Dusk
The frightened herds of clouds across the sky
Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day
Into the dusky forest-lands of gray
And sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high,
The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry
Sad as the wail of some poor castaway
Who sees a vessel drifting far astray
Of his last hope, and lays him down to die.
The children, riotous from school, grow bold
And quarrel with the wind whose angry gust
Plucks off the summer-hat, and flaps the fold
Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust
In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold
Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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When June Is Here
When June is here--what art have we to sing
The whiteness of the lilies midst the green
Of noon-tranced lawns? Or flash of roses seen
Like redbirds' wings? Or earliest ripening
Prince-Harvest apples, where the cloyed bees cling
Round winey juices oozing down between
The peckings of the robin, while we lean
In under-grasses, lost in marveling.
Or the cool term of morning, and the stir
Of odorous breaths from wood and meadow walks,
The bobwhite's liquid yodel, and the whir
Of sudden flight; and, where the milkmaid talks
Across the bars, on tilted barley-stalks
The dewdrops' glint in webs of gossamer.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Let Us Forget
Let us forget. What matters it that we
Once reigned o'er happy realms of long-ago,
And talked of love, and let our voices low,
And ruled for some brief sessions royally?
What if we sung, or laughed, or wept maybe?
It has availed not anything, and so
Let it go by that we may better know
How poor a thing is lost to you and me.
But yesterday I kissed your lips, and yet
Did thrill you not enough to shake the dew
From your drenched lids--and missed, with no regret,
Your kiss shot back, with sharp breaths failing you;
And so, to-day, while our worn eyes are wet
With all this waste of tears, let us forget!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Indiana
Our Land-- our Home-- the common home indeed
Of soil-born children and adopted ones--
The stately daughters and the stalwart sons
Of Industry--: All greeting and godspeed!
O home to proudly live for, and if need
Be proudly die for, with the roar of guns
Blent with our latest prayer--. So died men once...
Lo Peace...! As we look on the land They freed--
Its harvests all in ocean-over flow
Poured round autumnal coasts in billowy gold--
Its corn and wine and balmed fruits and flow'rs--,
We know the exaltation that they know
Who now, steadfast inheritors, behold
The Land Elysian, marvelling 'This is ours?'
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Longfellow
The winds have talked with him confidingly;
The trees have whispered to him; and the night
Hath held him gently as a mother might,
And taught him all sad tones of melody:
The mountains have bowed to him; and the sea,
In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite,
Hath told him all her sorrow and delight--
Her legends fair-- her darkest mystery.
His verse blooms like a flower, night and day;
Bees cluster round his rhymes; and twitterings
Of lark and swallow, in an endless May,
Are mingling with the tender songs he sings--.
Nor shall he cease to sing-- in every lay
Of Nature's voice he sings-- and will alway.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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A Noon Interval
A deep, delicious hush in earth and sky --
A gracious lull--since, from its wakening,
The morn has been a feverish, restless thing
In which the pulse of Summer ran too high
And riotous, as though its heart went nigh
To bursting with delights past uttering:
Now--as an o'erjoyed child may cease to sing
All falteringly at play, with drowsy eye
Draining the pictures of a fairy-tale
To brim his dreams with--there comes o'er the day
A loathful silence wherein all sounds fail
Like loitering sounds of some roundelay . . .
No wakeful effort longer may avail --
The wand waves, and the dozer sinks away.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Bat
I.
Thou dread, uncanny thing,
With fuzzy breast and leathern wing,
In mad, zigzagging flight,
Notching the dusk, and buffeting
The black cheeks of the night,
With grim delight!
II.
What witch's hand unhasps
Thy keen claw-cornered wings
From under the barn roof, and flings
Thee forth, with chattering gasps,
To scud the air,
And nip the lady-bug, and tear
Her children's hearts out unaware?
III.
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Best is Good Enough
I quarrel not with destiny,
But make the best of everything-
The best is good enough for me.
Leave discontent alone, and she
Will shut her mouth and let you sing.
I quarrel not with destiny.
I take some things, or let 'em be-
Good gold has always got the ring;
The best is good enough for me.
Since fate insists on secrecy,
I have no arguments to bring-
I quarrel not with destiny.
The fellow that goes 'haw' for 'gee'
Will find he hasn't got full swing.
The best is good enough for me.
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Go Winter!
Go, Winter! Go thy ways! We want again
The twitter of the bluebird and the wren;
Leaves ever greener growing, and the shine
Of Summer's sun--not thine.--
Thy sun, which mocks our need of warmth and love
And all the heartening fervencies thereof,
It scarce hath heat enow to warm our thin
Pathetic yearnings in.
So get thee from us! We are cold, God wot,
Even as _thou_ art.--We remember not
How blithe we hailed thy coming.--That was O
Too long--too long ago!
Get from us utterly! Ho! Summer then
Shall spread her grasses where thy snows have been,
And thy last icy footprint melt and mold
In her first marigold.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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A Barefoot Boy
A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play --
For May is here once more, and so is he, --
His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,
And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:
Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array
Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me
Of woody pathways winding endlessly
Along the creek, where even yesterday
He plunged his shrinking body -- gasped and shook --
Yet called the water 'warm,' with never lack
Of joy. And so, half enviously I look
Upon this graceless barefoot and his track, --
His toe stubbed -- ay, his big toe-nail knocked back
Like unto the clasp of an old pocketbook.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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