
| The Earth keeps some vibration going |
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| There in your heart, and that is you. |
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| And if the people find you can fiddle, |
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| Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. |
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| What do you see, a harvest of clover? |
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| Or a meadow to walk through to the river? |
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| The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands |
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| For beeves hereafter ready for market; |
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| Or else you hear the rustle of skirts |
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| Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove. |
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| To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust |
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| Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth; |
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| They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy |
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| Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.” |
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| How could I till my forty acres |
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| Not to speak of getting more, |
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| With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos |
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| Stirred in my brain by crows and robins |
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| And the creak of a wind-mill—only these? |
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| And I never started to plow in my life |
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| That some one did not stop in the road |
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| And take me away to a dance or picnic. |
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| I ended up with forty acres; |
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| I ended up with a broken fiddle— |
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| And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, |
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| And not a single regret. |
“Fiddler Jones,” by Edgar Lee Masters, part of the Spoon River Anthology.
October 15, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
I really like that. Thanks for sharing.
October 22, 2009 @ 7:01 pm
that’s a lovely poem.
(and cute blog. 😀 )