d to wed the sea with rings?

--
St. 2. Saint Mark's: see Ruskin's description of this
glorious basilica, in `The Stones of Venice'.

3.

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:
I was never out of England--it's as if I saw it all.

4.

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

5.

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?

6.

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?

--
St. 6. Toccatas: the Toccata was a form of musical composition
for the organ or harpsichord, somewhat in the free and brilliant style
of the modern fantasia or capriccio;
clavichord: "a keyed stringed instrument, now superseded by
the pianoforte {now called a piano}."--Webster.

7.

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!"

--
St. 7. The musical technicalities used in this stanza,
any musician can explain and illustrate.

8.

"Were you happy?"--"Yes."--"And are you still as happy?"--"Yes.
And you?"
--"Then, more kisses!"--"Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?"
Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

--
St. 8. The questions in this stanza must be supposed to be caused
by the effect upon the revellers of the "plaintive lesser thirds",
the "diminished sixths", the "commiserating sevenths", etc.,
of the preceding stanza.

9.

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"

10.

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothin