Weekend Tonic

A faithful reader writes that I have become over-strident and harsh in some of my recent scribblings. This is fair criticism. Enforced inactivity in my profession and uncertainty in the economy wear on me, just as I presume they do on many of you.

As a modest token of amends, please accept these offerings from two of my betters as helpmeets to improve your weekend mood:

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Mocharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle,
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
And dance like a wave of the sea.

— William Butler Yeats, The Fiddler of Dooney

Even old men have lessons to teach, sometimes.

© 2009 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.