The Road to Raffydiddle

On the road to Raf;fydiddle
Sits a fiddler with a fiddle
And there beneath the melting of the moon,
Each night he puts his chin
To his cheery violin
And plucks him out a frisky feather tune.

And when as they go down
To raffydiddle town
The people hear him playing in the dusk,
Beside the crooked stile
They pause a little while
To dance beneath the moon the_ moneymusk.

Oh, the fiddler he is slight
And his hair is salty white,
And none who live will ever know his name.
But when he sets his bow
A tickle to and fro
Each foot begins to flicker like a flame.

Oh, it's fun to see them come
When they hear the fiddle strum,
All the lords and all the ladies with their cooks;
All the butchers and the bakers,
All the cake and candy makers,
All the scholars with their noses in their books.

With their breeches in a crease,
Come the gorgeous blue police.
Come the cowboys with their chaps upon their shins,
Comes a tailor spick-and-span
And a scissor-grinder man
And a seamstress with her bosom full of pins.

Oh, itrs fun to see them prance
At the Raffydiddle dance,
All the doctors and the judges in their gowns,
All the farmers in their slickers,
All the rag and bottle pickers,
All the gypsies and the jockeys and the clowns.

There below the blinky stars
Come the tinkers and the tars,
.And the brigands with their daggers and their dirks,
Come the vixens and the villains
.And the marmni.es with their nchillun"
.And the chauffeurs and the soda water clerks.

On the road to Raffydiddle
Sits a fiddler with a fiddle,
.And round about the fiddler falls a cloak;
While past the crooked stile
In Raffydiddle file
Come flitting all the merrymaking folk.

Oh, the fiddler he is old,
He is eery to behold,
And none have guessed the riddle of his race;
But folk who linger long
.To hear his final song
Have often seen a sadness in his face.

On the road to Raffydiddle,
Sits a fiddler with a fiddle,
And he fiddles and he fiddles in the dusk,
But those who come at dawn
Will find the fiddler gone
And all the music melted into musk.

Every Raffydiddle tune
Will be shut up in the moon
.And none who seek will find his dark abode,
But where the music thinned
A creepy little wind
Will ripple down the Raffydiddle road.