Giles' Submission: Ol' Topply's Tears

Tinfang Warble by J.R.R. Tolkien:

O the hoot! O the hoot!
How he trillups on his flute!
O the hoot of Tinfang Warble!

Dancing all alon,
Hopping on a stone,
Flitting like a fawn,
In the twilight on the lawn,
And his name is Tinfang Warble!

The first star has shown
And its lamp is blown
to a flame of flickering blue.
He pipes not to me,
He pipes not to thee,
He whistles to none of you.
His music is his own,
The tunes of Tinfang Warble!

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Ol' Topply's Tears

Old dear Topply plays his fiddle quick as a sprite
While young sweat Brynly dances on his right
Gaily they sing of days gone by
While tears of great joy stream out of me eye

I sit and sip on pint glass o’ beer
Rememb’rin’ the love of a summer last year
She’d orn’ment herself in the lilies of spring
And dance in the center of mystic Faery rings

Topply now changes to a tune of despair
Sweat young Brynly unties her red hair
The fiddle it moans of a winter gone past
And a love and a loss of Topply’s Ol’ Lass

Her name was Faer Finola, her hair was bright as gold
But the heavens came and took her as the air grew still and cold
Nine months she’d been with child, nine months she’d swelled joy
For Topply and Finola thought they’d raise a grand ol’ boy

But as the snows start fallin’ on roofs of our small town
Finola’s pain came on her so the midwife laid her down
“Oh no the pain ain’t stoppin’,” cried the nurse with much alarm
Poor Topply ran in prayin’, but the birth had done its harm

Finola laid there cold in bed not a breath left in her breast
But Topply stemmed the flow of tears and held his baby to his chest
He looked down at the newborn child with curly lock o’ red
“I think I’ll call you Brynly, dear, from a book that I once read”

As I remembered Sweat Brynly’s tail, I rose up to my feet
“Ol’ Topply, here’s you good man,” and I swallowed my liquid peat
Ol’ Topply raised his hand to mine as I walk on toward the door
Brynly smiled her thanks to me, like her mother years before