Page:Vision of Giorgione, Bottomley, 1910.djvu/24

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A CONCERT OF GIORGIONE

Or tell them casual fragmentary stories
About the sudden things women do
Which no man understands. And I watch.
I paint and watch; they think they are but broidering
Or wondering or resting from their fate.
This day I heard one humming on the stair
And knew she did not know her music's words
Though she felt something from the notes' new order;
Another turned sick; the singer ran to her,
A third one looked at me bewilderedly.
Let women move with their minds. . . . . . . Wait.
Then was my picture. Yet I do not know.


PARIS

Master, shall Fra Umilio hear the song
Before I set the clavichord for him,
The song you brought from the green music-house?


FRA UMILIO

Yes, sing, reveal to us your other thought
That caused the song to stir within you now.


PARIS

When I forget my lute (too large for me)
In its clear call that makes my touch unbodied,
It seems to heave and quiver to my breast
Until I hear blind depths past shape for knowing.

[He sings.]


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