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;
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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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,
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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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
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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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
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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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
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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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
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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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,
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Grant At Rest-- August 8, 1885
Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a wide forest, and held no
path but as wild adventure led him... And he returned and came again to his
horse, and took off his saddle and his bridle, and let him pasture; and
unlaced his helm, and ungirdled his sword, and laid him down to sleep upon
his shield before the cross. --Age of Chivalary
_Grant_
What shall we say of the soldier. Grant,
His sword put by and his great soul free?
How shall we cheer him now or chant
His requiem befittingly?
The fields of his conquest now are seen
Ranged no more with his armed men--
But the rank and file of the gold and green
Of the waving grain is there again.
Though his valiant life is a nation's pride,
And his death heroic and half divine,
And our grief as great as the world is wide,
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Grandfather Squeers
'My grandfather Squeers,' said The Raggedy Man,
As he solemnly lighted his pipe and began--
'The most indestructible man, for his years,
And the grandest on earth, was my grandfather Squeers!
'He said, when he rounded his three-score-and-ten,
'I've the hang of it now and can do it again!'
'He had frozen his heels so repeatedly, he
Could tell by them just what the weather would be;
'And would laugh and declare, 'while the _Almanac_ would
Most falsely prognosticate, _he_ never could!'
'Such a hale constitution had grandfather Squeers
That, 'though he'd used '_navy_' for sixty odd years,
'He still chewed a dime's-worth six days of the week,
While the seventh he passed with a chew in each cheek:
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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To My Old Friend, William Leachman
Fer forty year and better you have been a friend to me,
Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,
You allus had a kind word of counsul to impart,
Which was like a healin' 'intment to the sorrow of my hart.
When I burried my first womern, William Leachman, it was you
Had the only consolation that I could listen to--
Fer I knowed you had gone through it and had rallied from the blow,
And when you said I'd do the same, I knowed you'd ort to know.
But that time I'll long remember; how I wundered here and thare--
Through the settin'-room and kitchen, and out in the open air--
And the snowflakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen glare,
And the neghbors' sleds and wagons congergatin' ev'rywhare.
I turned my eyes to'rds heaven, but the sun was hid away;
I turned my eyes to'rds earth again, but all was cold and gray;
And the clock, like ice a-crackin', clickt the icy hours in two--
And my eyes'd never thawed out ef it hadn't been fer you!
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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