To James Whitcomb Riley

Related poetry:

1. Autumn in the Garden When the frosty kiss of Autumn in the dark Makes its mark On the flowers, and the misty morning grieves Over fallen leaves; Then my olden garden, where the golden soil Through the toil Of a hundred years is mellow, rich, and deep, Whispers in its sleep. ‘Mid the crumpled beds of marigold and phlox, […]...
2. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
3. Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
4. JAMES SIMMONS R. I. P You were the one I wanted most to know So like yet unlike, like fire and snow, The casual voice, the sharp invective, The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant Who never gave a shit, crossed the palms Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt For the fakers and the tricksters whose […]...
5. Village Song HONEY, child, honey, child, whither are you going? Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing? Would you leave the mother who on golden grain has fed you? Would you grieve the lover who is riding forth to wed you? Mother mine, to the wild forest I am going, Where upon the champa […]...
6. Father Riley's Horse ‘Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog By the troopers of the upper Murray side, They had searched in every gully they had looked in every log, But never sight or track of him they spied, Till the priest at Kiley’s Crossing heard a knocking very late And a whisper […]...
7. Patience If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil And its head bent low with patience. The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, And thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky. […]...
8. To Mr James Scrymgeour, Dundee Success to James Scrymgeour, He’s a very good man, And to gainsay it, There’s few people can; Because he makes the hearts Of the poor o’erjoyed By trying to find work for them When they’re unemployed. And to their complaints He has always an attentive ear, And ever ready to help them When unto him […]...
9. There is another sky There is another sky, Ever serene and fair, And there is another sunshine, Though it be darkness there; Never mind faded forests, Austin, Never mind silent fields – Here is a little forest, Whose leaf is ever green; Here is a brighter garden, Where not a frost has been; In its unfading flowers I hear […]...
10. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
11. Idea LIII: To the River Ancor Clear Ancor, on whose silver-sanded shore My soul-shrin’d saint, my fair Idea lies, O blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore Thy crystal stream, refined by her eyes, Where sweet myrrh-breathing Zephyr in the spring Gently distills his nectar-dropping showers, Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing Amongst the dainty dew-impearled flowers; Say thus, fair brook, […]...
12. Sonnet LIII: Clear Anker Another to the River Anker Clear Anker, on whose silver-sanded shore My soul-shrin’d saint, my fair Idea, lies, O blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore The crystal stream refined by her eyes, Where sweet myrrh-breathing Zephyr in the Spring Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers, Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing Among the dainty dew-impearled […]...
13. Henry James Who comes to-night? We open the doors in vain. Who comes? My bursting walls, can you contain The presences that now together throng Your narrow entry, as with flowers and song, As with the air of life, the breath of talk? Lo, how these fair immaculate women walk Behind their jocund maker; and we see […]...
14. The trees in the garden rained flowers The trees in the garden rained flowers. Children ran there joyously. They gathered the flowers Each to himself. Now there were some Who gathered great heaps Having opportunity and skill Until, behold, only chance blossoms Remained for the feeble. Then a little spindling tutor Ran importantly to the father, crying: “Pray, come hither! See this […]...
15. 115. The Farewell to the Brethren of St. James's Lodge, Tarbolton ADIEU! a heart-warm fond adieu; Dear brothers of the mystic tie! Ye favourèd, enlighten’d few, Companions of my social joy; Tho’ I to foreign lands must hie, Pursuing Fortune’s slidd’ry ba’; With melting heart, and brimful eye, I’ll mind you still, tho’ far awa. Oft have I met your social band, And spent the cheerful, […]...
16. To Willie and Henrietta If two may read aright These rhymes of old delight And house and garden play, You too, my cousins, and you only, may. You in a garden green With me were king and queen, Were hunter, soldier, tar, And all the thousand things that children are. Now in the elders’ seat We rest with quiet […]...
17. PLAYING AT PRIESTS WITHIN a town where parity According to old form we see, That is to say, where Catholic And Protestant no quarrels pick, And where, as in his father’s day, Each worships God in his own way, We Luth’ran children used to dwell, By songs and sermons taught as well. The Catholic clingclang in truth Sounded […]...
18. Henry James in the Heart of the City We have a small sculpture of Henry James on our terrace in New York City. Nothing would surprise him. The beast in the jungle was what he saw Edith Wharton’s obfuscating older brother. . . He fled the demons Of Manhattan For fear they would devour His inner ones (the ones who wrote the books) […]...
19. Conrad in Twilight Conrad, Conrad, aren’t you old To sit so late in your mouldy garden? And I think Conrad knows it well, Nursing his knees, too rheumy and cold To warm the wraith of a Forest of Arden. Neuralgia in the back of his neck, His lungs filling with such miasma, His feet dipping in leafage and […]...
20. Dedication Inscribed to a Dear Child: In Memory of Golden Summer Hours And Whispers of a Summer Sea Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task, Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask The tale he loves to tell. Rude spirits of the seething outer strife, […]...
21. Spring Carol WHEN loud by landside streamlets gush, And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush, With sun on the meadows And songs in the shadows Comes again to me The gift of the tongues of the lea, The gift of the tongues of meadows. Straightway my olden heart returns And dances with the dancing burns; It […]...
22. Alfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad Of subtly-changing and surprising parts; His moods are storms that frighten and make glad, His eyes were made to capture women’s hearts. Down in the glory-hole Alfonso sings An olden song of wine and clinking glasses And riotous rakes; magnificently flings Gay kisses to imaginary lasses. Alfonso’s voice of […]...
23. Good and Bad Children Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild’ring, Innocent and honest children. Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places […]...
24. Written Before Re-Reading King Lear O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute. Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
25. On the Death of the Honourable Mr. James Thynne Farewell, lov’d Youth! since ’twas the Will of Heaven So soon to take, what had so late been giv’n; And thus our Expectations to destroy, Raising a Grief, where we had form’d a Joy; Who once believ’d, it was the Fates Design In Him to double an Illustrious Line, And in a second Channel spread […]...
26. On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute, Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
27. FOR JAMES SIMMONS Sitting in outpatients With my own minor ills Dawn’s depression lifts To the lilt of amitryptilene, A double dose for a day’s journey To a distant ward. The word was out that Simmons Had died eighteen months after An aneurism at sixty seven. The meeting he proposed in his second letter Could never happen: a […]...
28. Not Dead Walking through trees to cool my heat and pain, I know that David’s with me here again. All that is simple, happy, strong, he is. Caressingly I stroke Rough bark of the friendly oak. A brook goes bubbling by: the voice is his. Turf burns with pleasant smoke; I laugh at chaffinch and at primroses. […]...
29. The Ancient Speech A Gaelic bard they praise who in fourteen adjectives Named the one indivisible soul of his glen; For what are the bens and the glens but manifold qualities, Immeasurable complexities of soul? What are these isles but a song sung by island voices? The herdsman sings ancestral memories And the song makes the singer wise, […]...
30. 90. Epistle to James Smith DEAR SMITH, the slee’st, pawkie thief, That e’er attempted stealth or rief! Ye surely hae some warlock-brief Owre human hearts; For ne’er a bosom yet was prief Against your arts. For me, I swear by sun an’ moon, An’ ev’ry star that blinks aboon, Ye’ve cost me twenty pair o’ shoon, Just gaun to see […]...
31. Lover's Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book It is written in the book that Man, when fifty, must leave the Noisy world, to go to the forest seclusion. But the poet proclaims That the forest hermitage is only for the young. For it is the Birthplace of flowers and the haunt of birds and bees; and hidden Hooks are waiting there for […]...
32. Mother Earth Mother of all the high-strung poets and singers departed, Mother of all the grass that weaves over their graves the glory of the field, Mother of all the manifold forms of life, deep-bosomed, patient, impassive, Silent brooder and nurse of lyrical joys and sorrows! Out of thee, yea, surely out of the fertile depth below […]...
33. The Learner I’ve learned Of all the friends I’ve won Dame Nature is the best, And to her like a child I run Craving her mother breast To comfort me in soul distress, And in green glade to find Far from the world’s unloveliness Pure peace of mind. I’ve learned the worth of simple ways, And though […]...
34. The Frost-King – Song II Brighter shone the golden shadows; On the cool wind softly came The low, sweet tones of happy flowers, Singing little Violet’s name. ‘Mong the green trees was it whispered, And the bright waves bore it on To the lonely forest flowers, Where the glad news had not gone. Thus the Frost-King lost his kingdom, And […]...
35. Evening Song of the Thoughtful Child Shadow children, thin and small, Now the day is left behind, You are dancing on the wall, On the curtains, on the blind. On the ceiling, children, too, Peeping round the nursery door, Let me come and play with you, As we always played before. Let’s pretend that we have wings And can really truly […]...
36. The Execution of James Graham, Marquis of Montrose ‘Twas in the year of 1650, and on the twenty-first of May, The city of Edinburgh was put into a state of dismay By the noise of drums and trumpets, which on the air arose, That the great sound attracted the notice of Montrose. Who enquired at the Captain of the guard the cause of […]...
37. The Gardener XVI: Hands Cling to Eyes Hands cling to hands and eyes linger On eyes: thus begins the record of our Hearts. It is the moonlit night of March; The sweet smell of henna is in the air; My flute lies on the earth neglected And your garland of flowers is Unfinished. This love between you and me is Simple as […]...
38. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
39. An Old-Fashioned Garden Strange, is it not? She was making her garden, Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day- Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons- Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way. Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel Grew until, angrily, she set me free- Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us,- Ordaining bachelor’s buttons for […]...
40. Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play; Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow: And some are sung, and that was yesterday, And some are unsung, and that may be tomorrow. Go forth; and if it be o’er stony way, Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow: And it was […]...