C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Sebastian Evans (1830–1909)
The Seven Fiddlers
A
And an ivory bow in hand,
Seven fiddlers came with their fiddles
A-fiddling through the land,
And they fiddled a tune on their fiddles
That none could understand.
Might keep his ten toes still:
E’en the cripple threw down his crutches,
And danced against his will;
Young and old they all fell a-dancing,
While the fiddlers fiddled their fill.
The ferry by Severn-side;
And they stept aboard the ferry,
None else to row or guide,
And deftly steered the pilot,
And stoutly the oars they plied.
These fiddlers ceased to row,
And the pilot spake to his fellows
In a tongue that none may know:—
“Let us home to our fathers and brothers,
And the maidens we love below.”
And sang to their fiddles a song:—
“We are coming, coming, O brothers,
To the home we have left so long;
For the world still loves the fiddler,
And the fiddler’s tune is strong.”
Into the Severn-sea,
Down into the depths of the waters
Where the homes of the fiddlers be,
And the ferry-boat drifted slowly
Forth to the ocean free!
Walked down into the deep,
The ripples are never quiet,
But for ever dance and leap,
Though the Severn-sea be silent,
And the winds be all asleep.