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
thrills.
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.
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