8 APRIL 1911, Page 15

POETRY.

PHIL THE FIDDLER. (WESSEX SONG.) WHERE be to, you lads and lasses, Droo the furrow, droo the grasses P Here be Phil the fiddler passes, For to set 'ee all in trim. Look, the children run a-gapen When they hear the catgut scrapen, When they see the maids a-shapen Merry measures after him. Be it Michaelmas or May-day, Be it goolden day or grey day, I will turn un to a gay day, Sweet as honey in the comb ; Now you'm litzome, now you'm cheery, Not a care shall come anear 'ee, And your veet shall not be weary On the long road home.

Like the gnats in air a-whisken, Like the lambs in field a-frisken, You shill find your toes a-brisken To the tune that I du tell : For though I be old and tewly, Yet my bow is reamed newly, And 'tie light and youthful truly, And can lead the dancen well- Not a zoul zo melancholic But shall foot it and shall frolic, While the granfers watch un rollick, And the jolly tankards voam; While the fiddle sounds, you'm grudgen That a single step be budgen, But the time will come for trudgen On the long road home.

Shepherd's purse or ploughman's pocket, 0, my music shall unlock it, Zingen high as any rocket Droo the burly-burly fair : When 'ee harks the fiddle handy, Bin 'ee halt or bin 'ee bandy, 'Ee shall dance like Jack-a-dandy, 'Ee shall hop like cricket there And it's hey-de-diddle-diddle, Turn your partner up the middle, And it's welcome Phil and fiddle, Ay, from Fordingbridge to Frome • But when fair and fun be ended, And the shepherd's silver spended, I must lag it unbefriended On the long road home.

Fiddling daily, fiddling nightly, With a music young and sprightly, You mid think my heart beat lightly When my elbow wags so gay ; Yet un often plims to bursten, With a hungeren and thirsten For the arms that I was nursed in And the v'ice that's dumb to-day.

Yet away wi' idle mopen !

Let me set my heart to hopen, While the last red rays be slopen Down the ways where I du roam: For the dance of gnats is over, And the dews be on the clover, And the dimsey shadows cover All the long road home. MAY BYRON.