Tom Moon Poem by Matt Mooney

Tom Moon as he sat in our kitchen some days
Turned the talk into song and before very long
He’d start pacing the floor from table to door,
Look into the mirror used for Saturday shaving,
Tilt back his hat and in a voice that was deep,
Sing loud with a chorus a love song sonorous:
Alas at the end of the story of loving her dearly
They ‘parted forever on the banks of the Lee’

Later on in his life he worked in the forestry
And he lived down at the foot of the mountain;
How happy he was one day when I called to him
And he got his young daughter to dance for us.

While we both drank from our bottles of stout
He sang from his heart of this beautiful lady
In the wonderful words of her lover lamenting:
Looking at her picture he’d hung on the wall
He gazed at her face and thought that if only
She was really alive and holding his hand
Like the time they were two lovers together.

Though dead and gone I think of his songs;
I hear his musical voice full of merriment,
And I often sing too as he himself used to do
For it makes our hearts beat that much better.
Join in yourself and you’ll feel the same joy
For Tom Moon in his day was a minstrel boy.