Quotes about whitcomb, page 5
A Leave-Taking
She will not smile;
She will not stir;
I marvel while
I look on her.
The lips are chilly
And will not speak;
The ghost of a lily
In either cheek.
Her hair--ah me!
Her hair--her hair!
How helplessly
My hands go there!
But my caresses
Meet not hers,
O golden tresses
That thread my tears!
I kiss the eyes
On either lid,
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Blooms Of May
But yesterday!...
O blooms of May,
And summer roses--Where-away?
O stars above,
And lips of love
And all the honeyed sweets thereof!
O lad and lass
And orchard-pass,
And briered lane, and daisied grass!
O gleam and gloom,
And woodland bloom,
And breezy breaths of all perfume!--
No more for me
Or mine shall be
Thy raptures--save in memory,--
No more--no more--
Till through the Door
Of Glory gleam the days of yore.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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His Vigil
Close the book and dim the light,
I shall read no more to-night.
No--I am not sleepy, dear--
Do not go: sit by me here
In the darkness and the deep
Silence of the watch I keep.
Something in your presence so
Soothes me--as in long ago
I first felt your hand--as now--
In the darkness touch my brow;
I've no other wish than you
Thus should fold mine eyelids to,
Saying nought of sigh or tear--
Just as God were sitting here.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Lines For An Album
I would not trace the hackneyed phrase
Of shallow words and empty praise,
And prate of 'peace' till one might think
My foolish pen was drunk with ink.
Nor will I here the wish express
Of 'lasting love and happiness,'
And 'cloudless skies'--for after all
'Into each life some rain must fall.'
--No. Keep the empty page below,
In my remembrance, white as snow--
Nor sigh to know the secret prayer
My spirit hand has written there.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Dead Lover
Time is so long when a man is dead!
Some one sews; and the room is made
Very clean; and the light is shed
Soft through the window-shade.
Yesterday I thought: 'I know
Just how the bells will sound, and how
The friends will talk, and the sermon go,
And the hearse-horse bow and bow!'
This is to-day; and I have no thing
To think of-- nothing whatever to do
But to hear the throb of the pulse of a wing
That wants to fly back to you.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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September Dark
1
The air falls chill;
The whippoorwill
Pipes lonesomely behind the Hill:
The dusk grows dense,
The silence tense;
And lo, the katydids commence.
2
Through shadowy rifts
Of woodland lifts
The low, slow moon, and upward drifts,
While left and right
The fireflies' light
Swirls eddying in the skirts of Night.
3
O Cloudland gray
And level lay
Thy mists across the face of Day!
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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A Scrawl
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
Limp and unlovable.
Words will not say what I yearn to say--
They will not walk as I want them to,
But they stumble and fall in the path of the way
Of my telling my love for you.
Simply take what the scrawl is worth--
Knowing I love you as sun the sod
On the ripening side of the great round earth
That swings in the smile of God.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Her Face And Brow
Ah, help me! but her face and brow
Are lovelier than lilies are
Beneath the light of moon and star
That smile as they are smiling now--
White lilies in a pallid swoon
Of sweetest white beneath the moon--
White lilies, in a flood of bright
Pure lucidness of liquid light
Cascading down some plenilune,
When all the azure overhead
Blooms like a dazzling daisy-bed.--
So luminous her face and brow,
The luster of their glory, shed
In memory, even, blinds me now.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Rider Of The Knee
Knightly Rider of the Knee
Of Proud-prancing Unclery!
Gaily mount, and wave the sign
Of that mastery of thine.
Pat thy steed and turn him free,
Knightly Rider of the Knee!
Sit thy charger as a throne--
Lash him with thy laugh alone:
Sting him only with the spur
Of such wit as may occur,
Knightly Rider of the Knee,
In thy shriek of ecstasy.
Would, as now, we might endure,
Twain as one--thou miniature
Ruler, at the rein of me--
Knightly Rider of the Knee!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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A Good Man
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
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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