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!