University of Virginia Library

LEARNING RORY O'MORE.

Some people are color-blind; some tone-deaf. Some do not know the sacred melody of Pleyel's Hymn, from Fisher's Hornpipe: and yet they love music, and join in it, or rather hang upon it, with unrestrained voices, every chance they get.

If this soft-hearted Irishman had only been given a connecting link between his sentiment and his violin—if he had been able to voice upon the magic strings of the resined harp the sweetness of his mind and heart—he might have made the world weep with his playing.

Sure I lived a whole yare [said young Patrick Maroney]
Widin the same hash'ry wid Michael Mahoney,
Around the same table we bored and we boarded,
And ate iverything that the panthry afforded:
But that was enough for the price, I'll allow—
Which was nothin' to what cooked provisions is now.
An' wid chaffin' an' laughin' we got along well,
And I loved him as much as I'd care for to tell.
But my frind had one habit that made you forget
Oftentimes, what a charmin' young feller you'd met.
He would wake half the night, would this sing'lar lad,
And would schrape on a rusty ould fiddle he had,
And if time and if tune at a million each went,
He would niver be able to lay up a cent;
And I ask, “What's it for?” and he says, swate as June,
“I'm jist learnin' to play one perticular tune:
They say ganius is work, and of work I'm the doer:
And you one day will hear me play ‘Rory O'More.’”
And he went and took lessons here—there—anywhere—
And his teachers all stuck in the bogs of despair;
But he said, “I'll kape on for the shtrings to talk right,
Till the cows all come home an' die during the night:”
And I says to my frind “I'm afeared ivery day,
That the tune the old cow died on's all ye'll e'er play:”
But he worked and he scraped what the house would endure,
In a way would have murdhred poor Rory O'More.
An' he took off the resin by pounds: an' I said,
“Was the music used up when they made the man's head?”
And he'd ask me o'er often when through for the night,
“Don't you think, now, Maroney, I'm gettin' it right?”
An' I says ivery time—wid the truth to commune—
“It might slip in as part of a Chinaman's tune,
But I think if poor Rory that racket should hear,
He would turn in his grave an' then shtop up his ear.”
Well, the rest of the boarders felt mostly like me,
And they give the poor lad the name “Fiddle Dee Dee;”
And he made some excursions clane out of his head,
An' he took loads of med'cine, an' took to his bed;
Till the docthor decreed (the poor fellow was poor)
“He can live for one day, but I can't give him more.”
And I said through my tears, “Say, dear boy, does it be
That ye'd like to sind words to your folks o'er the sea?”
And he whispered “Tell Mother, my ould mother dear,
That I'd hoped to come homeward an' see her this year,
And to play her the tune that she danced o'er and o'er,
When a light-hearted maiden—swate Rory O'More.
Faix the fiddle along I was goin' to bring,
And wid Rory surprise her, the very first thing.
So I worked till I calloused my fingers and thumb,
But however I coaxed it, the tune would not come;
And it never will be my good fortune, I fear,
To be playin' that tune for my mother to hear.”
Then he slept for a minut'—then raised up and cried,
“Bring the fiddle here quick! for she seems at my side!”
An' he snatched up the bow, and upon my dear word,
He played “Rory O'More” schwate as ever you heard!
And he sunk—wid a smile of affection and pride,
And then followed the Doc's last prescription, an' died.
An' there drifted one mornin' a letter our way,
How that Mike and his mother both went the same day!
And there's some of us dramy ones thought it was sure
That while passing, she heard him play Rory O'More.