Blind Jack tells his own story from beyond the grave. He spent a day playing fiddle at the county fair, then was forced to keep playing in a wagon while two drunk men, Butch Weldy and Jack McGuire, whipped the horses into a runaway. Blind as he was, he couldn’t escape; when the carriage tipped into a ditch, the wheels killed him. His tone is matter-of-fact, almost resigned, but the poem shifts in the final lines. In death he finds himself among other fiddlers and storytellers, all gathered at the feet of a blind poet with a huge white brow—Homer—listening to him sing of Troy. The mood moves from rowdy, reckless rural life into something hushed and reverent, as if Blind Jack’s rough music finally belongs to a timeless tradition of song and story.
Blind Jack — Summary
I had fiddled all day at the county fair. But driving home “Butch” Weldy and Jack McGuire, Who were roaring full, made me fiddle and fiddle To the song of Susie Skinner, while whipping the horses Till they ran away. Blind as I was, I tried to get out As the carriage fell in the ditch, And was caught in the wheels and killed. There’s a blind man here with a brow As big and white as a cloud. And all we fiddlers, from highest to lowest, Writers of music and tellers of stories Sit at his feet, And hear him sing of the fall of Troy.