Wash Lowry's Reminiscence
And you're the poet of this concern?
I've seed your name in print
A dozen times, but I'll be dern
I'd 'a' never 'a' took the hint
O' the size you are--fer I'd pictured you
A kind of a tallish man--
Dark-complected and sallor too,
And on the consumpted plan.
'Stid o' that you're little and small,
With a milk-and-water face--
'Thout no snap in your eyes at all,
Er nothin' to suit the case!
Kind o'look like a--I don't know--
One o' these fair-ground chaps
That runs a thingamajig to blow,
Er a candy-stand perhaps.
'Ll I've allus thought that poetry
Was a sort of a--some disease--
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Romancin
I' b'en a-kindo musin', as the feller says, and I'm
About o' the conclusion that they ain't no better time,
When you come to cipher on it, than the times we used to know
When we swore our first 'dog-gone-it' sorto solem'-like and low!
You git my idy, do you?--_Little_ tads, you understand--
Jes' a wishin' thue and thue you that you on'y was a _man_.--
Yit here I am, this minute, even forty, to a day,
And fergittin' all that's in it, wishin' jes' the other way!
I hain't no hand to lectur' on the times, er dimonstrate
Whur the trouble is, er hector and domineer with Fate,--
But when I git so flurried, and so pestered-like and blue,
And so rail owdacious worried, let me tell you what I do!--
I jes' gee-haw the hosses, and unhook the swingle-tree,
Whur the hazel-bushes tosses down their shadders over me,
And I draw my plug o' navy, and I climb the fence, and set
Jes' a-thinkin' here, 'y gravy! till my eyes is wringin'-wet!
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Knee-Deep in June
Tell you what I like the best --
'Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine, -- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!
Orchard's where I'd ruther be --
Needn't fence it in fer me! --
Jes' the whole sky overhead,
And the whole airth underneath --
Sort o' so's a man kin breathe
Like he ort, and kind o' has
Elbow-room to keerlessly
Sprawl out len'thways on the grass
Where the shadders thick and soft
As the kivvers on the bed
Mother fixes in the loft
Allus, when they's company!
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Fantasy
A fantasy that came to me
As wild and wantonly designed
As ever any dream might be
Unraveled from a madman's mind,--
A tangle-work of tissue, wrought
By cunning of the spider-brain,
And woven, in an hour of pain,
To trap the giddy flies of thought.
I stood beneath a summer moon
All swollen to uncanny girth,
And hanging, like the sun at noon,
Above the center of the earth;
But with a sad and sallow light,
As it had sickened of the night
And fallen in a pallid swoon.
Around me I could hear the rush
Of sullen winds, and feel the whir
Of unseen wings apast me brush
Like phantoms round a sepulcher;
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Three Dead Friends
Always suddenly they are gone--
The friends we trusted and held secure--
Suddenly we are gazing on,
Not a _smiling_ face, but the marble-pure
Dead mask of a face that nevermore
To a smile of ours will make reply--
The lips close-locked as the eyelids are--
Gone--swift as the flash of the molten ore
A meteor pours through a midnight sky,
Leaving it blind of a single star.
Tell us, O Death, Remorseless Might!
What is this old, unescapable ire
You wreak on us?--from the birth of light
Till the world be charred to a core of fire!
We do no evil thing to you--
We seek to evade you--that is all--
That is your will--you will not be known
Of men. What, then, would you have us do?--
Cringe, and wait till your vengeance fall,
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Up And Down Old Brandywine
Up and down old Brandywine,
In the days 'at's past and gone--
With a dad-burn hook-and line
And a saplin' pole--swawn!
I've had more fun, to the square
Inch, than ever ANYwhere!
Heaven to come can't discount MINE
Up and down old Brandywine!
Hain't no sense in WISHIN'--yit
Wisht to goodness I COULD jes
'Gee' the blame' world round and git
Back to that old happiness!--
Kindo' drive back in the shade
'The old Covered Bridge' there laid
'Crosst the crick, and sorto' soak
My soul over, hub and spoke!
Honest, now!--it hain't no DREAM
'At I'm wantin',--but THE FAC'S
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
At Noey's House
At Noey's house--when they arrived with him--
How snug seemed everything, and neat and trim:
The little picket-fence, and little gate--
It's little pulley, and its little weight,--
All glib as clock-work, as it clicked behind
Them, on the little red brick pathway, lined
With little paint-keg-vases and teapots
Of wee moss-blossoms and forgetmenots:
And in the windows, either side the door,
Were ranged as many little boxes more
Of like old-fashioned larkspurs, pinks and moss
And fern and phlox; while up and down across
Them rioted the morning-glory-vines
On taut-set cotton-strings, whose snowy lines
Whipt in and out and under the bright green
Like basting-threads; and, here and there between,
A showy, shiny hollyhock would flare
Its pink among the white and purple there.--
And still behind the vines, the children saw
A strange, bleached, wistful face that seemed to draw
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Philiper Flash
Young Philiper Flash was a promising lad,
His intentions were good--but oh, how sad
For a person to think
How the veriest pink
And bloom of perfection may turn out bad.
Old Flash himself was a moral man,
And prided himself on a moral plan,
Of a maxim as old
As the calf of gold,
Of making that boy do what he was told.
And such a good mother had Philiper Flash;
Her voice was as soft as the creamy plash
Of the milky wave
With its musical lave
That gushed through the holes of her patent churn-dash;--
And the excellent woman loved Philiper so,
She could cry sometimes when he stumped his toe,--
And she stroked his hair
With such motherly care
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Evening Company
Within the sitting-room, the company
Had been increased in number. Two or three
Young couples had been added: Emma King,
Ella and Mary Mathers--all could sing
Like veritable angels--Lydia Martin, too,
And Nelly Millikan.--What songs they knew!--
_''Ever of Thee--wherever I may be,
Fondly I'm drea-m-ing ever of thee!_''
And with their gracious voices blend the grace
Of Warsaw Barnett's tenor; and the bass
Unfathomed of Wick Chapman--Fancy still
Can _feel_, as well as _hear_ it, thrill on thrill,
Vibrating plainly down the backs of chairs
And through the wall and up the old hall-stairs.--
Indeed young Chapman's voice especially
Attracted _Mr. Hammond_--For, said he,
Waiving the most Elysian sweetness of
The _ladies_' voices--altitudes above
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Das Krist Kindel
I had fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in delight
Snapped their saucy little fingers at the chill December night;
And in dressing-gown and slippers, I had tilted back 'my
throne'--
The old split-bottomed rocker--and was musing all alone.
I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door,
And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza floor;
But the sounds came to me only as the murmur of a stream
That mingled with the current of a lazy-flowing dream.
Like a fragrant incense rising, curled the smoke of my cigar,
With the lamplight gleaming through it like a mist-enfolded
star;--
And as I gazed, the vapor like a curtain rolled away,
With a sound of bells that tinkled, and the clatter of a sleigh.
And in a vision, painted like a picture in the air,
I saw the elfish figure of a man with frosty hair--
A quaint old man that chuckled with a laugh as he appeared,
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!