One of the kings of Scanderoon,
A royal jester,
Had in his train, a gross buffoon,
Who used to pester
The Court with tricks inopportune,
Venting on the highest of folks his
Scurvy pleasantries and hoaxes.
It needs some sense to play the fool,
Which wholesome rule
Occurred not to our jackanapes,
Who consequently found his freaks
Lead to innumerable scrapes,
And quite as many kicks and tweaks,
Which only seemed to make him faster
Try the patience of his master.
Some sin, at last, beyond all measure,
Incurred the desperate displeasure
Of his serene and raging highness:
Whether he twitched his most revered
And sacred beard,
Or had intruded on the shyness
Of the seraglio, or let fly
An epigram at royalty,
None knows: his sin was an occult one,
But records tell us that the Sultan,
Meaning to terrify he knave,
Exclaimed, "'Tis time to stop that breath:
Thy doom is sealed, presumptuous slave!
Thou stand'st condemned to certain death:
Silence, base rebel! no replying!
But such is my indulgence still,
That, of my own free grace and will,
I leave to thee the mode of dying."
"Thy royal will be done—'tis just,"
Replied the wretch, and kissed the dust;
"Since my last moments to assuage,
Your majesty's humane decree
Has deigned to leave the choice to me,
I'll die, so please you, of old age!"
Horace Smith
* * * * *
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."