Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FIDDLER OF BERLIN, by HERMANN HAGEDORN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FIDDLER OF BERLIN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Night, and a black pall over the city
Last Line: And broken women, and ghosts.
Subject(s): Death; Fiddles; Loss; Military; Mourning; Musical Instruments; Soldiers; Truth; War; Dead, The; Bereavement


"And there came a Fiddler, whose name was Truth"

Night, and a black pall over the city,
Mist, and the wind's cry, shrill and thin—
Who is he who goes in pity
With his fiddle under his chin?
His brow is grave, his eyes are stern,
A slow dawn wreathes his hair,
And the music he makes shivers and shakes
Like hands the high windows where misery wakes,
And, faint as breath on a bubble, breaks
The dying lamp on the stair.

Winds, and blown fogs over the city.
Lo, the white-faced, huddled throng!
Who is he who goes in pity,
Fiddling his terrible song?
The babes in their mothers' arms
Hear it, wide-eyed;
And the children come in swarms
And run at his side,
Hearing the silken, sad refrain
Of the fiddler's magical, tragical strain,
Warm as the wind and soft as the rain
And terrible as the tide.

Out of the houses the women come,
Mothers and daughters and wives.
From loving and remembering numb,
White through the night, the women come,
Bearing the shards of their lives.
Lo, the fiddler plays his song
Of madness and defeat,
And out of the houses the women throng
And follow him down the street.

And the dead, the dead arise and come!
Pallid from burden-bearing
The sons of the drum from slumber come
With eyes like torches flaring.
From their gory bed the battle-dead
Rise up, resolved and strong,
And follow the shimmering, glimmering thread
Of the fiddler's terrible song.

The children moan, the women cry,
The ghosts wail like the wind.
But the fiddler's eye is fixed on high
And he heeds not the host behind.
But loud as the roaring tide in flood
He plays his terrible chant of God.
And the houses crumble and fall,
And the steeples reel like ships,
And the rulers rush from the council-hall
With wild cries on their lips.
Lo, the fiddler plays his high refrain
Over and over and over again ...

But the rulers and their boasts
Are trampled under the feet of his hosts,—
The feet of fatherless children,
And broken women, and ghosts.





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