And a charming sonnet. The hesitant dissonances of occasional slant rhymes (and rubato time) resolve beautifully into the major chord of the close:
The Pupil
Picture me, the shy pupil at the door,
One small, tight fist clutching the dread Czerny.
Back then time was still harmony, not money,
And I could spend a whole week practicing for
That moment on the threshold.
Then to take courage,
And enter, and pass among mysterious scents,
And sit quite straight, and with a frail confidence
Assault the keyboard with a childish flourish!
Only to lose my place, or forget the key,
And almost doubt the very metronomome
(Outside the traffic, the laborers going home),
And still bear on across Chopin or Brahms,
Supid and wild with love equally for the storms
Of C# minor and the calms of C.
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