THE MAD FIDDLER

Not from the northern road,

        Not from the southern way,

First his wild music flowed

        Into the village that day.

He suddenly was in the lane,

        The people came out to hear,

He suddenly went, and in vain

        Their hopes wished him to appear.

His music strange did fret

        Each heart to wish 'twas free.

It was not a melody, yet

        It was not no melody.

Somewhere far away,

        Somewhere far outside

Being forced to live, they

        Felt this tune replied.

Replied to that longing

        All have in their breasts,

To lost sense belonging

        To forgotten quests.

The happy wife now knew

        That she had married ill,

The glad fond lover grew

        Weary of loving still,

The maid and the boy felt glad

        That they had dreaming only,

The lone hearts that were sad

        Felt somewhere less lonely.

In each soul woke the flower

        Whose touch leaves earthless dust,

The soul's husband's first hour,

        The thing completing us,

The shadow that comes to bless

        From kissed depths unexpressed,

The luminous restlessness

        That is better than rest.

As he came, he went.

        They felt him but half‑be.

Then he was quietly blent

        With silence and memory.

Sleep left again their laughter,

        Their tranced hope ceased to last,

And but a small time after

        They knew not he had passed.

Yet when the sorrow of living,

        Because life is not willed,

Comes back in dreams' hours, giving

        A sense of life being chilled,

Suddenly each remembers -

        It glows like a coming moon

On where their dream‑life embers ­-

        The mad fiddler's tune.