Of all music masters of whom you've heard tell

Great Handel was happiest for he was well,

Tall, handsome and wealthy, generous and kind,

Cheerful in heart and clever in mind.

Pinching dread poverty he never knew;

Surrounded by comforts from childhood he grew;

Though early in life as a very small lad

He wasn't content nor yet very glad

Because his stern father treated with scorn

His belief that for music he had been born.

Alone in an attic he practised each day;

Without any teacher he learned how to play

Until he was heard by a good kindly duke,

Who gave to Herr Handel a stinging rebuke

And made him consent, this father so stern,

To England George went when to manhood grown,

Adopting this country as his very own.

He was loved by the people of most every clime

And busy and happy just all of the time.

In days scarcely fifteen he wrote his great Saul,

And in nineteen more he had finished all

Of Israel in Egypt in whose every tone

The work of a master of music is shown.

And in but two weeks 'tis said that he wrote

His wondrous Messiah complete in each note.

But work without rest from morning till night

Deprived him, like Bach, of precious eye-sight.

For seven long years great Handel was blind,

But lost not his genius nor bright cheerful mind.

He worked every hour until his last breath

Was taken away by the cold Angel Death.

His body in Westminster Abbey was laid,

But the works of his genius will no, never fade.