Browning's Shorter Poems, page 69 by Robert Browning
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u, it's dear--it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city! Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still--ah, the pity, the pity! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles; 60 One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals: Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle the fife. Oh, a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!
A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S
Oh Galuppi,° Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! °1 I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind; But altho' 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, Where St. Mark's° is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings°? °6
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: °8 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 make 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?
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°? °18
What? Those les