Page:The poems of John Godfrey Saxe.djvu/449

He quite succeeded in overreaching
The cunning cur, by musical teaching,
And put him to sleep as fast as preaching!

And now our musical champion, Orpheus,
Having given the janitor over to Morpheus,
Went groping around among the ladies
Who throng the dismal halls of Hades,
Calling aloud
To the shady crowd,
In a voice as shrill as a martial fife,
"O, tell me where in hell is my wife!"
(A natural question, 't is very plain,
Although it may sound a little profane.)
"Eurydice! Eu-ryd-i-ce!"
He cried as loud as loud could be,—
(A singular sound, and funny withal,
In a place where nobody rides at all!)
"Eurydice!—Eurydice!
O, come, my dear, along with me!"
And then he played so remarkably fine,
That it really might be called divine,—
For who can show,
On earth or below,
Such wonderful feats in the musical line?

E'en Tantalus ceased from trying to sip
The cup that flies from his arid lip;
Ixion, too, the magic could feel,
And, for a moment, blocked his wheel;
Poor Sisyphus, doomed to tumble and toss
The notable stone that gathers no moss,
Let go his burden, and turned to hear
The charming sounds that ravished his ear;