Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OLD FIFER, by NORMAN W. GILBERT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD FIFER, by                    
First Line: Did ever you hear the old fifer play
Last Line: But the merry old fifer may come no more.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


Did ever you hear the old fifer play
The martial music he loved so much—
The shrill notes which, for many a day,
Have answered oft to the magic touch
Of his wrinkled fingers, long and lean,
Yet losing none of their old-time skill
In conjuring up from the realms unseen
The fairy forms of the master's will?

I say that his fingers were lean and long,
But the finger of time had made them so
As they were supple, and full and strong
In the halcyon days of the long ago;
For now it is three score years and ten ...
The time allotted to human life ...
Since Uncle Perry ... a stripling then ...
Began to play the inspiring fife.

Or rather, since he, at about sixteen ...
Already well tutored and drilled therefor ...
His knapsack on, with his tin canteen,
Marched off to play in impending war.
His tin canteen, but he never would sip
From the poisonous fluid the government then
Unwisely held to the thirsting lip,
And the hungry palate, of brave young men.

Where strife was raging and hearts beat high,
With dauntless courage that would not yield,
He helped to win, on the fourth of July,
The bloody encounter on Chippewa's field:
Then chasing the foe to Niagara's shore,
He there still mingled his patriot strain
With the booming of guns and the cataract's roar,
At the subsequent battle of Lundy's Lane.

When war was over, the fifer returned
From scenes of carnage and scenes of strife,
But still in his bosom there glowed and burned
A quenchless love for his martial fife.
In age or in youth it was ever the same ...
He awaited the cars in his rustic seat,
To carol his welcome to all who came,
And repeated his airs in the neighboring street.

On an empty box by the grocery store
He sat in the sun and fifed away,
As if he imagined himself once more
Encouraging men to the deadly fray;
Or as if, perchance, in a milder mood,
He wondered if ever grim war would cease;
And whether his art would still be wooed
In the tranquil reign of the Prince of Peace.

When age and feebleness held him fast,
Three days before the grim visitor came
To bring him the summons which comes at last,
He called for his fife, as the flickering flame
Flashed up once more, and his heart grew strong,
His fingers resumed their cunning and skill,
The notes were clear, which he couldn't prolong,
And now they are silent; his pulse is still.

The railroad vehicles come and go,
The old sledge hammer still sounds the wheels,
But Uncle Perry sleeps under the snow;
And the heart instinctively, pensively feels
The force of the truth that't is all men's doom
That mortals approach to the "farther shore";
The spring shall come and the flowers shall bloom,
But the merry old fifer may come no more.





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