A Water-Color.

    Low hidden in among the forest trees
        An artist's tilted easel, ankle-deep
    In tousled ferns and mosses, and in these
        A fluffy water-spaniel, half asleep
            Beside a sketch-book and a fallen hat -
            A little wicker flask tossed into that.

    A sense of utter carelessness and grace
        Of pure abandon in the slumb'rous scene, -
    As if the June, all hoydenish of face,
        Had romped herself to sleep there on the green,
            And brink and sagging bridge and sliding stream
            Were just romantic parcels of her dream.

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. He was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and children's poetry respectively. Over his career, Riley authored approximately 1,000 poems, including "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man". His influence extended into the 20th century, and his works continued to be celebrated for their nostalgic and rural themes.

James Whitcomb Riley

Art and Love

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

No Boy Knows

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

The Best Is Good Enough

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Liberty

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Summer Afternoon

A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
    With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
    Break in crisp whispers at my feet.

My book, neglected of an idle mind,
    Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
    Affrightedly reviews itself again.

Off through the haze that dances in the shine
    The warm sun showers in the open glade,
The forest lies, a silhouette design
    Dimmed through and through with shade.

A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie
    At anchor from all storms of mental strain;
With absent vision, gazing at the sky,
    "Like one that hears it rain."

The Katydid, so boisterous last night,
    Clinging, inverted, in uneasy poise,
Beneath...

James Whitcomb Riley

A Dream Of Autumn.

    Mellow hazes, lowly trailing
    Over wood and meadow, veiling
    Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing
        Sailor-like to foreign lands;
    And the north-wind overleaping
    Summer's brink, and floodlike sweeping
    Wrecks of roses where the weeping
        Willows wring their helpless hands.

    Flared, like Titan torches flinging
        Flakes of flame and embers, springing
    From the vale the trees stand swinging
        In the moaning atmosphere;
    While in dead'ning-lands the lowing
    Of the cattle, sadder growing,
    Fills the sense to overflowing
        With the sorrow of the year.

    Sorrowfully, yet the sweeter
    Sings the brook in rippled meter
    Under boughs that lithely teeter
        Lorn birds, ...

James Whitcomb Riley

At Utter Loaf.

    I.

    An afternoon as ripe with heat
        As might the golden pippin be
    With mellowness if at my feet
        It dropped now from the apple-tree
        My hammock swings in lazily.


    II.

    The boughs about me spread a shade
        That shields me from the sun, but weaves
        With breezy shuttles through the leaves
    Blue rifts of skies, to gleam and fade
        Upon the eyes that only see
        Just of themselves, all drowsily.


    III.

    Above me drifts the fallen skein
        Of some tired spider, looped and blown,
    As fragile as a strand of rain,
        Across the air, and upward thrown
        By breaths of hayfields newly mown -
    So glimmering it is and fine,

James Whitcomb Riley

A Dream Of Long Ago

Lying listless in the mosses
Underneath a tree that tosses
Flakes of sunshine, and embosses
    Its green shadow with the snow -
Drowsy-eyed, I sink in slumber
Born of fancies without number -
Tangled fancies that encumber
    Me with dreams of long ago.

Ripples of the river singing;
And the water-lilies swinging
Bells of Parian, and ringing
    Peals of perfume faint and fine,
While old forms and fairy faces
Leap from out their hiding-places
In the past, with glad embraces
    Fraught with kisses sweet as wine.

Willows dip their slender fingers
O'er the little fisher's stringers,
While he baits his hook and lingers
    Till the shadows gather dim;
And afar off comes a calling
Like the sounds of water falling,
With the...

James Whitcomb Riley

June At Woodruff.

    Out at Woodruff Place - afar
    From the city's glare and jar,
    With the leafy trees, instead
    Of the awnings, overhead;
    With the shadows cool and sweet,
    For the fever of the street;
    With the silence, like a prayer,
    Breathing round us everywhere.

    Gracious anchorage, at last,
    From the billows of the vast
    Tide of life that comes and goes,
    Whence and where nobody knows -
    Moving, like a skeptic's thought,
    Out of nowhere into naught.
    Touch and tame us with thy grace,
    Placid calm of Woodruff Place!

    Weave a wreath of beechen leaves
    For the brow that throbs and grieves
    O'er the ledger, bloody-lined,
    'Neath the sun-struck window-blind!
    Send the breath of woodl...

James Whitcomb Riley

A Wraith Of Summertime.

    In its color, shade and shine,
    'T was a summer warm as wine,
    With an effervescent flavoring of flowered bough and vine,
    And a fragrance and a taste
    Of ripe roses gone to waste,
    And a dreamy sense of sun- and moon- and star-light interlaced.

    'Twas a summer such as broods
    O'er enchanted solitudes,
    Where the hand of Fancy leads us through voluptuary moods,
    And with lavish love out-pours
    All the wealth of out-of-doors,
    And woos our feet o'er velvet paths and honeysuckle floors.

    'Twas a summertime long dead, -
    And its roses, white and red,
    And its reeds and water-lilies down along the river-bed, -
    O they all are ghostly things -
    For the ripple never sings,
    And the rocking lily ...

James Whitcomb Riley