Crippled crying, face like paper, 

pen that hinders and defies

a vision made by slender taper,

appalling to my watery eyes.

 

Chords that always come out rotten,

voice and string both shaking, shrill;

how fast it all would be forgotten

another dream left unfulfilled.

 

Yet, O Danny Boy,

if the pipes, the pipes were silent,

wherein would their value lie?

Tell me, would it be less violent

to hear this dying child's cry? 

 

Its feet which cannot stand alone, 

its head that falls on mositened breast, 

life, from nothing, soon is grown;

a thought now given manifest.

 

And thus it seems the world's a stage, 

lifeless, wanting for a song,

dull without the written page;

At last! A tune I can't play wrong.