  Oliver W. Holmes. (With Tableaux.) In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen, With the gambrel roof, and the gable looking toward the green, At the side towards the sunset with the window on the right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night. 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, 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 the grave, paternal way, But the mother hushed the tumult, with the words, “Now Mary, play!” She had sprinkled it o’er sorrow, and had seen its brow grow calm; In the days of slender harpsichords, with tapping twinkling quills, Or caroling her spinit with its thin metallic trills. 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 lips and finger, arose the Vesper Hymn. Catherine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy red, (Wedded since, and a widow--something like ten years dead,) Hearing a gush of music such as never heard before, Steals from her mother’s chamber and peeps at the open door. Just as the “Jubilate” in threaded whisper dies, “Open it! open it, lady!” the little maiden cries. (For she thought ’twas a singing creature caged in a box she heard); “Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the bird!” TABLEAUX. 1. Sitting-room. Piano at right. Piano box just opened, in background at left. Center-table has books and papers. 2. Several children crowding about the instrument in attitudes of eager inspection. Parents a little in background. 3. Boy and girl in foreground, crowding and pushing. 4. Oldest daughter sits down to play, children near front, parents in background. 5. Sing “Vesper Hymn”--if possible, with piano accompaniment. 6. Little girl looking in from opposite side of room, screen door ajar; family grouped as above. 7. She has advanced to center of foreground, side face to audience, but looking toward the mother, the rest watching her. |
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