Classic Poem

The thousand streets of London gray
Repel all country sights;
But bar not winds upon their way,
Nor quench the scent of new-mown hay
In depth of summer nights.

And here and there an open spot,
Still bare to light and dark,
With grass receives the wanderer hot;
There trees are growing, houses not--
They call the place a park.

Soft creatures, with ungentle guides,
God's sheep from hill and plain,
Flow thitherward in fitful tides,
There weary lie on woolly sides,
On crop the grass amain.

And from dark alley, yard, and den,
In ragged skirts and coats,
Come thither children of poor men,
Wild things, untaught of word or pen--
The little human goats.

Then the fiddlers seized their fiddles,
And sang to their fiddles a song:
"We are coming, coming, O brothers,
To the home we have left so long,
For the world still loves the fiddler,
And the fiddler's tune is strong.'

Then they stepped from out the ferry
Into the Severn-sea,
Down into the depths of the waters
Where the homes of the fiddlers be,
And the ferry-boat drifted slowly
Forth to the ocean free!

But where those jolly fiddlers
Walked down into the deep,
The ripples are never quiet,
But for ever dance and leap,
Though the Severn-sea be silent,
And the winds be all asleep.