The beach was crowded. Pausing now and then, He groped and fiddled doggedly along, His worn face glaring on the thoughtless throng The stony peevishness of sightless men. He seemed scarce older than his clothes. Again, Grotesquing thinly many an old sweet song, So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong, You hardly could distinguish one in ten. He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand, And, grasping wearily his bread-winner, Stared dim towards the blue immensity, Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand. He may have slept: he did speak nor stir: His gesture spoke a vast despondency. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOKEN AT A CASTLE GATE by DONALD (GRADY) DAVIDSON WHEN ON THE MARGE OF EVENING by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY AND THERE WAS A GREAT CALM' by THOMAS HARDY NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP by ROBERT SOUTHWELL THE DREAM THAT CRACKED A WHIP by FRANCES AIRTH FROM AN EXCAVATION ON THE WARRIOR RIVER by ESTHER BARRETT ARGO WORLDLY PLACE by MATTHEW ARNOLD CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 1. TRUE AND CHASTE LOVE by WILLIAM BASSE |