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by Edgar Lee Masters (1868 - 1950)

Fiddler Jones
Language: English 
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 creek of a windmill — only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one 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.

Text Authorship:

  • by Edgar Lee Masters (1868 - 1950), appears in Spoon River Anthology [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Lita Grier , "Fiddler Jones", 2004-2008 [ voice and piano ], from Songs from Spoon River, no. 8 [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2025-08-26
Line count: 26
Word count: 195

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