So moving, don’t you think?
They say he came here from Vienna
for love,
giving up a career at Court
for one of his uncle’s
serving maids.
None of his music was published
after THAT,
of course; he died poor,
a piano-tuner to the nobility
who so despised him. Beautiful story,
but it would never fit on
that plaque.

Driven from Vienna by creditors
who couldn’t wait a year
(or two),
and who thus got nothing,
taken in by a
buxom wench
who saw in me a ticket to
Society.
The shrew never forgave me,
despising the little work my uncle’s family
could put my way. She nagged incessantly,
until tired of the daily, uphill struggle,
I died.