James Whitcomb Riley

"O soul of mine, look out and see      My bride, my bride that is to be!      Reach out with mad, impatient hands,     And draw aside futurity"

"The orchard lands of Long Ago!     O drowsy winds, awake, and blow     The snowy blossoms back to me,     And all the buds that used to be!"

"It's a mystery to see me - a man o' fifty-four,         Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more -         A-lookin' glad"

"Our hired girl, she's 'Lizabuth Ann;      An' she can cook best things to eat!     She ist puts dough in our pie-pan,      An' pours in somepin"

"When Lide married him - w'y, she had to jes dee-fy     The whole poppilation! - But she never bat' an eye!     Her parents begged, and threatene"

"Another hero of those youthful years     Returns, as Noey Bixler's name appears.     And Noey - if in any special way -     Was notably good-n"

"The touches of her hands are like the fall         Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down      The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden"

"Dreamer, say, will you dream for me      A wild sweet dream of a foreign land,     Whose border sips of a foaming sea      With lips of coral a"

"It's many's the scenes which is dear to my mind     As I think of my childhood so long left behind;     The home of my birth, with it's old punc"

""I deem that God is not disquieted" -      This in a mighty poet's rhymes I read;      And blazoned so forever doth abide      Within my soul"

"When Bess gave her Dollies a Tea, said she, -      "It's unpolite, when they's Company,      To say you've drinked two cups, you see, -"

"A strange life - strangely passed!         We may not read the soul         When God has folded up the scroll             In death at last."

"The warm pulse of the nation has grown chill;         The muffled heart of Freedom, like a knell,     Throbs solemnly for one whose earthly will"

"My Mary, O my Mary!      The simmer-skies are blue;     The dawnin' brings the dazzle,      An' the gloamin' brings the dew, -     The mirk o'"

"Ho! it's come, kids, come!      "With a bim! bam! bum!      Here's little Billy bangin' on his big bass drum!      He's a-marchin' round the r"

"Thou drowsy god, whose blurred eyes, half awink     Muse on me, drifting out upon thy dreams,     I lave my soul as in enchanted streams     Wh"

""O I am weary!" she sighed, as her billowy     Hair she unloosed in a torrent of gold     That rippled and fell o'er a figure as willowy,     G"

"This is "The old Home by the Mill" - far we still call it so,      Although the old mill, roof and sill, is all gone long ago.      The old hom"

"You and I, and that night, with its perfume and glory! -         The scent of the locusts - the light of the moon;      And the violin weaving"

"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 a"

"I' be'n down to the Capital at Washington, D. C.,      Where Congerss meets and passes on the pensions ort to be      Allowed to old one-legged"

"Take a feller 'at's sick and laid up on the shelf,             All shaky, and ga'nted, and pore -         Jes all so knocked out he can't h"

"O her eyes are amber-fine -         Dark and deep as wells of wine,         While her smile is like the noon         Splendor of a day of"

"My dear old friends - It jes beats all,      The way you write a letter     So's ever' last line beats the first,      And ever' next-un's bett"

""He shall sleep unscathed of thieves     Who loves Allah and believes."     Thus heard one who shared the tent,     In the far-off Orient,"

"AFTER HIS LONG SILENCE      Dear old friend of us all in need      Who know the worth of a friend indeed,      How rejoiced are we all to learn"

"AFTER LEE O. HARRIS     The master-hand whose pencils trace         This wondrous landscape of the morn,     Is but the sun, whose glowing fac"

"Picnics is fun 'at's purty hard to beat.      I purt'-nigh ruther go to them than eat.      I purt'-nigh ruther go to them than go      With o"

""When little 'Pollus Morton he's         A-go' to speak a piece, w'y, nen      The Teacher smiles an' says 'at she's         Most proud, of al"

"The bookman he's a humming-bird -         His feasts are honey-fine, -          (With hi! hilloo!          And clover-dew         And roses l"

"Sometimes I keep      From going to sleep,      To hear the katydids "cheep-cheep!"      And think they say      Their prayers that way;"

"Oh, the hobo's life is a roving life;      It robs pretty maids of their heart's delight -      It causes them to weep and it causes them to mo"

"There are many things that boys may know -      Why this and that are thus and so, -      Who made the world in the dark and lit      The gr"

"Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon -     The land that the Lord's love rests upon;     Where one may rely on the friends he meets,     And the"

"When the lids of dusk are falling         O'er the dreamy eyes of day,     And the whippoorwills are calling,         And the lesson laid away,"

"Where are they? - the friends of my childhood enchanted -     The clear, laughing eyes looking back in my own,     And the warm, chubby fingers"

"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 tru"

"Iry an' Billy an' Jo! -                 Iry an' Billy's the boys,         An' Jo's their dog, you know, -         Their pictures took all"

"You in the hammock; and I, near by,         Was trying to read, and to swing you, too;      And the green of the sward was so kind to the eye,"

"I am tired of this!      Nothing else but loving!     Nothing else but kiss and kiss,      Coo, and turtle-doving!         Can't you change th"

"A daring prince, of the realm Rangg Dhune,      Once went up in a big balloon      That caught and stuck on the horns of the moon,      And h"

"I     In the jolly winters      Of the long-ago,     It was not so cold as now -      O! No! No!     Then, as I remember,      Snowballs t"

"When two little boys - renowned but for noise -         Hik-tee-dik! Billy and Buddy! -      May hurt a whole school, and the head it employs"

"I.         As one in sorrow looks upon             The dead face of a loyal friend,         By the dim light of New Year's dawn"

"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!"

"" - And any little tiny kickshaws." - Shakespeare.      O the little tiny kickshaw that Mither sent tae me,      'Tis sweeter than the sugar-plum"

"Old October's purt' nigh gone,     And the frosts is comin' on     Little heavier every day -     Like our hearts is thataway!     Leaves is c"

"O The South Wind and the Sun!     How each loved the other one     Full of fancy - full folly -     Full of jollity and fun!     How they romp"

"They faced each other: Topaz-brown         And lambent burnt her eyes and shot         Sharp flame at his of amethyst. -         "I hate y"

"In words like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,         Like coarsest clothes against the cold;         But that large grief which these enfold     Is"

"Uncle Sidney, when he wuz here,      Maked me a squirtgun out o' some     Elder-bushes 'at growed out near     Where wuz the brickyard - 'way o"

"Thou Poet, who, like any lark,             Dost whet thy beak and trill         From misty morn till murky dark,             Nor ever pipe"

"Las' July - an', I persume         'Bout as hot      As the ole Gran'-Jury room         Where they sot! -      Fight 'twixt Mike an' Dock McG"

"O touch me with your hands -                     For pity's sake!         My brow throbs ever on with such an ache         As only your co"

"AN OLD SWEETHEART.      As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,      And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,"

"The pipes of Pan! Not idler now are they      Than when their cunning fashioner first blew      The pith of music from them: Yet for you"

""My grandfather Squeers," said The Raggedy Man,     As he solemnly lighted his pipe and began -     "The most indestructible man, for his years"

"O the Lands of Where-Away!         Tell us - tell us - where are they?         Through the darkness and the dawn         We have journeyed"

"Dan O'Sullivan: It's your      Lips have kissed "The Blarney," sure! -      To be trillin' praise av me,      Dhrippin' swhate wid poethry! -"

"If from your own the dimpled hands had slipped,     And ne'er would nestle in your palm again;     If the white feet into the grave had tripped""