep re to sight at once as he named the ineffable m a palace straight, to pleasure the princess Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise! Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise! And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to ma to soul tch Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky: Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far. |