The Rapture of the Year

WHILE skies glint bright with bluest light

Through clouds that race o'er fields and town,

And leaves go dancing left and right,

And orchard apples tumble down;

While school-girls sweet, in lane or street,

Lean 'gainst the wind and feel and hear

Its glad heart like a lover's beat,--

So reigns the rapture of the year.

The ho! and hey! and whop-hooray!

Though winter clouds be looming,

Remember a November day

Is merrier than mildest May

With all her blossoms blooming.

While birds in scattered flight are blown

Aloft and lost in dusky mist,

And truant boys scud home alone

'Neath skies of gold and amethyst;

While twilight falls, and Echo calls

Across the haunted atmosphere,

With low, sweet laughs at intervals,--

So reigns the rapture of the year.

The ho! and hey! and whop-hooray!

Though winter clouds be looming,

Remember a November day

Is merrier than mildest May

With all her blossoms blooming.

James Whitcomb Riley

Who Bides His Time

WHO bides his time, and day by day

Faces defeat full patiently,

And lifts a mirthful roundelay,

However poor his fortunes be,--

He will not fail in any qualm

Of poverty -- the paltry dime

It will grow golden in his palm,

Who bides his time.

Who bides his time -- he tastes the sweet

Of honey in the saltest tear;

And though he fares with slowest feet,

Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;

The birds are hearalds of his cause;

And, like a never-ending rhyme,

The roadsides bloom in his applause,

Who bides his time.

Who bides his time, and fevers not

In the hot race that none achieves,

Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought

With crimson berries in the leaves;

And he shall reign a goodly king,

And sway his hand o'er every clime

With peace writ on his signet-ring,

Who bides his time.

James Whitcomb Riley

The Willow

WHO shall sing a simple ditty about the Willow,

Dainty-fine and delicate as any bending spray

That dandles high the dainty bird that flutters there to trill a

Tremulously tender song of greeting to the May.

Bravest, too, of all the trees! -- none to match your daring,--

First of greens to greet the Spring and lead in leafy sheen;--

Aye, and you're the last -- almost into winter wearing

Still the leaf of loyalty -- still the badge of green.

Ah, my lovely willow! --let the waters lilt your graces,--

They alone with limped kisses lave your leaves above,

Flashing back your silvan beauty, and in shady places

Peering up with glimmering pebbles, like the eyes of love.

James Whitcomb Riley

A Song of the Road

O I WILL walk with you, my lad, whichever way you fare,

You'll have me, too, the side o' you, with heart as light as air;

No care for where the road you take's a-leadin' anywhere,--

It can but be a joyful ja'nt whilst you journey there.

The road you take's the path o' love, an' that's the bridth o' two--

An' I will walk with you, my lad -- O I will walk with you.

Ho! I will walk with you, my lad,

    Be weather black or blue

Or roadsides frost or dew, my lad --

    O I will walk with you.

Aye, glad, my lad, I'll walk with you, whatever winds may blow,

Or summer blossoms stay our steps, or blinding drifts of snow;

The way thay you set face an' foot 's the way that I will go,

An' brave I'll be, abreast o' ye, the Saints and Angels know!

With loyal hand in loyal hand, an' one heart made o' two,

Through summer's gold, or winter's cold, It's I will walk with you.

Sure, I will walk with you, my lad,

    A love ordains me to,--

To Heaven's door, an' through, my lad.

    O I will walk with you.

James Whitcomb Riley

Unless

WHO has not wanted, does not guess

What plenty is.--Who has not groped

In depths of doubt and hopelessness,

Has never truly hoped.--

Unless, sometimes, a shaow falls

Upon his mirth, and veils his sight,

And from the darkness drifts the light

   Of love at intervals.

And that most dear of everything,

I hold, is love; and who can sit

With lightest heart and laugh and sing,

Knows not the worth of it.--

Unless, in some strange throng, perchance,

He feels how thrilling sweet it is,

One yearning look that answers his --

   The troth of glance and glance.

Who knows not pain, knows not, alas!

What pleasure is.--Who knows not of

The bitter cup that will not pass,

Knows not the taste of love.

O souls that thirst, and hearts that fast,

And natures faint with famishing,

God lift and lead and safely bring

   You to your own at last!

James Whitcomb Riley

We to Sigh Instead of Sing

"RAIN and Rain! and rain and rain!"

Yesterday we muttered

Grimly as the grim refrain

That the thunders uttered:

All the heavens under cloud --

All the sunshine sleeping;

All the grasses limply bowed

With their weight of weeping.

Sigh and sigh! and sigh and sigh!

Never end of sighing;

Rain and rain for our reply --

Hopes half-drowned and dying;

Peering through the window-pane,

Naught but endless raining --

Endless sighing, and, as vain,

Endlessly conmplaining.

Shine and shine! and shine and shine!

Ah! to-day the splendor!--

All this glory yours and mine --

God! but God is tender!

We to sigh instead of sing,

Yesterday in sorrow,

While the lord was fashioning

This for our To-morrow!

James Whitcomb Riley

A Noon Interval

A DEEP, delicious hush in earth and sky --

      A gracious lull--since, from its wakening,

      The morn has been a feverish, restless thing

   In which the pulse of Summer ran too high

   And riotous, as though its heart went nigh

      To bursting with delights past uttering:

      Now--as an o'erjoyed child may cease to sing

All falteringly at play, with drowsy eye

      Draining the pictures of a fairy-tale

   To brim his dreams with--there comes o'er the day

      A loathful silence wherein all sounds fail

   Like loitering sounds of some roundelay . . .

      No wakeful effort longer may avail --

   The wand waves, and the dozer sinks away.

James Whitcomb Riley

There Was a Cherry-Tree

THERE was a cherry-tree. Its bloomy snows

Cool even now the fevered sight that knows

No more its airy visions of pure joy --

    As when you were a boy.

There was a cherry-tree. The Bluejay sat

His blue against its white -- O blue as jet

He seemed there then!-- But now -- Whoever knew

    He was so pale a blue!

There was a cherry-tree -- our child-eyes saw

The miracle:-- Its pure white snows did thaw

Into a crimson fruitage, far too sweet

    But for a boy to eat.

There was a cherry-tree, give thanks and joy!--

There was a bloom of snow -- There was a boy --

There was a bluejay of the realest blue --

    And fruit for both of you.

James Whitcomb Riley

The Harper

LIKE a drift of faded blossoms

Caught in a slanting rain,

His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp

In a tremulous refrain:

Patter and tinkle, and drip and drip!

Ah! but the chords were rainy sweet!

And I closed my eyes and I bit my lip,

As he played there in the street.

Patter, and drip, and tinkle!

And there was the little bed

In the corner of the garret,

And the rafters overhead!

And there was the little window --

Tinkle, and drip, and drip!--

The rain above, and a mother's love,

And God's companionship!

James Whitcomb Riley

At Broad Ripple

OH LUXURY! Beyond the heat

And dust of town, with dangling feet

Astride the rock below the dam,

In the cool shadows where the calm

Rests on the stream again, and all

Is silent save the waterfall,--

I bait my hook and cast my line,

And feel the best of life is mine.

No high ambition can I claim --

I angle not for lordly game

Of trout, or bass, or wary bream --

A black perch reaches the extreme

Of my desires; and "goggle-eyes"

Are not a thing that I despise;

A sunfish, or a "chub," or a "cat"--

A "silver-side"-- yea, even that!

In eloquent tranquility

The waters lisp and talk to me.

Sometimes, far out, the surface breaks,

As some proud bass an instant shakes

His glittering armor in the sun,

And romping ripples, one by one,

Come dallyiong across the space

Where undulates my smiling face.

The river's story flowing by,

Forever sweet to ear and eye,

Forever tenderly begun --

Forever new and never done.

Thus lulled and sheltered in a shade

Where never feverish cares invade,

I bait my hook and cast my line,

And feel the best of life is mine.

James Whitcomb Riley

A Passing Hail

LET us rest ourselves a bit!

Worry?-- wave your hand to it --

Kiss your finger-tips and smile

It farewell a little while.

Weary of the weary way

We have come from Yesterday,

Let us fret not, instead,

Of the wary way ahead.

Let us pause and catch our breath

On the hither side of death,

While we see the tender shoots

Of the grasses -- not the roots,--

While we yet look down -- not up --

To seek out the buttercup

And the daisy where they wave

O'er the green home of the grave.

Let us launch us smoothly on

The soft billows of the lawn,

And drift out across the main

Of our childish dreams again:

Voyage off, beneath the trees,

O'er the field's enchanted seas,

Where the lilies are our sails,

And our sea-gulls, nightingales:

Where no wilder storm shall beat

Than the wind that waves the wheat,

And no tempest-burst above

The old laughs we used to love:

Lose all troubles -- gain release,

Languor, and exceeding peace,

Cruising idly o'er the vast,

Calm mid-ocean of the Past.

Let us rest ourselves a bit!

Worry? -- Wave your hand to it --

Kiss your finger-tips and smile

It fare well a little while.

James Whitcomb Riley