Page:Vision of Giorgione, Bottomley, 1910.djvu/26

A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE GIORGIONE

Living hurts with unavailingness,

Till painting seems a mirror of black glass

Where real life goes past me secretly.

See, our gold boy has floated a saffron dream

Inside the lid of the black clavichord.

Open the windows, Paris, and let live darkness

Deepen stillness with touches on our throats.

Light one far lamp, for that is music-light.

FRA UMILIO

My strings and Paris' voice and the slim viols

Slide through each other's folds, touch mutually

And straightway close in lambent mild surprise.

Some day, I think, these instruments will muse

To fuse voices no more, but flow alone;

And motets will be made for their thin sakes,

Wherein opposing voices will be found

Revealing slighted values of half known tones;

Till gamba and flute and clavichord together

Shall meet strange depths of larger motet shapes.

THE ABATE

We must have words, or else the shapeless chords

Are unrelated, vague, and answer nought;

Voices' thrill turns music into worship.

Nay, pipe and string must ever go beneath.

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