Song from a Country Fair
By Léonie Adams
When tunes jigged nimbler than the blood
And quick and high the bows would prance
And every fiddle string would burst
To catch what’s lost beyond the string,
While half afraid their children stood,
I saw the old come out to dance.
The heart is not so light at first,
But heavy like a bough in spring.
Copyright Credit: Léonie Adams, “Song from a Country Fair” from Poems: A Selection (New York: The Noonday Press, 1959). Used by permission of Judith Farr, Literary Executrix of the Estate of Léonie Adams.
Source: Poems: A Selection (The Noonday Press, 1959)