PAST MASTER - James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley (October 7, 1849 – July 22, 1916) was an American writer and poet also known by the pseudonyms Jay Whit, Benjamin F. Johnson, and Uncle Sidney. During his lifetime he was titled the Hoosier Poet, National Poet, and Children's Poet. He began his career in 1875 writing verses in nineteenth century Hoosier dialect for the Indianapolis Journal. His poems tended to be humorous or sentimental, and of the approximately one thousand poems that Riley published, over half are in dialect. Riley's style was significantly influenced by Robert Burns, to whom he was compared by many critics.

Initially finding it difficult to earn an income as a poet, Riley gradually rose in national prominence during the 1880s through his reading tours. He traveled a circuit with humorist Edgar Wilson Nye and author Douglass Sherley, holding shows and sharing the stage with other well known talents including Samuel Clemens. Regularly struggling with his alcohol addiction, Riley never married or had children, and was involved in a scandal in 1888 when he became too drunk to perform. He became more popular in spite of the bad press he received, and as a result extricated himself from poorly negotiated contracts that limited his earning; he quickly became very wealthy.

Riley became a bestselling author beginning in the 1890s and earned a steady income from royalties. His children's books were illustrated by the popular illustrator Howard Chandler Christy. He continued to hold occasional reading shows until 1910 when a stroke paralyzed his right arm; afterward he read only at civic events until his 1916 death. His death made national news and his bier was attended by thirty-five thousand; he is buried at the highest point in Indianapolis at the top of Crown Hill Cemetery.

Riley's chief legacy was his influence in fostering the creation of a midwestern cultural identity. Along with other writers of his era, he helped form a literary community that rivaled the established eastern literati in popular works. During his lifetime he met and befriended many bestselling Indiana authors including Booth Tarkington, George Ade and Meredith Nicholson. Riley achieved a level of fame during his own lifetime that has remained unmatched by other American poets during their own lifetimes. He was honored with annual Riley Day celebrations in many part of the United States and was regularly called on to speak at national civic events. There are many memorials dedicated to Riley, including the James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children.




A LIFE LESSON
By James Whitcomb Riley

There! Little girl; don't cry!
They have broken your doll, I know;
And your tea-set blue,
And your play-house too,
Are things of the long ago;
But childish troubles will soon pass by.
There! Little girl; don't cry!

There! Little girl; don't cry!
They have broken your slate, I know;
And the glad, wild ways
Of your school-girl days
Are things of the long ago;
But life and love will soon come by.
There! Little girl; don't cry!

There! Little girl; don't cry!
They have broken your heart, I know;
And the rainbow gleams
Of your youthful dreams
Are things of the long ago;
But heaven holds all for which you sigh.
There! Little girl; don't cry!


IF I KNEW WHAT POETS KNOW
By James Whitcomb Riley

If I knew what poets know,
Would I write a rhyme
Of the buds that never blow
In the summer-time?
Would I sing of golden seeds
Springing up in ironweeds?
And of raindrops turned to snow,
If I knew what poets know?

Did I know what poets do,
Would I sing a song
Sadder than the pigeon's coo
When the days are long?
Where I found a heart in pain,
I would make it glad again;
And the false should be the true,
Did I know what poets do.

If I knew what poets know,
I would find a theme
Sweeter than the placid flow
Of the fairest dream:
I would sing of love that lives
On the errors it forgives;
And the world would better grow
If I knew what poets know.


DEAR HANDS
By James Whitcomb Riley

The touches of her hands are like the fall
Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down
The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall;
The flossy fondlings of the thistle-wisp
Caught in the crinkle of a leaf of brown
The blighting frost hath turned from green to crisp.

Soft as the falling of the dusk at night,
The touches of her hands, and the delight -
The touches of her hands!
The touches of her hands are like the dew
That falls so softly down no one e'er knew
The touch thereof save lovers like to one
Astray in lights where ranged Endymion.

O rarely soft, the touches of her hands,
As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands;
Or pulse of dying fay; or fairy sighs,
Or - in between the midnight and the dawn,
When long unrest and tears and fears are gone -
Sleep, smoothing down the lids of weary eyes.


LONGFELLOW
By James Whitcomb Riley

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.


SILENCE
By James Whitcomb Riley

Thousands of thousands of hushed years ago,
Out on the edge of Chaos, all alone
I stood on peaks of vapor, high upthrown
Above a sea that knew nor ebb nor flow,
Nor any motion won of winds that blow,
Nor any sound of watery wail or moan,
Nor lisp of wave, nor wandering undertone
Of any tide lost in the night below.
So still it was, I mind me, as I laid
My thirsty ear against mine own faint sigh
To drink of that, I sipped it, half afraid
'Twas but the ghost of a dead voice spilled by
The one starved star that tottered through the shade
And came tiptoeing toward me down the sky.


SAY SOMETHING TO ME
By James Whitcomb Riley

Say something to me! I've waited so long -
Waited and wondered in vain;
Only a sentence would fall like a song
Over this listening pain -
Over a silence that glowers and frowns, -
Even my pencil to-night
Slips in the dews of my sorrow and wounds
Each tender word that I write.

Say something to me - if only to tell
Me you remember the past;
Let the sweet words, like the notes of a bell,
Ring out my vigil at last.
O it were better, far better than this
Doubt and distrust in the breast, -
For in the wine of a fanciful kiss
I could taste Heaven, and - rest.

Say something to me! I kneel and I plead,
In my wild need, for a word;
If my poor heart from this silence were freed,
I could soar up like a bird
In the glad morning, and twitter and sing,
Carol and warble and cry
Blithe as the lark as he cruises awing
Over the deeps of the sky.


WINTER FANCIES
By James Whitcomb Riley

I

Winter without
And warmth within;
The winds may shout
And the storm begin;
The snows may pack
At the window pane,
And the skies grow black,
And the sun remain
Hidden away
The livelong day -
But here - in here is the warmth of May!

II

Swoop your spitefullest
Up the flue,
Wild Winds - do!
What in the world do I care for you?
O delightfullest
Weather of all,
Howl and squall,
And shake the trees till the last leaves fall!

III

The joy one feels,
In an easy chair,
Cocking his heels
In the dancing air
That wreathes the rim of a roaring stove
Whose heat loves better than hearts can love,
Will not permit
The coldest day
To drive away
The fire in his blood, and the bliss of it!

IV

Then blow, Winds, blow!
And rave and shriek,
And snarl and snow
Till your breath grows weak -
While here in my room
I'm as snugly shut
As a glad little worm
In the heart of a nut!


THE ROSE
By James Whitcomb Riley

It tossed its head at the wooing breeze;
And the sun, like a bashful swain,
Beamed on it through the waving frees
With a passion all in vain, -
For my rose laughed in a crimson glee,
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.

The honey-bee came there to sing
His love through the languid hours,
And vaunt of his hives, as a proud old king
Might boast of his palace-towers:
But my rose bowed in a mockery,
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.

The humming-bird, like a courtier gay,
Dipped down with a dalliant song,
And twanged his wings through the roundelay
Of love the whole day long:
Yet my rose turned from his minstrelsy
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.

The firefly came in the twilight dim
My red, red rose to woo -
Till quenched was the flame of love in him,
And the light of his lantern too,
As my rose wept with dew-drops three
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.

And I said: I will cult my own sweet rose -
Some day I will claim as mine
The priceless worth of the flower that knows
No change, but a bloom divine -
The bloom of a fadeless constancy
That hides in the leaves in wait for me!

But time passed by in a strange disguise,
And I marked it not, but lay
In a lazy dream, with drowsy eyes,
Till the summer slipped away,
And a chill wind sang in a minor key:
"Where is the rose that waits for thee?"

* * * * *

I dream to-day, o'er a purple stain
Of bloom on a withered stalk,
Pelted down by the autumn rain
In the dust of the garden-walk,
That an Angel-rose in the world to be
Will hide in the leaves in wait for me.


ONLY A DREAM
By James Whitcomb Riley

Only a dream!
Her head is bent
Over the keys of the instrument,
While her trembling fingers go astray
In the foolish tune she tries to play.
He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes
Never change to a glad surprise
As he finds the answer he seeks confessed
In glowing features, and heaving breast.

Only a dream!
Though the fete is grand,
And a hundred hearts at her command,
She takes no part, for her soul is sick
Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick, -
She someway feels she would like to fling
Her sins away as a robe, and spring
Up like a lily pure and white,
And bloom alone for HIM to-night.

Only a dream
That the fancy weaves.
The lids unfold like the rose's leaves,
And the upraised eyes are moist and mild
As the prayerful eyes of a drowsy child.
Does she remember the spell they once
Wrought in the past a few short months?
Haply not - yet her lover's eyes
Never change to the glad surprise.

Only a dream!
He winds her form
Close in the coil of his curving arm,
And whirls her away in a gust of sound
As wild and sweet as the poets found
In the paradise where the silken tent
Of the Persian blooms in the Orient, -
While ever the chords of the music seem
Whispering sadly, - "Only a dream!"


IN THE EVENING
By James Whitcomb Riley

I

In the evening of our days,
When the first far stars above
Glimmer dimmer, through the haze,
Than the dewy eyes of love,
Shall we mournfully revert
To the vanished morns and Mays
Of our youth, with hearts that hurt, -
In the evening of our days?

II

Shall the hand that holds your own
Till the twain are thrilled as now,
Be withheld, or colder grown?
Shall my kiss upon your brow
Falter from its high estate?
And, in all forgetful ways,
Shall we sit apart and wait -
In the evening of our days?

III

Nay, my wife - my life! - the gloom
Shall enfold us velvetwise,
And my smile shall be the groom
Of the gladness of your eyes:
Gently, gently as the dew
Mingles with the darkening maze,
I shall fall asleep with you -
In the evening of our days.


THAT NIGHT
By James Whitcomb Riley

You and I, and that night, with its perfume and glory! -
The scent of the locusts - the light of the moon;
And the violin weaving the waltzers a story,
Enmeshing their feet in the weft of the tune,
Till their shadows uncertain
Reeled round on the curtain,
While under the trellis we drank in the June.

Soaked through with the midnight the cedars were sleeping,
Their shadowy tresses outlined in the bright
Crystal, moon-smitten mists, where the fountain's heart, leaping
Forever, forever burst, full with delight;
And its lisp on my spirit
Fell faint as that near it
Whose love like a lily bloomed out in the night.

O your glove was an odorous sachet of blisses!
The breath of your fan was a breeze from Cathay!
And the rose at your throat was a nest of spilled kisses! -
And the music! - in fancy I hear it to-day,
As I sit here, confessing
Our secret, and blessing
My rival who found us, and waltzed you away.


SONG OF THE NEW YEAR
By James Whitcomb Riley

I heard the bells at midnight
Ring in the dawning year;
And above the clanging chorus
Of the song, I seemed to hear
A choir of mystic voices
Flinging echoes, ringing clear,
From a band of angels winging
Through the haunted atmosphere:
"Ring out the shame and sorrow,
And the misery and sin,
That the dawning of the morrow
May in peace be ushered in."

And I thought of all the trials
The departed years had cost,
And the blooming hopes and pleasures
That are withered now and lost;
And with joy I drank the music
Stealing o'er the feeling there
As the spirit song came pealing
On the silence everywhere:
"Ring out the shame and sorrow,
And the misery and sin,
That the dawning of the morrow
May in peace be ushered in."

And I listened as a lover
To an utterance that flows
In syllables like dewdrops
From the red lips of a rose,
Till the anthem, fainter growing,
Climbing higher, chiming on
Up the rounds of happy rhyming,
Slowly vanished in the dawn:
"Ring out the shame and sorrow,
And the misery and sin,
That the dawning of the morrow
May in peace be ushered in."

Then I raised my eyes to Heaven,
And with trembling lips I pled
For a blessing for the living
And a pardon for the dead;
And like a ghost of music
Slowly whispered - lowly sung -
Came the echo pure and holy
In the happy angel tongue:
"Ring out the shame and sorrow,
And the misery and sin,
And the dawn of every morrow
Will in peace be ushered in."