Ay and, ever to the ending, Cricket chirps at need, Executes the hand's intending, Promptly, perfectly,--indeed Saves the singer from defeat With her chirrup low and sweet. Till, at ending, all the judges Cry with one assent "Take the prize--a prize who grudges Such a voice and instrument? Why, we took your lyre for harp, So it shrilled us forth F sharp!" Did the conqueror spurn the creature, Once its service done? That's no such uncommon feature In the case when Music's son Finds his Lotte's power too spent For aiding soul-development. No! This other, on returning Homeward, prize in hand, Satisfied his bosom's yearning: (Sir, I hope you understand!) --Said "Some record there must be Of this cricket's help to me!" So, he made himself a statue: Marble stood, life-size; On the lyre, he pointed at you, Perched his partner in the prize; Never more apart you found Her, he throned, from him, she crowned. That's the tale: its application? Somebody I know Hopes one day for reputation Thro' his poetry that's--Oh, All so learned and so wise And deserving of a prize! If he gains one, will some ticket, When his statue's built, Tell the gazer "'Twas a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped? "For as victory was nighest, While I sang and played,-- With my lyre at lowest, highest, Right alike,--one string that made 'Love' sound soft was snapt in twain, Never to be heard again,-- "Had not a kind cricket fluttered, Perched upon the place Vacant left, and duly uttered 'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass Asked the treble to atone For its somewhat sombre drone." But you don't know music! Wherefore Keep on casting pearls To a--poet? All I care for Is--to tell him that a girl's "Love" comes aptly in when gruff Grows his singing. (There, enough!) We have a suggestion of the position of the speaker, a woman upon the arm of the chair of her lover or husband. How pointed and simple is the first statement: "Scold me!" an apology for not remembering or for not having given more attention. The humorous or pretended effort to remember whether it was prose or rhyme, Greek or Latin, is given by slow, gradual inflections followed by a marked, abrupt inflection upon the word "Greek," as if she were absolutely sure of that point and her memory of it definite. Again, note toward the last, how the impression of his pretending not to understand causes her to give a humorous and abrupt emphasis to the point of her story. The flexibility and great variety in the modulations of the voice requisite in the interpretation of a monologue will be made clear by comparing such a monologue with some short poem which suggests a speech. Byron's "To Tom Moore," though there is one speaker, is not a monologue.