James Whitcomb Riley Poems

The afternoon of summer folds
Its warm arms round the marigolds,
...

Your hands- they are strangely fair!
O Fair- for the jewels that sparkle there,-
Fair- for the witchery of the spell
...

In spring, when the green gits back in the trees,
And the sun comes out and stays,
And yer boots pulls on with a good tight squeeze,
...

The master-hand whose pencils trace
This wondrous landscape of the morn,
Is but the sun, whose glowing face
...

The past is like a story
I have listened to in dreams
That vanished in the glory
...

Pap's got his patent-right, and rich is all creation;
But where's the peace and comfort that we all had before?
...

Wasn't it pleasant, O brother mine,
In those old days of the lost sunshine
Of youth-- when the Saturday's chores were through,
...

They's a kind o' _feel_ in the air, to me.
When the Chris'mas-times sets in.
...

Who has not wanted, does not guess
What plenty is.--Who has not groped
In depths of doubt and hopelessness,
Has never truly hoped.--
...

A monument for the Soldiers!
And what will ye build it of?
Can ye build it of marble, or brass, or bronze,
Outlasting the Soldiers' love?
...