WHEN the day was at its middle, <br />Tired of limb and slow of pace, <br />Came a fiddler with his fiddle <br />To a crowded market place; <br />Lying, cheating, boasting, bragging, <br />Men and women walked together; <br />Heads were nodding, tongues were wagging, <br />Talk there was of trade and weather, <br />Talk there was of man's enslavement <br />To the tyrants, Toil and Worry; <br />Yet the fiddle on the pavement <br />Minding not the noise and hurry, <br />Singing low and singing loud — <br />Spoke its message to the crowd. <br />Said the fiddle — <br />'Pause and listen; <br />Can't you hear the waters running <br />Down the mossy mountain valleys? <br />Don't you see the lyre-bird sunning <br />Glossy plumes in fronded alleys? <br />Life is glory, life is glamour!' <br />Said the fiddle <br />In the middle <br />Of the tumult and the clamour. <br />Though unheeded seemed the fiddle, <br />Bidding each and all rejoice, <br />When the day was at its middle — <br />Yet beneath its magic voice, <br />Laughing, sobbing, teasing, fretting, <br />Men and women met together, <br />Smiled to find themselves forgetting <br />Troublous thoughts of trade and weather; <br />One bethought him of a cavern <br />Cool and sweet with running water, <br />And another of a tavern <br />And a tavern-keeper's daughter — <br />Ale to drink and lips to kiss — <br />'Twas the fiddle did all this! <br />Said the fiddle — <br />'Hush and hearken <br />To the song that I am singing, <br />For it is a song entrancing. <br />Telling now of gladness ringing, <br />Telling now of children dancing; <br />Life is music, life is glamour.' <br />Said the fiddle <br />In the middle <br />Of the tumult and the clamour.<br /><br />Roderic Quinn<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fiddle-and-the-crowd/
