 | Sounds and Sweet Airs |  |
21
A Song of Cesti.
Inscribed to Florence Campbell Perugini.
This claims rare singing—is a song indeed,
Born when love-making was a gentle art
To win a lady's heart
With delicate music, ever beauty's meed
When love and song lived not apart,
And the sad lover eased his pain
Pleading for grace in such a deftly-fashioned strain.
Born when love-making was a gentle art
To win a lady's heart
With delicate music, ever beauty's meed
When love and song lived not apart,
And the sad lover eased his pain
Pleading for grace in such a deftly-fashioned strain.
How lovingly this old Venetian air
Caresses the quaint words, how plaintively
The minors of the key
Sigh with the singer, as in lone despair
He sends on courteous embassy
The winds his Lady's cheek to kiss,
And prays the spirits of love to bring her dreams of bliss!
Caresses the quaint words, how plaintively
The minors of the key
22
He sends on courteous embassy
The winds his Lady's cheek to kiss,
And prays the spirits of love to bring her dreams of bliss!
Love in your Venice was a grave romance,
Cesti, when you made music, and your song
Bears the skilled voice along,
As o'er the rippling waters once perchance
His gondola, gliding among
Dim palaces, a lover true,
Your theme taught with fine craft his mistress how to woo.
Cesti, when you made music, and your song
Bears the skilled voice along,
As o'er the rippling waters once perchance
His gondola, gliding among
Dim palaces, a lover true,
Your theme taught with fine craft his mistress how to woo.
O Padre, did you dream some damsel fair
Would from her balcony, as Juliet might,
Lean into the rich night,
A flame of red pomegranate in her hair,
Her lover's homage to requite
With guerdon of a glance, a flower,
Your song might win for him in love's enchanted hour?
Would from her balcony, as Juliet might,
23
A flame of red pomegranate in her hair,
Her lover's homage to requite
With guerdon of a glance, a flower,
Your song might win for him in love's enchanted hour?
I know not; but your stately serenade
Sighs with faint memories of the life men led
In those old days long fled,
When music was in spring time, undecayed
Your palaces, ghosts of the dead
Inhabit now, when time and change
Sweep the old world away, and even our thoughts grow strange.
Sighs with faint memories of the life men led
In those old days long fled,
When music was in spring time, undecayed
Your palaces, ghosts of the dead
Inhabit now, when time and change
Sweep the old world away, and even our thoughts grow strange.
Would I might pledge you once in golden wine
Of Cyprus, while your music charmed the moon,
And thank you for that boon
In your own tongue, praise you in rhythm divine
Of stanzas perfect as your tune!
But ah! you daunt me with the spell
Breathed by delightful things done exquisitely well.
Of Cyprus, while your music charmed the moon,
24
In your own tongue, praise you in rhythm divine
Of stanzas perfect as your tune!
But ah! you daunt me with the spell
Breathed by delightful things done exquisitely well.
| Sounds and Sweet Airs | |