The Fiddler

There's a fiddler in the street,
    And the children all are dancing:
Two dozen lightsome feet
    Springing and prancing.

Pleasure he gives to you,
    Dance then, and spare not!
For the poor fiddler's due,
    Know not and care not.

While you are prancing,
    Let the fiddler play.
When you're tired of dancing
    He may go away.

Robert Fuller Murray

Robert Fuller Murray was a Scottish poet known for his lyrical and expressive poetry. Born on December 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he moved to Scotland at a young age. Despite a short life, ending on April 15, 1894, Murray left a significant mark with his works, which often reflected themes of nature and human emotion. His poetry is characterized by its elegance and depth of feeling. Murray's influence remained through posthumous publications and collections of his poetry.

Robert Fuller Murray

My Lady

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

The Wasted Day

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

A Swinburnian Interlude

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

The Tempted Soul

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Fiddler Jones

    The earth keeps some vibration going
    There in your heart, and that is you.
    And if the people find you can fiddle,
    Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
    What do you see, a harvest of clover?
    Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
    The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands
    For beeves hereafter ready for market;
    Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
    Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
    To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
    Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;
    They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
    Stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor."
    How could I till my forty acres
    Not to speak of getting more,
    With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
    Stirred in my brain by crows and robi...

Edgar Lee Masters

The Fiddler

The fiddler knows what's brewing
To the lilt of his lyric wiles:
The fiddler knows what rueing
Will come of this night's smiles!

He sees couples join them for dancing,
And afterwards joining for life,
He sees them pay high for their prancing
By a welter of wedded strife.

He twangs: "Music hails from the devil,
Though vaunted to come from heaven,
For it makes people do at a revel
What multiplies sins by seven.

"There's many a heart now mangled,
And waiting its time to go,
Whose tendrils were first entangled
By my sweet viol and bow!"

Thomas Hardy

The Fiddler Of Dooney

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With Here is the fiddler of Dooney!
And dance like a wave of the sea.

William Butler Yeats

The Dance

When good-nights have been prattled, and prayers have been said,
And the last little sunbeam is tucked up in bed,
Then, skirting the trees on a carpet of snow,
The elves and the fairies come out in a row.
    With a preening of wings
    They are forming in rings;
Pirouetting and setting they cross and advance
In a ripple of laughter, and pair for a dance.

And it's oh for the boom of the fairy bassoon,
And the oboes and horns as they strike up a tune,
And the twang of the harps and the sigh of the lutes,
And the clash of the cymbals, the purl of the flutes;
    And the fiddles sail in
    To the musical din,
While the chief all on fire, with a flame for a hand,
Rattles on the gay measure and stirs up his band.

With a pointing of toes and a lifting ...

R. C. Lehmann

The Exciseman.

Tune - "The Deil cam' fiddling through the town."


I.

    The deil cam' fiddling through the town,
        And danced awa wi' the Exciseman,
    And ilka wife cries, "Auld Mahoun,
        I wish you luck o' the prize, man!"
            The deil's awa, the deil's awa,
                The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman;
            He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa,
                He's danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman!

II.

    We'll mak our maut, we'll brew our drink,
        We'll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man;
    And mony braw thanks to the meikle black deil
        That danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman.

III.

    There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels,
        There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man;

Robert Burns

The Corn-Stalk Fiddle

When the corn 's all cut and the bright stalks shine
Like the burnished spears of a field of gold;
When the field-mice rich on the nubbins dine,
And the frost comes white and the wind blows cold;
Then it's heigho! fellows and hi-diddle-diddle,
For the time is ripe for the corn-stalk fiddle.

And you take a stalk that is straight and long,
With an expert eye to its worthy points,
And you think of the bubbling strains of song
That are bound between its pithy joints--
Then you cut out strings, with a bridge in the middle,
With a corn-stalk bow for a corn-stalk fiddle.

Then the strains that grow as you draw the bow
O'er the yielding strings with a practised hand!
And the music's flow never loud but low
Is the concert note of a fairy band.
Oh, your daint...

Paul Laurence Dunbar