With tankards dry she chills her lips, With yellowing laces veils the head, And leaps in pride of ownership Upon the faded marriage bed. A harp in some dark nook she sees Long left a prey to heat and frost, She smites it; can such tinklings please? Is not all worth, all beauty, lost? Ah, who'd have thought such sweetness clung To loose neglected strings like those? They answered to whate'er was sung, And sounded as a lady chose. Her pitying finger hurried by Each vacant space, each slackened chord; Nor would her wayward zeal let die The music-spirit she restored. The fashion quaint, the timeworn flaws, The narrow range, the doubtful tone, All was excused awhile, because It seemed a creature of her own. Perfection tires; the new in old, The mended wrecks that need her skill, Amuse her. If the truth be told, She loves the triumph of her will. With this, she dares herself persuade, She'll be for many a month content, Quite sure no duchess ever played Upon a sweeter instrument. And thus in sooth she can beguile Girlhood's romantic hours, but soon She yields to taste and mood and style, A siren of the gay saloon. And wonders how she once could like Those drooping wires, those failing notes, And leaves her toy for bats to strike Amongst the cobwebs and the motes. But enter in, thou freezing wind, And snap the harp-strings, one by one; It was a maiden blithe and kind: They felt her touch; their task is done.