“That same first fiddler who leads the orchéstra to-night

   Here fiddled four decades of years ago;

He bears the same babe-like smile of self-centred delight,

Same trinket on watch-chain, same ring on the hand with the bow.

“But his face, if regarded, is woefully wanner, and drier,

   And his once dark beard has grown straggling and gray;

Yet a blissful existence he seems to have led with his lyre,

In a trance of his own, where no wearing or tearing had sway.

“Mid these wax figures, who nothing can do, it may seem

   That to do but a little thing counts a great deal;

To be watched by kings, councillors, queens, may be flattering to him—

With their glass eyes longing they too could wake notes that appeal.”

* * *

Ah, but he played staunchly—that fiddler—whoever he was,

   With the innocent heart and the soul-touching string:

May he find the Fair Haven!  For did he not smile with good cause?

Yes; gamuts that graced forty years’-flight were not a small thing!