James Whitcomb Riley

Pa he bringed me here to stay
    'Til my Ma she's well. - An' nen
He's go' hitch up, Chris'mus-day,
    An' come take me back again
Wher' my Ma's at! Won't I be
Tickled when he comes fer me!

My Ma an' my A'nty they
    'Uz each-uvver's sisters. Pa -
A'nty telled me, th' other day, -
    He comed here an' married Ma....
A'nty said nen, "Go run play,
    I must work now!" ... An' I saw,
When she turn' her face away,
    She 'uz cryin'. - An' nen I
    'Tend-like I "run play" - an' cry.

This-here house o' A'nty's wher'
They 'uz borned - my Ma an' her! -
An' her Ma 'uz my Ma's Ma,
An' her Pa 'uz my Ma's Pa -


Ain't that funny? - An' they're dead:
An' this-here's "th' ole Homestead." -
An' my A'nty said, an' cried,

    I come upon it suddenly, alone -
        A little pathway winding in the weeds
    That fringe the roadside; and with dreams my own,
        I wander as it leads.

    Full wistfully along the slender way,
        Through summer tan of freckled shade and shine,
    I take the path that leads me as it may -
        Its every choice is mine.

    A chipmunk, or a sudden-whirring quail,
        Is startled by my step as on I fare -
    A garter-snake across the dusty trail
        Glances and - is not there.

    Above the arching jimson-weeds flare twos
        And twos of sallow-yellow butterflies,
    Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose
        When autumn winds arise.

    The trail dips - dwindles - broadens then, and lifts

    I have sipped, with drooping lashes,
        Dreamy draughts of Verzenay;
    I have flourished brandy-smashes
        In the wildest sort of way;
    I have joked with "Tom and Jerry"
        Till wee hours ayont the twal' -
    But I've found my tea the very
        Safest tipple of them all!

    'Tis a mystical potation
        That exceeds in warmth of glow
    And divine exhilaration
        All the drugs of long ago -
    All of old magicians' potions -
        Of Medea's filtered spells -
    Or of fabled isles and oceans
        Where the Lotos-eater dwells!

    Though I've reveled o'er late lunches
        With blasé dramatic stars,
    And absorbed their wit and punches
        And the fumes of their cigars -

All were quite gracious in their plaudits of
Bud's Fairy; but another stir above
That murmur was occasioned by a sweet
Young lady-caller, from a neighboring street,
Who rose reluctantly to say good-night
To all the pleasant friends and the delight
Experienced, - as she had promised sure
To be back home by nine. Then paused, demure,
And wondered was it very dark. - Oh, no! -
She had come by herself and she could go
Without an escort. Ah, you sweet girls all!
What young gallant but comes at such a call,
Your most abject of slaves! Why, there were three
Young men, and several men of family,
Contesting for the honor - which at last
Was given to Cousin Rufus; and he cast
A kingly look behind him, as the pair
Vanished with laughter i...

Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing,
With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing,
Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air,
And a knot of red roses sown in under there
Where the shadows are lost in her hair.

Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground
Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound;
And the gleam of a smile, O as fair and as faint
And as sweet as the master of old used to paint
Round the lips of their favorite saint!

And that lace at her throat - and fluttering hands
Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands,
The flakes of their touches - first fluttering at
The bow - then the roses - the hair and then that
Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat.

Ah, what artist on earth with a model like this,
Holding not ...

    Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing,
    With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing,
    Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air,
    And a knot of red roses sown in under there
        Where the shadows are lost in her hair.

    Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground
    Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound;
    And the gleam of a smile O as fair and as faint
    And as sweet as the masters of old used to paint
        Round the lips of their favorite saint!

    And that lace at her throat - and the fluttering hands
    Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands,
    The flakes of their touches - first fluttering at
    The bow - then the roses - the hair - and then that
        Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat....

Piped to the Spirit of John Keats.

    I.

    Would that my lips might pour out in thy praise
        A fitting melody - an air sublime, -
    A song sun-washed and draped in dreamy haze -
        The floss and velvet of luxurious rhyme:
    A lay wrought of warm languors, and o'er-brimmed
        With balminess, and fragrance of wild flowers
            Such as the droning bee ne'er wearies of -
    Such thoughts as might be hymned
        To thee from this midsummer land of ours
            Through shower and sunshine blent for very love.


    II.

    Deep silences in woody aisles wherethrough
        Cool paths go loitering, and where the trill
    Of best-remembered birds hath something new
        In cadence for the hea...

Gracie wuz allus a careless tot;
    But Gracie dearly loved her doll,
    An' played wiv it on the winder-sill
'Way up-stairs, when she ought to not,
    An' her muvver telled her so an' all;
    But she won't mind what she say - till,
First thing she know, her dolly fall
    Clean spang out o' the winder plumb
    Into the street! An' here Grace come
Down-stairs, two at a time, ist wild
An' a-screamin', "Oh, my child! my child!"


Jule wuz a-bringin' their basket o' clo'es
    Ist then into their hall down there, -
    An' she ist stop' when Gracie bawl,
    An' Jule she say "She ist declare
She's ist in time!" An' what you s'pose?
    She sets her basket down in the hall,
An' wite on top o' the snowy clo'es<...

I' got no patience with blues at all!
    And I ust to kindo talk
Aginst 'em, and claim, 'tel along last Fall,
    They was none in the fambly stock;
But a nephew of mine, from Eelinoy,
    That visited us last year,
He kindo convinct me differunt
    While he was a-stayin' here.

Frum ever'-which way that blues is from,
    They'd tackle him ever' ways;
They'd come to him in the night, and come
    On Sundays, and rainy days;
They'd tackle him in corn-plantin' time,
    And in harvest, and airly Fall,
But a dose 't of blues in the wintertime,
    He 'lowed, was the worst of all!

Said all diseases that ever he had -
    The mumps, er the rheumatiz -
Er ever'-other-day-aigger's bad
    Purt' nigh as anything is! -
Er a cyarbuncle,...

I dreamed I was a spider;
A big, fat, hungry spider;
A lusty, rusty spider
    With a dozen palsied limbs;
With a dozen limbs that dangled
Where three wretched flies were tangled
And their buzzing wings were strangled
    In the middle of their hymns.

And I mocked them like a demon -
A demoniacal demon
Who delights to be a demon
    For the sake of sin alone;
And with fondly false embraces
Did I weave my mystic laces
Round their horror-stricken faces
    Till I muffled every groan.

And I smiled to see them weeping,
For to see an insect weeping,
Sadly, sorrowfully weeping,
    Fattens every spider's mirth;
And to note a fly's heart quaking,
And with anguish ever aching
Till you see it slowly breaking
    Is the swe...

    Mellow hazes, lowly trailing
    Over wood and meadow, veiling
    Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing
        Sailor-like to foreign lands;
    And the north-wind overleaping
    Summer's brink, and floodlike sweeping
    Wrecks of roses where the weeping
        Willows wring their helpless hands.

    Flared, like Titan torches flinging
        Flakes of flame and embers, springing
    From the vale the trees stand swinging
        In the moaning atmosphere;
    While in dead'ning-lands the lowing
    Of the cattle, sadder growing,
    Fills the sense to overflowing
        With the sorrow of the year.

    Sorrowfully, yet the sweeter
    Sings the brook in rippled meter
    Under boughs that lithely teeter
        Lorn birds, ...