The speaker in this monologue is the wife of a poet,
and she tells the story to her husband, of the little cricket
that came to the aid of the musician who was contending for a prize,
when one of the strings of his lyre snapped. So he made a statue
for himself, and on the lyre he held perched his partner in the prize.
If her poet-husband gain a prize in poetry, she asks, will some ticket
when his statue's built tell the gazer 'twas a cricket helped
his crippled lyre; that when one string which made "love" sound soft,
was snapt in twain, she perched upon the place left vacant
and duly uttered, "Love, Love, Love", whene'er the bass
asked the treble to atone for its somewhat sombre drone?




Confessions.



The speaker is a dying man, who replies very decidedly in the negative
to the question of the attendant priest as to whether he views
the world as a vale of tears. The memory of a past love,
which is running through his mind, still keeps the world bright.
Of the stolen interviews with the girl he loved he makes confession,
using the physic bottles which stand on a table by the bedside
to illustrate his story.

The monologue is a choice bit of grotesque humor touched with pathos.