Citatepedia^®.com

To My Good Master

In fancy, always, at thy desk, thrown wide,
Thy most betreasured books ranged neighborly--
The rarest rhymes of every land and sea
And curious tongue--thine old face glorified,--
Thou haltest thy glib quill, and, laughing-eyed,
Givest hale welcome even unto me,
Profaning thus thine attic's sanctity,
To briefly visit, yet to still abide
Enthralled there of thy sorcery of wit,
And thy songs' most exceeding dear conceits.
O lips, cleft to the ripe core of all sweets,
With poems, like nectar, issuing therefrom,
Thy gentle utterances do overcome
My listening heart and all the love of it!

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Noon Interval

A deep, delicious hush in earth and sky --
A gracious lull--since, from its wakening,
The morn has been a feverish, restless thing
In which the pulse of Summer ran too high
And riotous, as though its heart went nigh
To bursting with delights past uttering:
Now--as an o'erjoyed child may cease to sing
All falteringly at play, with drowsy eye
Draining the pictures of a fairy-tale
To brim his dreams with--there comes o'er the day
A loathful silence wherein all sounds fail
Like loitering sounds of some roundelay . . .
No wakeful effort longer may avail --
The wand waves, and the dozer sinks away.

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Bryant

The harp has fallen from the master's hand;
Mute is the music, voiceless are the strings,
Save such faint discord as the wild wind flings
In sad aeolian murmurs through the land.
The tide of melody, whose billows grand
Flowed o'er the world in clearest utterings,
Now, in receding current, sobs and sings
That song we never wholly understand.
* * O, eyes where glorious prophecies belong,
And gracious reverence to humbly bow,
And kingly spirit, proud, and pure, and strong;
O, pallid minstrel with the laureled brow,
And lips so long attuned to sacred song,
How sweet must be the Heavenly anthem now!

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Dusk

The frightened herds of clouds across the sky
Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day
Into the dusky forest-lands of gray
And sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high,
The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry
Sad as the wail of some poor castaway
Who sees a vessel drifting far astray
Of his last hope, and lays him down to die.
The children, riotous from school, grow bold
And quarrel with the wind whose angry gust
Plucks off the summer-hat, and flaps the fold
Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust
In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold
Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust.

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Indiana

Our Land-- our Home-- the common home indeed
Of soil-born children and adopted ones--
The stately daughters and the stalwart sons
Of Industry--: All greeting and godspeed!
O home to proudly live for, and if need
Be proudly die for, with the roar of guns
Blent with our latest prayer--. So died men once...
Lo Peace...! As we look on the land They freed--
Its harvests all in ocean-over flow
Poured round autumnal coasts in billowy gold--
Its corn and wine and balmed fruits and flow'rs--,
We know the exaltation that they know
Who now, steadfast inheritors, behold
The Land Elysian, marvelling 'This is ours?'

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Let Us Forget

Let us forget. What matters it that we
Once reigned o'er happy realms of long-ago,
And talked of love, and let our voices low,
And ruled for some brief sessions royally?
What if we sung, or laughed, or wept maybe?
It has availed not anything, and so
Let it go by that we may better know
How poor a thing is lost to you and me.
But yesterday I kissed your lips, and yet
Did thrill you not enough to shake the dew
From your drenched lids--and missed, with no regret,
Your kiss shot back, with sharp breaths failing you;
And so, to-day, while our worn eyes are wet
With all this waste of tears, let us forget!

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Longfellow

The winds have talked with him confidingly;
The trees have whispered to him; and the night
Hath held him gently as a mother might,
And taught him all sad tones of melody:
The mountains have bowed to him; and the sea,
In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite,
Hath told him all her sorrow and delight--
Her legends fair-- her darkest mystery.
His verse blooms like a flower, night and day;
Bees cluster round his rhymes; and twitterings
Of lark and swallow, in an endless May,
Are mingling with the tender songs he sings--.
Nor shall he cease to sing-- in every lay
Of Nature's voice he sings-- and will alway.

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Robert Burns Wilson

What intuition named thee?--Through what thrill
Of the awed soul came the command divine
Into the mother-heart, foretelling thine
Should palpitate with his whose raptures will
Sing on while daisies bloom and lavrocks trill
Their undulating ways up through the fine
Fair mists of heavenly reaches? Thy pure line
Falls as the dew of anthems, quiring still
The sweeter since the Scottish singer raised
His voice therein, and, quit of every stress
Of earthly ache and longing and despair,
Knew certainly each simple thing he praised
Was no less worthy, for its lowliness,
Than any joy of all the glory There.

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Bat

I.

Thou dread, uncanny thing,
With fuzzy breast and leathern wing,
In mad, zigzagging flight,
Notching the dusk, and buffeting
The black cheeks of the night,
With grim delight!

II.

What witch's hand unhasps
Thy keen claw-cornered wings
From under the barn roof, and flings
Thee forth, with chattering gasps,
To scud the air,
And nip the lady-bug, and tear
Her children's hearts out unaware?

III.

[...] Read more

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Katydids

Sometimes I keep
From going to sleep,
To hear the katydids 'cheep-cheep!'
And think they say
Their prayers that way;
But _katydids_ don't have to _pray_!

I listen when
They cheep again
And so, I think, they're _singing_ then!
But, no; I'm wrong,--
The sound's too long
And all-alike to be a song!

I think, 'Well, there!
I do declare,
If it is neither song nor prayer,
It's _talk_--and quite
Too vain and light
For me to listen to all night!'

[...] Read more

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!