01.07.2007, 06:51
A Character, drawn from the Life
An old man with a fiddle in his hand,
Which oft on village green, at wake, or fair,
Gave motion to the feet of many a pair
Of hand-linked swains; the roamer of a band,
Who, holding neither right in house or land,
Live by the hedges in the open air;
He, with a stooping body ghostly spare,
A guileful eye, and rutted cheek long tanned
By sun, dew, wind, and rain, to sallow brown,
Besought our passing dole. “T is hard,” he said,
“At fourscore years to struggle up and down
This awesome country for one’s daily bread.”
Then, scraping from his crazy instrument
A sprightly air, in sadness on he went.
An old man with a fiddle in his hand,
Which oft on village green, at wake, or fair,
Gave motion to the feet of many a pair
Of hand-linked swains; the roamer of a band,
Who, holding neither right in house or land,
Live by the hedges in the open air;
He, with a stooping body ghostly spare,
A guileful eye, and rutted cheek long tanned
By sun, dew, wind, and rain, to sallow brown,
Besought our passing dole. “T is hard,” he said,
“At fourscore years to struggle up and down
This awesome country for one’s daily bread.”
Then, scraping from his crazy instrument
A sprightly air, in sadness on he went.