Bryant

The harp has fallen from the master's hand;
Mute is the music, voiceless are the strings,
    Save such faint discord as the wild wind flings
In sad aeolian murmurs through the land.
The tide of melody, whose billows grand
    Flowed o'er the world in clearest utterings,
    Now, in receding current, sobs and sings
That song we never wholly understand.
* * O, eyes where glorious prophecies belong,
    And gracious reverence to humbly bow,
And kingly spirit, proud, and pure, and strong;
    O, pallid minstrel with the laureled brow,
And lips so long attuned to sacred song,
    How sweet must be the Heavenly anthem now!

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

A Voice From the Farm

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Sleep

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Lockerbie Street

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.

The Harp Of The Minstrel

The harp of the minstrel has never a tone
    As sad as the song in his bosom to-night,
For the magical touch of his fingers alone
    Can not waken the echoes that breathe it aright;
But oh! as the smile of the moon may impart
    A sorrow to one in an alien clime,
Let the light of the melody fall on the heart,
    And cadence his grief into musical rhyme.

The faces have faded, the eyes have grown dim
    That once were his passionate love and his pride;
And alas! all the smiles that once blossomed for him
    Have fallen away as the flowers have died.
The hands that entwined him the laureate's wreath
    And crowned him with fame in the long, long ago,
Like the laurels are withered and folded beneath
    The grass and the stubble - the frost and the snow.

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

The Rainy Morning

The dawn of the day was dreary,
And the lowering clouds o'erhead
Wept in a silent sorrow
Where the sweet sunshine lay dead;
And a wind came out of the eastward
Like an endless sigh of pain,
And the leaves fell down in the pathway
And writhed in the falling rain.

I had tried in a brave endeavor
To chord my harp with the sun,
But the strings would slacken ever,
And the task was a weary one:
And so, like a child impatient
And sick of a discontent,
I bowed in a shower of teardrops
And mourned with the instrument.

And lo! as I bowed, the splendor
Of the sun bent over me,
With a touch as warm and tender
As a father's hand might be:
And even as I felt its presence,
My clouded soul grew bright,
And the tears, like the rain of ...

James Whitcomb Riley

The Drum.

O the drum!
    There is some
        Intonation in thy grum
Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,
As we hear
    Through the clear
        And unclouded atmosphere,
Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the car!

There's a part
    Of the art
        Of thy music-throbbing heart
That thrills a something in us that awakens with a start,
And in rhyme
    With the chime
        And exactitude of time,
Goes marching on to glory to thy melody sublime.

And the guest
    Of the breast
        That thy rolling robs of rest
Is a patriotic spirit as a Continental dressed;
And he looms
    From the glooms
        Of a century of tombs,
And the blood he spilled at Lexington in living beauty blooms.

A...

James Whitcomb Riley

Longfellow

The winds have talked with him confidingly;
The trees have whispered to him; and the night
Hath held him gently as a mother might,
And taught him all sad tones of melody:
The mountains have bowed to him; and the sea,
In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite,
Hath told him all her sorrow and delight -
Her legends fair - her darkest mystery.
His verse blooms like a flower, night and day;
Bees cluster round his rhymes; and twitterings
Of lark and swallow, in an endless May,
Are mingling with the tender songs he sings.
Nor shall he cease to sing - in every lay
Of Nature's voice he sings - and will alway.

James Whitcomb Riley

Longfellow.

    The winds have talked with him confidingly;
        The trees have whispered to him; and the night
        Hath held him gently as a mother might,
    And taught him all sad tones of melody:
    The mountains have bowed to him; and the sea,
        In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite,
        Hath told him all her sorrow and delight -
    Her legends fair - her darkest mystery.
        His verse blooms like a flower, night and day;
    Bees cluster round his rhymes; and twitterings
        Of lark and swallow, in an endless May,
    Are mingling with the tender songs he sings. -
        Nor shall he cease to sing - in every lay
        Of Nature's voice he sings - and will alway.

James Whitcomb Riley