James Whitcomb Riley

Gender: 
Male
  • Pap’s got his patent right, and rich as all creation;
      But where ’s the peace and comfort that we all had before?
    Le’s go a-visitin’ back to Griggsby’s Station—
      Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!

    The likes of us a-livin’ here! It ’s just a mortal...

  • Old man never had much to say—
      ’Ceptin’ to Jim,—
    And Jim was the wildest boy he had,
      And the old man jes’ wrapped up in him!
    Never heerd him speak but once
    Er twice in my life,—and first time was
    When the army broke out, and Jim he went,...

  • Jest rain and snow! and rain again!
      And dribble! drip! and blow!
    Then snow! and thaw! and slush! and then—
      Some more rain and snow!

    This morning I was ’most afeard
      To wake up—when, I jing!
    I seen the sun shine out and heerd
      The...

  • When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder ’s in the shock,
    And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
    And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
    And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
    O it ’s then ’...

  • I.
    tell you what I like the best—
        ’Long about knee-deep in June,
        ’Bout the time strawberries melts
        On the vines—some afternoon
    Like to jes’ git out and rest,
        And not work at nothin’ else!

    II.
    Orchard’s where I’...

  • As one who cons at evening o’er an album all alone,
    And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
    So I turn the leaves of fancy, till in shadowy design
    I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

    The lamplight seems to glimmer with a...

  • How slight a thing may set one’s fancy drifting
      Upon the dead sea of the Past!—A view—
    Sometimes an odor—or a rooster lifting
      A far-off “Ooh! ooh-ooh!”

    And suddenly we find ourselves astray
      In some wood’s-pasture of the Long Ago,—
    Or idly...

  • O The DAYS gone by! O the days gone by!
    The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye;
    The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quail
    As he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale;
    When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was...

  • Little Orphant Annie ’s come to our house to stay,
    An’ wash the cups and saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
    An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
    An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
    An’ all us...

  • Said the Raggedy Man on a hot afternoon,
        “My!
            Sakes!
                What a lot o’ mistakes
    Some little folks makes on the Man in the Moon!
    But people that ’s been up to see him like Me,
    And calls on him frequent and intimutly,
    ...