  So ends your fingers’ fine intrigue! The netted guile! Nor yonder sat he In pump and frill who made the gigue, Your Neapolitan Scarlatti. The twilight yields you to me; strange! My dainty sprite, a most rare vision! Well, is it not a wise exchange, Live maid for ghost of dead musician? Yet gently let the shadows troop To darkness; lightly lie the dust on Damon and Chloe, hose and hoop, My bevy of the days Augustan. What led my fancy down the track, Through century-silent, shadowy mazes? Perhaps that foolish bric-À-brac Your pseudo-classic shelf that graces. Or haply something I divined, While on your face I stayed a dweller, Of that fair ancestress—unsigned— It pleases you to name a Kneller; And still your fingers ran the keys, Through quaint encounter, pretty wrangle Light laughter, interspace of ease, Fine turn, and softly-severed tangle, Gigue, minuet, rondo, ritornelle— Quaint jars with rose-leaf memories scented, Stored with glad sound, when life went well, Ere melancholy was invented, When pleasure ran, a rippling tide, And Phillida with Phyllis carolled, Ere Werther yet for Lotte sighed, Or English maids adored Childe Harold; Ere music shook the central heart, Or soared to spheral heights inhuman, Ere Titans stormed the heaven of art, Let by the hammer-welder, Schumann. Ah, well, we sigh beneath the load, We sing our pain, our pride, our passion, And Weltschmerz is the modern mode, But sweet seventeen is still a fashion. Let be a while the Infinite, Those chords with tremulous fervour laden, Where Chopin’s fire and dew unite— I choose instead one mortal maiden. Let sorrow rave, and sadness fret, And all our century’s ailments pester, I am not quite despairful yet— There, at the keyboard, sits a Hester. |
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