A Toccata Of Galuppi's Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBB A CCC A DED FFF GGG HHH III F FFF F JJJ F F KKK F FFF LLL MMMI | A |
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Oh Galuppi Baldassaro this is very sad to find | B |
I can hardly misconceive you it would prove me deaf and blind | B |
But although I give you credit 'tis with such a heavy mind | B |
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II | A |
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Here you come with your old music and here's all the good it brings | C |
What they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings | C |
Where Saint Mark's is where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings | C |
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III | A |
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Ay because the sea's the street there and 'tis arched by what you call | D |
Shylock's bridge with houses on it where they kept the carnival | E |
I was never out of England it's as if I saw it all | D |
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IV | - |
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Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May | F |
Balls and masks begun at midnight burning ever to mid day | F |
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow do you say | F |
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V | - |
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Was a lady such a lady cheeks so round and lips so red | G |
On her neck the small face buoyant like a bell flower on its bed | G |
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head | G |
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VI | - |
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Well and it was graceful of them they'd break talk off and afford | H |
She to bite her mask's black velvet he to finger on his sword | H |
While you sat and played Toccatas stately at the clavichord | H |
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VII | - |
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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 | - |
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VIII | - |
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Were you happy Yes And are you still as happy Yes and you | I |
Then more kisses Did I stop them when a million seemed so few | I |
Hark the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to | I |
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IX | F |
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So an octave struck the answer Oh they praised you I dare say | F |
Brave Galuppi that was music good alike at grave and gay | F |
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play | F |
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X | F |
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Then they left you for their pleasure till in due time one by one | J |
Some with lives that came to nothing some with deeds as well undone | J |
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun | J |
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XI | F |
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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 thro' every nerve | - |
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XII | F |
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Yes you like a ghostly cricket creaking where a house was burned | K |
Dust and ashes dead and done with Venice spent what Venice earned | K |
The soul doubtless is immortal where a soul can be discerned | K |
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XIII | F |
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Yours for instance you know physics something of geology | F |
Mathematics are your pastime souls shall rise in their degree | F |
Butterflies may dread extinction you'll not die it cannot be | F |
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XIV | - |
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As for Venice and its people merely born to bloom and drop | L |
Here on earth they bore their fruitage mirth and folly were the crop | L |
What of soul was left I wonder when the kissing had to stop | L |
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XV | - |
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Dust and ashes So you creak it and I want the heart to scold | M |
Dear dead women with such hair too what's become of all the gold | M |
Used to hang and brush their bosoms I feel chilly and grown old | M |
Robert Browning
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