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A Good Man

By James Whitcomb Riley

Topics: classic

I     A good man never dies -      In worthy deed and prayer     And helpful hands, and honest eyes,      If smiles or tears be there:     Who lives for you and me -      Lives for the world he tries     To help - he lives eternally.      A good man never dies.     II     Who lives to bravely take      His share of toil and stress,     And, for his weaker fellows' sake,      Makes every burden less, -     He may, at last, seem worn -      Lie fallen - hands and eyes     Folded - yet, though we mourn and mourn,      A good man never dies.

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

James Whitcomb Riley

About James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916) was an American poet known as the "Hoosier Poet." His dialect poems—including "Little Orphant Annie" and "When the Frost Is on the Punkin"—celebrate rural Indiana life and childhood nostalgia.

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