LADIES.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 2, 8 April 1893, Page 4

LADIES.

$ THE OPEXIXG- OF THE PIAXO. In the little southern parlour of the house you may have seen ■With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green. At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its 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-varnish and its flash of ivory keys ! Then the children grew fretful in the restlessness of all joy, For the boy would push Ids sister, and the sister crowd the boy, "Till the father asked for quiet in his grave • paternal way, Hut the mother hushed the tumult with the ... words “ Now, Mary, play.” For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign halm ; 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 tin-ills So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, -Sat down to the new “ dementi,” and struck flic glistening keys. Hushed were flic children's voices, and every eye grow dim, As, floating from lip and finger, arose the “ Vesper Hymn.” -—Catharine, child of a neighbour, curly and rosy-red, (Wedded since, and a widow, —something like ton years dead,) Hearing a gusli of music such as none before, Steals from her mother’s chamber and peeps at the open door. . Just as the “Jubilate” in threaded whisper dies, —“ Open it I open it, lady!” the little maiden cries, (For she thought ’(was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,) “Open it, open it, lady! and let me sec the hircl /” Ot.IA’EU WeXUELT, lIoiiMES.