All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by. And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized? Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know. (_Abt Vogler._) And, as a final contrast, drawn out of that shoreless sea of contrasts which music can reveal, we have _A Toccata of Galuppi's_, suffused with the melancholy of mundane pleasure, steeped in the ephemeral voluptuousness of eighteenth-century Venice. In these lines, it has been pointed out, "Browning's self-restraint is admirable.... The poet will not say a word more than the musician has said in his Toccata." 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? * * * * * 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? [Illustration: _Painting by W. Russell Flint._ A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S.] Oh, Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind; But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind! Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings. What, they lived thus at Venice, where the merchants were the kings, Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings? * * * * * 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? * * * * * 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?