Musician

Damn you, Beethoven! See, I've crashed
Your plaster bust upon the floor,
Into a dozen fragments smashed,
You will reproach me nevermore,
Only a single eye I see,
Staring so dismally at me.

I was so proud the day I bought
Your bust, that head magnificent,
into my garret, bravely bought,
For on it my last coin I spent.
It seemed to symbolize my fate,
To song divinely dedicate.

Well, song has failed me, music too;
My poor piano I have sold.
My shelf is bare, my rent is due,
My attic bitterly is cold.
Oh! Saturnine and stormy head!
I might have bartered you for bread.

Yet better you be shattered there,
As all my hopes are shattered now.
You are the proof of my despair,
With jagged lips and broken brow,
Who lured me half a lifetime through
To dream that I might live in you.

Ah well, I'll never play again,
Nor grubby children will I teach.
As salesman, maybe not in vain
A simple living I'll beseech. . . .
Poor fools! who strive uncomforted,
By music's dole to win your bread.