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.
Ashley
October 15, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
I really like that. Thanks for sharing.
marisa
October 22, 2009 @ 7:01 pm
that’s a lovely poem.
(and cute blog. 😀 )