I LAY in my bed and fiddled With a dreamland viol and bow, And the tunes flew back to my fingers I had melodied years ago. It was two or three in the morning When I fancy-fiddled so Long reels and country-dances, And hornpipes swift and slow. And soon anon came crossing The chamber in the gray Figures of jigging fieldfolk -- Saviours of corn and hay -- To the air of "Haste to the Wedding," As after a wedding-day; Yea, up and down the middle In windless whirls went they! There danced the bride and bridegroom, And couples in a train, Gay partners time and travail Had longwhiles stilled amain!. . . It seemed a thing for weeping To find, at slumber's wane And morning's sly increeping, That Now, not Then, held reign. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO YOUTH by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR BALL'S BLUFF; A REVERIE by HERMAN MELVILLE THE KINGDOM OF GOD by FRANCIS THOMPSON AT FLORENCE by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH KNAPWEED by ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON ILLIMITABLE by GAMALIEL BRADFORD THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT |