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.