James Whitcomb Riley - Riley Love Lyrics
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James Whitcomb Riley >> Riley Love Lyrics
RILEY LOVE-LYRICS
[Illustration: (LOVE-LYRICS)]
RILEY
LOVE-LYRICS
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
WITH LIFE PICTURES BY
WILLIAM B. DYER
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1883, 1887, 1888, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894,
1897, 1898, 1901, 1905
by
James Whitcomb Riley
INSCRIBED
To the Elect of Love,--or side-by-side
In raptest ecstasy, or sundered wide
By seas that bear no message to or fro
Between the loved and lost of long ago.
So were I but a minstrel, deft
At weaving, with the trembling strings
Of my glad harp, the warp and weft
Of rondels such as rapture sings,--
I'd loop my lyre across my breast,
Nor stay me till my knee found rest
In midnight banks of bud and flower
Beneath my lady's lattice-bower.
And there, drenched with the teary dews,
I'd woo her with such wondrous art
As well might stanch the songs that ooze
Out of the mockbird's breaking heart;
So light, so tender, and so sweet
Should be the words I would repeat,
Her casement, on my gradual sight,
Would blossom as a lily might.
CONTENTS
PAGE
BLOOMS OF MAY 185
DISCOURAGING MODEL, A 133
"DREAM" 46
FARMER WHIPPLE--BACHELOR 167
HAS SHE FORGOTTEN? 181
HE AND I 83
HE CALLED HER IN 50
HER BEAUTIFUL EYES 60
HER HAIR 128
HER FACE AND BROW 63
HER WAITING FACE 71
HOME AT NIGHT 122
HOW IT HAPPENED 95
IKE WALTON'S PRAYER 107
ILLILEO 111
JUDITH 79
LAST NIGHT AND THIS 131
LEONAINIE 68
LET US FORGET 64
LOST PATH, THE 87
MY BRIDE THAT IS TO BE 90
MY MARY 117
NOTHIN' TO SAY 103
OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG, A' 31
OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE, AN 23
OLD YEAR AND THE NEW, THE 72
OUT-WORN SAPPHO, AN 37
PASSING OF A HEART, THE 44
RIVAL, THE 148
ROSE, THE 178
SERMON OF THE ROSE, THE 189
SONG OF LONG AGO, A 160
SUSPENSE 136
THEIR SWEET SORROW 76
TO HEAR HER SING 146
TOM VAN ARDEN 139
TOUCHES OF HER HANDS, THE 157
VARIATION, A 151
VERY YOUTHFUL AFFAIR, A 36
WHEN AGE COMES ON 164
WHEN LIDE MARRIED _Him_ 125
WHEN MY DREAMS COME TRUE 99
WHEN SHE COMES HOME 67
WHERE SHALL WE LAND 154
WIFE-BLESSED, THE 115
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
LOVE-LYRICS FRONTISPIECE
ILLUSTRATIONS--TAILPIECE xx
AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE 23
AND I LIGHT MY PIPE IN SILENCE 24
THE VOICES OF MY CHILDREN 25
THE PINK SUNBONNET 26
WHEN FIRST I KISSED HER 27
MY WIFE IS STANDING THERE 30
A' OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG 33
A' OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG--TAILPIECE 35
A VERY YOUTHFUL AFFAIR 36
AN OUT-WORN SAPPHO 41
AN OUT-WORN SAPPHO--TAILPIECE 43
THE PASSING OF A HEART--TITLE 44
THE PASSING OF A HEART--TAILPIECE 45
"DREAM" 47
"DREAM"--TAILPIECE 49
HE CALLED HER IN--TITLE 50
A DARK AND EERIE CHILD 51
WHEN SHE FIRST CAME TO ME 57
HE CALLED HER IN--TAILPIECE 59
HER BEAUTIFUL EYES 61
HER FACE AND BROW 63
LET US FORGET--TITLE 64
OUR WORN EYES ARE WET 65
WHEN SHE COMES HOME 67
LEONAINIE--TITLE 68
LEONAINIE--TAILPIECE 70
HER WAITING FACE 71
THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW--TITLE 72
I SAW THE OLD YEAR END 73
THEIR SWEET SORROW 77
JUDITH 79
O, HER EYES ARE AMBER-FINE 81
HE AND I 85
THE LOST PATH--TITLE 87
THE LOST PATH 89
MADONNA-LIKE AND GLORIFIED 91
HOW IT HAPPENED 97
WHEN MY DREAMS COME TRUE 101
NOTHIN' TO SAY 105
IKE WALTON'S PRAYER--TITLE 107
IKE WALTON'S PRAYER--TAILPIECE 110
ILLILEO 113
WIFE-BLESSED, THE 115
THE AULD TRYSTING-TREE 119
MY MARY--TAILPIECE 121
HOME AT NIGHT 123
WHEN LIDE MARRIED _Him_--TITLE 125
WHEN LIDE MARRIED _Him_--TAILPIECE 127
HER HAIR 129
LAST NIGHT AND THIS--TITLE 131
LAST NIGHT AND THIS--TAILPIECE 132
A DISCOURAGING MODEL--TITLE 133
A CAMEO FACE 135
SUSPENSE 137
TOM VAN ARDEN--TITLE 139
TOM VAN ARDEN 141
TO HEAR HER SING 146
THE RIVAL 148
A VARIATION--TITLE 151
WHERE SHALL WE LAND?--TITLE 154
WHERE SHALL WE LAND?--TAILPIECE 156
THE TOUCHES OF HER HANDS--TITLE 157
THE TOUCHES OF HER HANDS--TAILPIECE 158
O RARELY SOFT, THE TOUCHES OF HER HANDS 159
A SONG OF LONG AGO 161
WHEN AGE COMES ON 165
FARMER WHIPPLE--BACHELOR--TITLE 167
RIDIN' HOME WITH MARY 171
FARMER WHIPPLE--BACHELOR--TAILPIECE 177
THE ROSE--TITLE 178
HAS SHE FORGOTTEN? 183
BLOOMS OF MAY--TITLE 185
O LAD AND LASS 186
O GLEAM AND GLOOM AND WOODLAND BLOOM 187
THE SERMON OF THE ROSE 191
[Illustration: (ILLUSTRATIONS--TAILPIECE)]
RILEY LOVE-LYRICS
[Illustration: (AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE)]
AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE
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.
[Illustration: (AND I LIGHT MY PIPE IN SILENCE)]
The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.
'Tis a fragrant retrospection--for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfume from the blossom of the heart;
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine--
When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweetheart of mine.
Though I hear, beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings,
The voices of my children, and the mother as she sings,
I feel no twinge of conscience to deny me any theme
When Care has cast her anchor in the harbor of a dream.
In fact, to speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm
To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm--
For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine
That makes me drink the deeper to that old sweetheart of mine.
[Illustration: (THE VOICES OF MY CHILDREN)]
[Illustration: (THE PINK SUNBONNET)]
A face of lily-beauty, with a form of airy grace,
Floats out of my tobacco as the genii from the vase;
And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes
As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.
I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress
She wore when first I kissed her and she answered the caress
With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine
Grew round the stump," she loved me--that old sweetheart of mine.
[Illustration: (WHEN FIRST I KISSED HER)]
And again I feel the pressure of her slender little hand,
As we used to talk together of the future we had planned--
When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do
But write the tender verses that she set the music to:
When we should live together in a cozy little cot
Hid in a nest of roses, with a fairy garden-spot,
Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine,
And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine:
[Illustration]
When I should be her lover forever and a day,
And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray;
And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb
They would not smile in Heaven till the other's kiss had come.
* * * * *
But, ah! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair,
And the door is softly opened, and--my wife is standing there;
Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign
To greet the living presence of that old sweetheart of mine.
[Illustration: (MY WIFE IS STANDING THERE)]
A' OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG
It's the curiousest thing in creation,
Whenever I hear that old song
"Do They Miss Me at Home," I'm so bothered,
My life seems as short as it's long!--
Fer ev'rything 'pears like adzackly
It 'peared in the years past and gone,--
When I started out sparkin', at twenty,
And had my first neckercher on!
Though I'm wrinkelder, older and grayer
Right now than my parents was then,
You strike up that song "Do They Miss Me,"
And I'm jest a youngster again!--
I'm a-standin' back thare in the furries
A-wishin' fer evening to come,
And a-whisperin' over and over
Them words "Do They Miss Me at Home?"
You see, _Marthy Ellen she_ sung it
The first time I heerd it; and so,
As she was my very first sweetheart,
It reminds me of her, don't you know;--
How her face used to look, in the twilight,
As I tuck her to Spellin'; and she
Kep' a-hummin' that song tel I ast her,
Pine-blank, ef she ever missed _me_!
I can shet my eyes now, as you sing it,
And hear her low answerin' words;
And then the glad chirp of the crickets,
As clear as the twitter of birds;
And the dust in the road is like velvet,
And the ragweed and fennel and grass
Is as sweet as the scent of the lilies
Of Eden of old, as we pass.
"_Do They Miss Me at Home?_" Sing it lower--
And softer--and sweet as the breeze
That powdered our path with the snowy
White bloom of the old locus'-trees!
Let the whipperwills he'p you to sing it,
And the echoes 'way over the hill,
Tel the moon boolges out, in a chorus
Of stars, and our voices is still.
[Illustration: (A' OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG)]
But oh! "They's a chord in the music
That's missed when _her_ voice is away!"
Though I listen from midnight tel morning,
And dawn tel the dusk of the day!
And I grope through the dark, lookin' up'ards
And on through the heavenly dome,
With my longin' soul singin' and sobbin'
The words "Do They Miss Me at Home?"
[Illustration: (A' OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG--TAILPIECE)]
[Illustration: (A VERY YOUTHFUL AFFAIR)]
A VERY YOUTHFUL AFFAIR
I'm bin a-visitun 'bout a week
To my little Cousin's at Nameless Creek,
An' I'm got the hives an' a new straw hat,
An' I'm come back home where my beau lives at.
AN OUT-WORN SAPPHO
How tired I am! I sink down all alone
Here by the wayside of the Present. Lo,
Even as a child I hide my face and moan--
A little girl that may no farther go;
The path above me only seems to grow
More rugged, climbing still, and ever briered
With keener thorns of pain than these below;
And O the bleeding feet that falter so
And are so very tired!
Why, I have journeyed from the far-off Lands
Of Babyhood--where baby-lilies blew
Their trumpets in mine ears, and filled my hands
With treasures of perfume and honey-dew,
And where the orchard shadows ever drew
Their cool arms round me when my cheeks were fired
With too much joy, and lulled mine eyelids to,
And only let the starshine trickle through
In sprays, when I was tired!
Yet I remember, when the butterfly
Went flickering about me like a flame
That quenched itself in roses suddenly,
How oft I wished that _I_ might blaze the same,
And in some rose-wreath nestle with my name,
While all the world looked on it and admired.--
Poor moth!--Along my wavering flight toward fame
The winds drive backward, and my wings are lame
And broken, bruised and tired!
I hardly know the path from those old times;
I know at first it was a smoother one
Than this that hurries past me now, and climbs
So high, its far cliffs even hide the sun
And shroud in gloom my journey scarce begun.
I could not do quite all the world required--
I could not do quite all I should have done,
And in my eagerness I have outrun
My strength--and I am tired....
Just tired! But when of old I had the stay
Of mother-hands, O very sweet indeed
It was to dream that all the weary way
I should but follow where I now must lead--
For long ago they left me in my need,
And, groping on alone, I tripped and mired
Among rank grasses where the serpents breed
In knotted coils about the feet of speed.--
There first it was I tired.
And yet I staggered on, and bore my load
Right gallantly: The sun, in summer-time,
In lazy belts came slipping down the road
To woo me on, with many a glimmering rhyme
Rained from the golden rim of some fair clime,
That, hovering beyond the clouds, inspired
My failing heart with fancies so sublime
I half forgot my path of dust and grime,
Though I was growing tired.
And there were many voices cheering me:
I listened to sweet praises where the wind
Went laughing o'er my shoulders gleefully
And scattering my love-songs far behind;--
Until, at last, I thought the world so kind--
So rich in all my yearning soul desired--
So generous--so loyally inclined,
I grew to love and trust it.... I was blind--
Yea, blind as I was tired!
And yet one hand held me in creature-touch:
And O, how fair it was, how true and strong,
How it did hold my heart up like a crutch,
Till, in my dreams, I joyed to walk along
The toilsome way, contented with a song--
'Twas all of earthly things I had acquired,
And 'twas enough, I feigned, or right or wrong,
Since, binding me to man--a mortal thong--
It stayed me, growing tired....
Yea, I had e'en resigned me to the strait
Of earthly rulership--had bowed my head
Acceptant of the master-mind--the great
One lover--lord of all,--the perfected
Kiss-comrade of my soul;--had stammering said
My prayers to him;--all--all that he desired
I rendered sacredly as we were wed.--
Nay--nay!--'twas but a myth I worshipped.--
And--God of love!--how tired!
[Illustration: (AN OUT-WORN SAPPHO)]
For, O my friends, to lose the latest grasp--
To feel the last hope slipping from its hold--
To feel the one fond hand within your clasp
Fall slack, and loosen with a touch so cold
Its pressure may not warm you as of old
Before the light of love had thus expired--
To know your tears are worthless, though they rolled
Their torrents out in molten drops of gold.--
God's pity! I am tired!
And I must rest.--Yet do not say "She _died_,"
In speaking of me, sleeping here alone.
I kiss the grassy grave I sink beside,
And close mine eyes in slumber all mine own:
Hereafter I shall neither sob nor moan
Nor murmur one complaint;--all I desired,
And failed in life to find, will now be known--
So let me dream. Good night! And on the stone
Say simply: She was tired.
[Illustration: (AN OUT-WORN SAPPHO--TAILPIECE)]
[Illustration: (THE PASSING OF A HEART--TITLE)]
THE PASSING OF A HEART
O Touch me with your hands--
For pity's sake!
My brow throbs ever on with such an ache
As only your cool touch may take away;
And so, I pray
You, touch me with your hands!
Touch--touch me with your hands.--
Smooth back the hair
You once caressed, and kissed, and called so fair
That I did dream its gold would wear alway,
And lo, to-day--
O touch me with your hands!
Just touch me with your hands,
And let them press
My weary eyelids with the old caress,
And lull me till I sleep. Then go your way,
That Death may say:
He touched her with his hands.
[Illustration: (THE PASSING OF A HEART--TAILPIECE)]
"DREAM"
Because her eyes were far too deep
And holy for a laugh to leap
Across the brink where sorrow tried
To drown within the amber tide;
Because the looks, whose ripples kissed
The trembling lids through tender mist,
Were dazzled with a radiant gleam--
Because of this I called her "Dream."
Because the roses growing wild
About her features when she smiled
Were ever dewed with tears that fell
With tenderness ineffable;
Because her lips might spill a kiss
That, dripping in a world like this,
Would tincture death's myrrh-bitter stream
To sweetness--so I called her "Dream."
[Illustration: ("DREAM")]
Because I could not understand
The magic touches of a hand
That seemed, beneath her strange control,
To smooth the plumage of the soul
And calm it, till, with folded wings,
It half forgot its flutterings,
And, nestled in her palm, did seem
To trill a song that called her "Dream."
Because I saw her, in a sleep
As dark and desolate and deep
And fleeting as the taunting night
That flings a vision of delight
To some lorn martyr as he lies
In slumber ere the day he dies--
Because she vanished like a gleam
Of glory, do I call her "Dream."
[Illustration: ("DREAM"--TAILPIECE)]
[Illustration: (HE CALLED HER IN--TITLE)]
HE CALLED HER IN
I
He called her in from me and shut the door.
And she so loved the sunshine and the sky!--
She loved them even better yet than I
That ne'er knew dearth of them--my mother dead,
Nature had nursed me in her lap instead:
And I had grown a dark and eerie child
That rarely smiled,
Save when, shut all alone in grasses high,
Looking straight up in God's great lonesome sky
And coaxing Mother to smile back on me.
'Twas lying thus, this fair girl suddenly
Came to me, nestled in the fields beside
A pleasant-seeming home, with doorway wide--
The sunshine beating in upon the floor
[Illustration: (A DARK AND EERIE CHILD)]
Like golden rain.--
O sweet, sweet face above me, turn again
And leave me! I had cried, but that an ache
Within my throat so gripped it I could make
No sound but a thick sobbing. Cowering so,
I felt her light hand laid
Upon my hair--a touch that ne'er before
Had tamed me thus, all soothed and unafraid--
It seemed the touch the children used to know
When Christ was here, so dear it was--so dear,--
At once I loved her as the leaves love dew
In midmost summer when the days are new.
Barely an hour I knew her, yet a curl
Of silken sunshine did she clip for me
Out of the bright May-morning of her hair,
And bound and gave it to me laughingly,
And caught my hands and called me "_Little girl_,"
Tiptoeing, as she spoke, to kiss me there!
And I stood dazed and dumb for very stress
Of my great happiness.
She plucked me by the gown, nor saw how mean
The raiment--drew me with her everywhere:
Smothered her face in tufts of grasses green:
Put up her dainty hands and peeped between
Her fingers at the blossoms--crooned and talked
To them in strange, glad whispers, as we walked,--
Said _this_ one was her angel mother--_this_,
Her baby-sister--come back, for a kiss,
Clean from the Good-World!--smiled and kissed them, then
Closed her soft eyes and kissed them o'er again.
And so did she beguile me--so we played,--
She was the dazzling Shine--I, the dark Shade--
And we did mingle like to these, and thus,
Together, made
The perfect summer, pure and glorious.
So blent we, till a harsh voice broke upon
Our happiness.--She, startled as a fawn,
Cried, "Oh, 'tis Father!"--all the blossoms gone
From out her cheeks as those from out her grasp.--
Harsher the voice came:--She could only gasp
Affrightedly, "Good-bye!--good-bye! good-bye!"
And lo, I stood alone, with that harsh cry
Ringing a new and unknown sense of shame
Through soul and frame,
And, with wet eyes, repeating o'er and o'er,--
"He called her in from me and shut the door!"
II
He called her in from me and shut the door!
And I went wandering alone again--
So lonely--O so very lonely then,
I thought no little sallow star, alone
In all a world of twilight, e'er had known
Such utter loneliness. But that I wore
Above my heart that gleaming tress of hair
To lighten up the night of my despair,
I think I might have groped into my grave
Nor cared to wave
The ferns above it with a breath of prayer.
And how I hungered for the sweet, sweet face
That bent above me in my hiding-place
That day amid the grasses there beside
Her pleasant home!--"Her _pleasant_ home!" I sighed,
Remembering;--then shut my teeth and feigned
The harsh voice calling _me_,--then clinched my nails
So deeply in my palms, the sharp wounds pained,
And tossed my face toward heaven, as one who pales
In splendid martyrdom, with soul serene,
As near to God as high the guillotine.
And I had _envied_ her? Not that--O no!
But I had longed for some sweet haven so!--
Wherein the tempest-beaten heart might ride
Sometimes at peaceful anchor, and abide
Where those that loved me touched me with their hands,
And looked upon me with glad eyes, and slipped
Smooth fingers o'er my brow, and lulled the strands
Of my wild tresses, as they backward tipped
My yearning face and kissed it satisfied.
Then bitterly I murmured as before,--
"He called her in from me and shut the door!"
III
He called her in from me and shut the door!
After long struggling with my pride and pain--
A weary while it seemed, in which the more
I held myself from her, the greater fain
Was I to look upon her face again;--
At last--at last--half conscious where my feet
Were faring, I stood waist-deep in the sweet
Green grasses there where she
First came to me.--
The very blossoms she had plucked that day,
And, at her father's voice, had cast away,
Around me lay,
Still bright and blooming in these eyes of mine;
And as I gathered each one eagerly,
I pressed it to my lips and drank the wine
Her kisses left there for the honey-bee.
Then, after I had laid them with the tress
[Illustration: (WHEN SHE FIRST CAME TO ME)]
Of her bright hair with lingering tenderness,
I, turning, crept on to the hedge that bound
Her pleasant-seeming home--but all around
Was never sign of her!--The windows all
Were blinded; and I heard no rippling fall
Of her glad laugh, nor any harsh voice call;--
But clutching to the tangled grasses, caught
A sound as though a strong man bowed his head
And sobbed alone--unloved--uncomforted!--
And then straightway before
My tearless eyes, all vividly, was wrought
A vision that is with me evermore:--
A little girl that lies asleep, nor hears
Nor heeds not any voice nor fall of tears.--
And I sit singing o'er and o'er and o'er,--
"God called her in from him and shut the door!"
[Illustration: (HE CALLED HER IN--TAILPIECE)]
HER BEAUTIFUL EYES
O her beautiful eyes! they are blue as the dew
On the violet's bloom when the morning is new,
And the light of their love is the gleam of the sun
O'er the meadows of Spring where the quick shadows run
As the morn shifts the mists and the clouds from the skies--
So I stand in the dawn of her beautiful eyes.
And her beautiful eyes are as mid-day to me,
When the lily-bell bends with the weight of the bee,
And the throat of the thrush is a-pulse in the heat,
And the senses are drugged with the subtle and sweet
And delirious breaths of the air's lullabies--
So I swoon in the noon of her beautiful eyes.
O her beautiful eyes! they have smitten mine own
As a glory glanced down from the glare of the Throne;
And I reel, and I falter and fall, as afar
Fell the shepherds that looked on the mystical Star,
And yet dazed in the tidings that bade them arise--
So I groped through the night of her beautiful eyes.