THE OPENING OF THE PIANO.
In the little southern parlour of the house you may have seen
With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green,
At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right,
Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night.
Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came!
What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame,
When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over seas,
With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys!
Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy,
For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy,
Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way,
But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play."
For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm;
She had sprinkled it over sorrow and seen its brow grow calm,
In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills
Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic trills.
So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please,
Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys.
Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim,
As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn."
—Catherine, child of a neighbour, curly and rosy-red,
(Wedded since, and a widow,—something like ten years dead,)
Hearing a gush of music such as none before,
Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door.
Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies,
—"Open it, open it, lady!" the little maiden cries,
(For she thought 'twas a singing creature caged in a box she heard,)
"Open it, open it, lady! and let me see the bird!"
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
* * * * *
THE HIRED SQUIRREL.
(A RUSSIAN FABLE.)
A Lion to the Squirrel said:
"Work faithfully for me,
And when your task is done, my friend,
Rewarded you shall be
With barrel-full of finest nuts,
Fresh from my own nut-tree."
"My Lion King," the Squirrel said,
"To this I do agree."
The Squirrel toiled both day and night,
Quite faithful to his hire;
So hungry and so faint sometimes
He thought he should expire.
But still he kept his courage up,
And tugged with might and main.
"How nice the nuts will taste," he thought,
"When I my barrel gain."
At last, when he was nearly dead,
And thin and old and grey,
Quoth Lion: "There's no more hard work
You're fit to do. I'll pay."
A barrel-full of nuts he gave—
Ripe, rich, and big; but oh!
The Squirrel's tears ran down his cheeks.
He'd lost his teeth, you know!
Laura Sanford.
* * * * *
THE DEATH-BED.
We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied—
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came, dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed—she had
Another morn than ours.
Thomas Hood.
* * * * *