Strike up, my master,
But touch the strings with a religious softness!
Teach sounds to languish through the night's dull ear
Till Melancholy starts from off her couch,
And Carelessness grows concert to attention!
With such powers of expression the Count sung the following
RONDEAU
Soft as yon silver ray, that sleeps
Upon the ocean's trembling tide;
Soft as the air, that lightly sweeps
Yon sad, that swells in stately pride: Soft as the surge's stealing note,
That dies along the distant shores,
Or warbled strain, that sinks remote--
So soft the sigh my bosom pours! True as the wave to Cynthia's ray,
True as the vessel to the breeze,
True as the soul to music's sway,
Or music to Venetian seas: Soft as yon silver beams, that sleep
Upon the ocean's trembling breast;
So soft, so true, fond Love shall weep,
So soft, so true, with THEE shall rest.
The cadence with which he returned from the last stanza to a repetition
of the first; the fine modulation in which his voice stole upon the
first line, and the pathetic energy with which it pronounced the last,
were such as only exquisite taste could give. When he had concluded,
he gave the lute with a sigh to Emily, who, to avoid any appearance of
affectation, immediately began to play. She sung a melancholy little
air, one of the popular songs of her native province, with a simplicity
and pathos that made it enchanting. But its well-known melody brought
so forcibly to her fancy the scenes and the persons, among which she had
often heard it, that her spirits were overcome, her voice trembled and
ceased--and the strings of the lute were struck with a disordered hand;
till, ashamed of the emotion she had betrayed, she suddenly passed on
to a song so gay and airy, that the steps of the dance seemed almost
to echo to the notes.
BRAVISSIMO! burst instantly from the lips of her
delighted auditors, and she was compelled to repeat the air. Among
the compliments that followed, those of the Count were not the least
audible, and they had not concluded, when Emily gave the instrument to
Signora Livona, whose voice accompanied it with true Italian taste.
Afterwards, the Count, Emily, Cavigni, and the Signora, sung
canzonettes, accompanied by a couple of lutes and a few other
instruments. Sometimes the instruments suddenly ceased, and the voices
dropped from the full swell of harmony into a low chant; then, after a
deep pause, they rose by degrees, the instruments one by one striking
up, till the loud and full chorus soared again to heaven!
Meanwhile, Montoni, who was weary of this harmony, was considering how
he might disengage himself from his party, or withdraw with such of it
as would be willing to play, to a Casino. In a pause of the music, he
proposed returning to shore, a proposal which Orsino eagerly seconded,
but which the Count and the other gentlemen as warmly opposed.