THE FIDDLER.
SOMETIMES if you listen—listen
When the sunlight fades to gray,
You will hear a strange musician
At the quiet close of day;
Hear a strange and quaint musician
On his shrill-voiced fiddle play.
He bears a curious fiddle
On his coat of shiny black,
And draws the bow across the string
In crevice and in crack;
Till the sun climbs up the mountain
And floods the earth with light,
You will hear the strange musician
Playing—playing all the night!
Sometimes underneath the hearth-stone,
Sometimes underneath the floor,
He plays the same shrill music,—
Plays the same tune o'er and o'er;
And sometimes in the pasture,
Beneath a cold, gray stone,
He tightens up the sinews,
And fiddles all alone.
It may be, In the autumn,
From the corner of your room
You will hear the shrill-voiced fiddle
Sounding out upon the gloom;
If you wish to see the player,
Softly follow up the sound,
And you'll find a dark-backed cricket
Fiddling out a merry round!
— Youth's Companion.