James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Rileywas an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. His poems tended to be humorous or sentimental, and of the approximately one thousand poems that Riley authored, the majority are in dialect. His famous works include "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth7 October 1849
CountryUnited States of America
It is no use to grumble and complain; It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice; When God sorts out the weather and sends rain - Why, rain's my choice.
He is not dead, he is just - away.
Oh, the world's a curious compound, with its honey and its gall, With its cares and bitter crosses, but a good world after all. And a good God must have made it-leastways, that is what I say, When a hand is on my shoulder in a friendly sort of way.
Just a wee cot-the crickets chirr-love and the smiling face of her.
Think of him still as the same, I say, He is not dead, he is just - away.
O'er folded blooms On swirls of musk, The beetle booms adown the glooms And bumps along the dusk.
Who bides his time tastes the sweet Of honey in the saltiest tear; And though he fares with slowest feet Joy runs to meet him drawing near.
And the sun had on a crown Wrought of gilded thistledown, And a scarf of velvet vapor And a raveled rainbow gown; And his tinsel-tangled hair Tossed and lost upon the air Was glossier and flossier Than any anywhere.
The jelly - the jam and the marmalade, And the cherry-and quince-'preserves' she made! And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear, With cinnamon in 'em, and all things rare! And the more we ate was the more to spare, Out to old Aunt Mary's! Ah!
I don't know how to tell it--but ef such a thing could be As the angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me-- I'd want to 'ccommodate 'em--all the whole-in-durin' flock-- When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
Somebody's sent a funny little valentine to me. It's a bunch of baby-roses in a vase of filigree, And hovering above them ... is a fairy cupid tangled in a scarf of poetry.
The ripest peach is highest on the tree
One naked star has waded through The purple shallows of the night, And faltering as falls the dew It drips its misty light.
When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago - since that time he has been toiling, working, and striving to make himself worthy of general discovery.