For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm;
She had sprinkled it o’er sorrow, and had seen its brow grow calm;
In the days of slender harpsichords, with tapping twinkling quills,
Or caroling her spinit 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;[[4]]
Hushed were the children’s voices, and every eye grew dim,
As floating from lips and finger, arose the Vesper Hymn.[[5]]
Catherine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy red,
(Wedded since, and a widow--something like ten years dead,)