He never will be the same man as he were, but it’s been a lesson to ’im and to them, too, not to leave him alone, nor yet to be that insultin’ to a neighbour as they have been to me, a-doin’ everythink to annoy me, and turnin’ me into every redicule as the ’uman ’art can think on.
But they’ll never encourage them orgins and bands as they did use to, and ’ave them inside their gardin’ to play when I’d sent them away, and no doubt we should get on better for the future to come, but I’m glad as we’re a-goin’ to move away, and all as I wants is to part friends, for as to livin’ friendly next door to them I never could.
Fun, 1868.
STREET MUSICIANS
By Oliver Wendell Holmes.
You’re sitting on your window seat
Beneath a cloudless moon;
You hear a sound that seems to wear
The semblance of a tune,
As if a broken fife should strive
To drown a cracked bassoon.
And nearer, nearer still, the tide
Of music seems to come,
There’s something like a human voice
And something like a drum;
You sit in speechless agony,
Until your ear is numb.
Poor “Home, Sweet Home” would seem to be
A very dismal place;
Your “Auld Acquaintance,” all at once,
Is altered in the face;
Their discords sting thro’ Burns and Moore,
Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.