Then slowly dawn’d on Haydn’s mind the fact,
Though not, as yet, the reason of my vow.
And all the household grew so mild with me,
And all the neighbors gazed so piteously:
If they had clothed my body in a shroud,
And I had loiter’d round it there, a ghost,
Life scarce had seem’d more lonely or more chill.
But yet more sad than all it seem’d for me
To shun poor Haydn. To his attic driven,
Who knew his grief? Alas, who knew it not?
Did ever harpsichord so crave a voice
To utter forth a cry of full despair?
Did ever aught that human hands could touch
So tremble to reveal such agony
As wrung the frame of him whose fingers wrought,
Along the sympathetic key-board there,
The counterpoint still pointing out his woe?