IV
Yet I wonder,
Will it sunder
Her from me?
Will she guess that
I said “Yes,”—that
His I’d be,
Ere I thought she might not see him as I see!
V
Old brown gable,
Granary, stable,
Here you are!
O my mother,
Can another
Ever bar
Mine from thy heart, make thy nearness seem afar?
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!”