To My Good Master
In fancy, always, at thy desk, thrown wide,
Thy most betreasured books ranged neighborly--
The rarest rhymes of every land and sea
And curious tongue--thine old face glorified,--
Thou haltest thy glib quill, and, laughing-eyed,
Givest hale welcome even unto me,
Profaning thus thine attic's sanctity,
To briefly visit, yet to still abide
Enthralled there of thy sorcery of wit,
And thy songs' most exceeding dear conceits.
O lips, cleft to the ripe core of all sweets,
With poems, like nectar, issuing therefrom,
Thy gentle utterances do overcome
My listening heart and all the love of it!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Sleep
Thou drowsy god, whose blurred eyes, half awink
Muse on me--, drifting out upon thy dreams,
I lave my soul as in enchanted streams
Where revelling satyrs pipe along the brink,
And tipsy with the melody they drink,
Uplift their dangling hooves, and down the beams
Of sunshine dance like motes. Thy languor seems
An ocean-depth of love wherein I sink
Like some fond Argonaut, right willingly--,
Because of wooing eyes upturned to mine,
And siren-arms that coil their sorcery
About my neck, with kisses so divine,
The heavens reel above me, and the sea
Swallows and licks its wet lips over me.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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A Full Harvest
Seems like a feller'd ort 'o jes' to-day
Git down and roll and waller, don't you know,
In that-air stubble, and flop up and crow,
Seein' sich craps! I'll undertake to say
There're no wheat's ever turned out thataway
Afore this season!--Folks is keerless tho',
And too fergitful--'caze we'd ort 'o show
More thankfulness!--Jes' looky hyonder, hey?--
And watch that little reaper wadin' thue
That last old yaller hunk o' harvest-ground--
Jes' natchur'ly a-slicin' it in-two
Like honey-comb, and gaumin' it around
The field--like it had nothin' else to do
On'y jes' waste it all on me and you!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Dearth
I hold your trembling hand to-night-- and yet
I may not know what wealth of bliss is mine,
My heart is such a curious design
Of trust and jealousy! Your eyes are wet--
So must I think they jewel some regret--,
And lo, the loving arms that round me twine
Cling only as the tendrils of a vine
Whose fruit has long been gathered: I forget,
While crimson clusters of your kisses press
Their wine out on my lips, my royal fair
Of rapture, since blind fancy needs must guess
They once poured out their sweetness otherwhere,
With fuller flavoring of happiness
Than e'en your broken sobs may now declare.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Honey Dripping From The Comb
How slight a thing may set one's fancy drifting
Upon the dead sea of the Past!--A view--
Sometimes an odor--or a rooster lifting
A far-off 'OOH! OOH-OOH!'
And suddenly we find ourselves astray
In some wood's-pasture of the Long Ago--
Or idly dream again upon a day
Of rest we used to know.
I bit an apple but a moment since--
A wilted apple that the worm had spurned,--
Yet hidden in the taste were happy hints
Of good old days returned.--
And so my heart, like some enraptured lute,
Tinkles a tune so tender and complete,
God's blessing must be resting on the fruit--
So bitter, yet so sweet!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Bryant
The harp has fallen from the master's hand;
Mute is the music, voiceless are the strings,
Save such faint discord as the wild wind flings
In sad aeolian murmurs through the land.
The tide of melody, whose billows grand
Flowed o'er the world in clearest utterings,
Now, in receding current, sobs and sings
That song we never wholly understand.
* * O, eyes where glorious prophecies belong,
And gracious reverence to humbly bow,
And kingly spirit, proud, and pure, and strong;
O, pallid minstrel with the laureled brow,
And lips so long attuned to sacred song,
How sweet must be the Heavenly anthem now!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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When She Comes Home
When she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble--yes;
And touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress.
Then silence: And the perfume of her dress:
The room will sway a little, and a haze
Cloy eyesight--soulsight, even--for a space:
And tears--yes; and the ache here in the throat,
To know that I so ill deserve the place
Her arms make for me; and the sobbing note
I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face
Again is hidden in the old embrace.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Katydids
Sometimes I keep
From going to sleep,
To hear the katydids 'cheep-cheep!'
And think they say
Their prayers that way;
But _katydids_ don't have to _pray_!
I listen when
They cheep again
And so, I think, they're _singing_ then!
But, no; I'm wrong,--
The sound's too long
And all-alike to be a song!
I think, 'Well, there!
I do declare,
If it is neither song nor prayer,
It's _talk_--and quite
Too vain and light
For me to listen to all night!'
[...] Read more
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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To An Importunate Ghost
Get gone, thou most uncomfortable ghost!
Thou really dost annoy me with thy thin
Impalpable transparency of grin;
And the vague, shadowy shape of thee almost
Hath vext me beyond boundary and coast
Of my broad patience. Stay thy chattering chin,
And reel the tauntings of thy vain tongue in,
Nor tempt me further with thy vaporish boast
That I am _helpless_ to combat thee! Well,
Have at thee, then! Yet if a doom most dire
Thou wouldst escape, flee whilst thou canst!--Revile
Me not, Miasmic Mist!--Rank Air! _retire_!
One instant longer an thou haunt'st me, I'll
_Inhale_ thee, O thou wraith despicable!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Robert Burns Wilson
What intuition named thee?--Through what thrill
Of the awed soul came the command divine
Into the mother-heart, foretelling thine
Should palpitate with his whose raptures will
Sing on while daisies bloom and lavrocks trill
Their undulating ways up through the fine
Fair mists of heavenly reaches? Thy pure line
Falls as the dew of anthems, quiring still
The sweeter since the Scottish singer raised
His voice therein, and, quit of every stress
Of earthly ache and longing and despair,
Knew certainly each simple thing he praised
Was no less worthy, for its lowliness,
Than any joy of all the glory There.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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