The Fiddler
Black as iron is the landwash
Under the wet fog;
And green sucks the tide.
Back of all lie barren and bog.
Up here, amid granite and spruce-tuck,
Drift sounds as of fairies singing,
And lost souls sighing,
And far bells ringing,
And lovers laughing and crying;
And out of the fog, like a ghost,
Steps simple Black Jarge Crew,
Playing his fiddle, poor fellow!—
Knowing naught else to do.
He sees granite and spruce-tuck,
Juniper, pond and bog,
And down past the broken cliff
The green tide under the fog:
But he sees more beside,
Does simple Black Jarge Crew
Stepping above the tide
And abroad in the barren places:
He sees flickery faces
Peeping out from the fern:
He knows where the Good People hide—
The little, gay, soulless fairies—
And the Lost Gunner walks by his side.
He hears a whisper of singing
From deep and deep underground
Of gnomes a-sweat at their anvils;
And his fiddle mimics the sound.
He has no luck at the fishing:
He’s good for nothing: but when
These skiffs and stages are rotted
And dead are these fishermen,
And skipper Flynn is forgotten
And naught of his store’s to be found,
This barren above the tides
Will still be “Fiddler’s Ground.”
