All his tunes are dead and gone, dead as yesterday.
And his lanthorn flits no more
Round the _Devil Tavern_ door,
Waiting till the gallants come, singing from the play;
Waiting in the wet and cold!
All his Whitsun tales are told.
He is dead and gone, sirs, very far away.

He would not give a silver groat
For good or evil weather.
He carried in his white cap
A long red feather.
He wore a long coat
Of the Reading-tawny kind,
And darned white hosen
With a blue patch behind.

So--one night--he shuffled past, in his buckled shoon.
We shall never see his face,
Twisted to that queer grimace,
Waiting in the wind and rain, till we called his tune;
Very whimsical and white,
Waiting on a blue Twelfth Night!
He is grown too proud at last--old blind Moone.

Yet, when May was at the door,
And Moone was wont to sing,
Many a maid and bachelor
Whirled into the ring:
Standing on a tilted wain
He played so sweet and loud
The Mayor forgot his golden chain
And jigged it with the crowd.

Old blind Moone, his fiddle scattered flowers along the street;
Into the dust of Brookfield Fair
Carried a shining primrose air,
Crooning like a poor mad maid, O, very low and sweet,
Drew us close, and held us bound,
Then--to the tune of _Pedlar's Pound_,
Caught us up, and whirled us round, a thousand frolic feet.

Master Shakespeare was his host.
The tribe of Benjamin
Used to call him Merlin's Ghost
At the _Mermaid Inn_.
He was only a crowder,
Fiddling at the door.
Death has made him prouder.
We shall not see him more.

Only--if you listen, please--through the master's themes,
You shall hear a wizard strain,
Blind and bright as wind and rain
Shaken out of willow-trees, and shot with elfin gleams.
_How should I your true love know?_
Scraps and snatches--even so!
That is old blind Moone again, fiddling in your dreams.

Once, when Will had called for sack
And bidden him up and play,
Old blind Moone, he turned his back,
Growled, and walked away,
Sailed into a thunder-cloud,