James Whitcomb Riley

"The afternoon of summer folds     Its warm arms round the marigolds,     And with its gleaming fingers, pets     The watered pinks and violets"

"The beauty of her hair bewilders me -     Pouring adown the brow, its cloven tide     Swirling about the ears on either side     And storming r"

"Of all the doctors I could cite you to in this-'ere town      Doc Sifers is my favorite, jes' take him up and down!      Count in the Bethel Ne"

"I.         Tugg Martin's tough. - No doubt o' that!         And down there at         The town he come from word's bin sent         Advis"

"Lying listless in the mosses     Underneath a tree that tosses     Flakes of sunshine, and embosses         Its green shadow with the snow -"

"I woo'd a woman once,     But she was sharper than an eastern wind.                              - TENNYSON.     "What may I do to make yo"

"Uncle he says 'at 'way down in the sea      Ever'thing's ist like it used to be: -      He says they's mermaids, an' mermens, too,      An' l"

""Uncle Jake's Place," St. Jo, Mo., 1874     "I was born in Indiany," says a stranger, lank and slim,     As us fellers in the restarunt was kin"

"I so loved once, when Death came by I hid         Away my face,         And all my sweetheart's tresses she undid         To make my hiding"

"1     The air falls chill;     The whippoorwill     Pipes lonesomely behind the Hill:     The dusk grows dense,     The silence tense;"

"I.         An afternoon as ripe with heat             As might the golden pippin be         With mellowness if at my feet             It"

"He's jes' a great, big, awk'ard, hulkin'      Feller, - humped, and sort o' sulkin' -      Like, and ruther still-appearin' -      Kind-as-ef"

"There is a princess in the South         About whose beauty rumors hum      Like honey-bees about the mouth         Of roses dewdrops falter f"

"The little town, as I recall it, was of just enough dignity and dearth of the same to be an ordinary county seat in Indiana - "The Grand Old Hoosi"

"I'm one o' these cur'ous kind o' chaps     You think you know when you don't, perhaps!     I hain't no fool - ner I don't p'tend     To be so s"

"DAWN     As though a gipsy maiden with dim look,         Sat crooning by the roadside of the year,         So, Autumn, in thy strangeness,"

"Oh! tell me a tale of the airly days -      Of the times as they ust to be;     "Piller of Fi-er" and "Shakespeare's Plays"      Is a' most too"

"1     The kind of a man for you and me!     He faces the world unflinchingly,     And smites, as long as the wrong resists,     With a knuckl"

"How many of my selves are dead?         The ghosts of many haunt me: Lo,     The baby in the tiny bed     With rockers on, is blanketed"

"O love is like an untamed steed! -         So hot of heart and wild of speed,         And with fierce freedom so in love,         The dese"

"My father's halls, so rich and rare,     Are desolate and bleak and bare;     My father's heart and halls are one,     Since I, their life and"

"You kin boast about yer cities, and their stiddy growth and size,     And brag about yer County-seats, and business enterprise,     And railroad"

"A fantasy that came to me         As wild and wantonly designed     As ever any dream might be         Unraveled from a madman's mind, -     A"

"All seemed delighted, though the elders more,     Of course, than were the children. - Thus, before     Much interchange of mirthful compliment,"

"The greeting of the company throughout     Was like a jubilee, - the children's shout     And fusillading hand-claps, with great guns     And d"

"To hear her sing - to hear her sing -         It is to hear the birds of Spring         In dewy groves on blooming sprays         Pour out"

"William Williams his name was - or so he said; - Bill Williams they     called him, and them 'at knowed him best called him Bill Bills.     The"

"Her hair was, oh, so dense a blur     Of darkness, midnight envied her;     And stars grew dimmer in the skies     To see the glory of her eyes"

"When little Dickie Swope's a man,      He's go' to be a Sailor;     An' little Hamey Tincher, he's      A-go' to be a Tailor:     Bud Mitchell"

"A woman's figure, on a ground of night             Inlaid with sallow stars that dimly stare             Down in the lonesome eyes, uplifted"

"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"

"Tinkle on, O sweet guitar,             Let the dancing fingers         Loiter where the low notes are             Blended with the singer's"

"I     Has she forgotten? On this very May     We were to meet here, with the birds and bees,     As on that Sabbath, underneath the trees"

"He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken     Pierces the crust of this existence through)     And smiled beyond on that his genius knew     Ere"

"Who am I but the Frog - the Frog!         My realm is the dark bayou,     And my throne is the muddy and moss-grown log         That the poison"

"Sence I tuk holt o' Gibbses' Churn     And be'n a-handlin' the concern,     I've travelled round the grand old State     Of Indiany, lots, o' l"

"Go, Winter!    Go thy ways!    We want again         The twitter of the bluebird and the wren;         Leaves ever greener growing, and the"

"Hi and whoop-hooray, boys!      Sing a song of cheer!     Here's a holiday, boys,      Lasting half a year!     Round the world, and half is"

"We're The Twins from Aunt Marinn's,                 Igo and Ago.      When Dad comes, the show begins! -                 Iram, coram, dago."

"One 's the pictur' of his Pa,         And the other of her Ma -         Jes the bossest pair o' babies 'at a mortal ever saw!         And"

"The Old Hay-mow's the place to play     Fer boys, when it's a rainy day!     I good-'eal ruther be up there     Than down in town, er anywhere!"

"In some strange place     Of long-lost lands he finds her waiting face -     Comes marveling upon it, unaware,     Set moonwise in the"

"1900      Father all bountiful, in mercy bear      With this our universal voice of prayer -          The voice that needs must be          Uprai"

"Old friend of mine, whose chiming name             Has been the burthen of a rhyme         Within my heart since first I came             T"

"Lay away the story, -         Though the theme is sweet,      There's a lack of something yet,         Leaves it incomplete: -      There's"

"Neglected now is the old guitar      And moldering into decay;     Fretted with many a rift and scar      That the dull dust hides away,     W"

"May 1, 1891.         I.         Elizabeth!    Elizabeth!         The first May-morning whispereth         Thy gentle name in every breez"

"[R.H.]      Little Julia, since that we      May not as our elders be,      Let us blithely fill the days      Of our youth with pleasant pl"

"There's a habit I have nurtured,         From the sentimental time     When my life was like a story,         And my heart a happy rhyme, -"

"Bud, come here to your uncle a spell,     And I'll tell you something you mustn't tell -     For it's a secret and shore-'nuf true,     And may"

"By her white bed I muse a little space:         She fell asleep - not very long ago, -         And yet the grass was here and not the snow"

""Write me a rhyme of the present time".         And the poet took his pen     And wrote such lines as the miser minds         Hide in the heart"

"I want to sing something - but this is all -     I try and I try, but the rhymes are dull     As though they were damp, and the echoes fall"

"Nobody on the old farm here but Mother, me and John,         Except, of course, the extry he'p when harvest-time come on -         And then"

"Nothin' to say, my daughter! Nothin' at all to say!     Gyrls that's in love, I've noticed, ginerly has their way!     Yer mother did, afore you"

"TO HOMER DAVENPORT      Wess he says, and sort o' grins,      "Art and Poetry is twins!      "Yit, if I'd my pick, I'd shake      Poetry, and no"

"I caught but a glimpse of him. Summer was here.     And I strayed from the town and its dust and heat.     And walked in a wood, while the noon"

"Folks has be'n to town, and Sahry     Fetched 'er home a pet canary,     And of all the blame', contrary,     Aggervatin' things alive!     I"

"[W.M.]      Most-like it was this kingly lad      Spake out of the pure joy he had      In his child-heart of the wee maid      Whose eerie"

"The Child-World - long and long since lost to view -                 A Fairy Paradise! -         How always fair it was and fresh and new -"