"What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss;
The mourner is cheered, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burthened soul is no longer opprest.
"As the moon brightens round her the clouds of the night,
So he, where he stands, is a centre of light;
It gleams on the face there of dusk-browed Jack
And the pale-visaged bakers, with basket on back.
"That errand-bound 'prentice was passing in haste—
What matter! he's caught—and his time runs to waste;
The newsman is stopped, though he stops on the fret;
And the half-breathless lamplighter he's in the net!
"The porter sits down on the weight which he bore;
The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store.
If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease:
She sees the musician—'tis all that she sees!
"That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight.
Can he keep himself still, if he would? Oh not he!
The music stirs in him, like wind through a tree.
"Mark that cripple, who leans on his crutch, like a tower
That long has leaned forward, leans hour after hour!
That mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound,
While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.
"Now coaches and chariots roar on like a stream;
Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream;
They are deaf to your murmurs—they care not for you,
Nor what ye plying, nor what ye pursue!
"He stands, backed by the wall—he abates not his din;
His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in
From the old and the young—from the poorest; and there—
The one-pennied boy has his penny to spare!
"Oh! blest are the hearers! and proud be the hand
Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band!
I'm glad for him, blind as he is! All the while,
If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile."
But why should I occupy your time by quotations from celebrated poets or prose writers, to prove the influence of music, when I have it in my power to verify the saying of that eminent composer whose life I have undertaken to sketch?