"AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM!"
(A Pendant to Mr. William Watson's "The Key-Board.")
Five-and-thirty black slaves,
Half-a-hundred white.
All their duty but to make
Shindy day and night,
Now with throats of thunder,
Now with clattering lips,
While she thumps them cruelly
With stretched finger-tips.
When she quits the chamber
All the slaves are dumb,
Dumb with rapture, till the Minx
Back shall come to strum,
Dumb the throats of thunder,
Hushed chromatic skips,
Lacking all the torturing
Of strained finger-tips.
Dusky slaves and pallid,
Ebon slaves and white,
When Minx mounts her music-stool
Neighbours fly with fright.
Ah, the bass's thunder!
Oh, the treble's trips!
Eugh, the horrid tyrannies
Of corned finger-tips!
Silent, silent, silent,
All your janglings now;
Notes false-chorded, slithering slaps,
Pedal-aided row!
Where is Minx, we wonder?
Ah! those scrambling skips!
Back she's come to torture us
With her finger-tips!