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 robins
And the creak of a windmill--only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That someone did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres.
I ended up with a broken fiddle,
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

--Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology