IN the little southern parlor of tbe house you may have seen <br /> With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, <br /> At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, <br /> Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night! <br /> <br /> Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came! <br /> What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, <br /> When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over seas, <br /> With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys! <br /> <br /> Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, <br /> For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, <br /> Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, <br /> But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play." <br /> <br /> For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; <br /> She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, <br /> In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, <br /> Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills. <br /> <br /> So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, <br /> Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys. <br /> Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, <br /> As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn." <br /> <br /> Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, <br /> (Wedded since, and a widow,-- something like ten years dead,) <br /> Hearing a gush of music such as none before, <br /> Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door. <br /> <br /> Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies, <br /> "Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries, <br /> (For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,) <br /> "Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the bird!"<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-opening-of-the-piano/
