Classic Poem

There came an old whistler along the dust-blown street
And oh! he stirred my heart's core and moved my lagging feet
With something strange and something gay and something bitter-sweet.

Oh! what did he in Dublin town who came from far away
From where the hills of Wicklow are folded round Lough Tay?
What brought him to the huddled streets where money makes men grey?

What magic in his fingers could stir my sullen mind
To hear the heather singing before a south-west wind,
When the chill air in the city is crabbed and unkind?

What right had he to make me dream of half-forgotten things —
The crowing gorse upon the hill, the larks on upward wings,
The scent of gorse that is the breath of all my childhood's springs?

" The Rocky Road to Dublin, " the " Hunter's Jug, " he played,
Till feet were young and dancing that had been old and staid,
That dusty-coated whistler, so tattered and so frayed.

" Here's sixpence for your pains, old man, but leave my thoughts my own,
The grey thoughts of the city are better let alone,
And a heart may yet be quiet though heavy as a stone. "