Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped?

"For as victory was nighest,

While I sang and played,—

With my lyre at lowest, highest,

Right alike,—one string that made

'Love' sound soft was snapt in twain,

Never to be heard again,—

"Had not a kind cricket fluttered,

Perched upon the place

Vacant left, and duly uttered