Read "At Madame Tussaud's in Victorian Years" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"THAT same first fiddler who leads the orchéstra 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!