At Madame Tussaud's In Victorian Years

"That same first fiddler who leads the orchestra 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!

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