The Despairing Musician. Published c.1775.

Lyrics: Anon

Unable to descant in tunable rhyme,
My spirits unstrung and my pulse out of time;
Of no crotchet of note my slow heart is possest,
Each jollity pauses, each fancy's at rest;
Unnatural fate, too discordant by far,
On all my gay lessons has doubled the bar,
Still sharply repeats it, denies me repose,
And slurs all my measures and varies my woes.

When I bid her move slow, then she jigs it away
And basely acts counter to all I can say;
While raging I shake with a treble vexation,
And ami is the tenor of each lamentation.
My ideas, turned grave, dance in concert no more,
Or beat to those movements no time can restore;
Yon cliff will I scale, that o'erlooks the flat plain,
Where a strong cord will end me, and with the first strain.