Inscribed: Riley Love-Lyrics

To the Elect of Love, - or side-by-side
In raptest ecstasy, or sundered wide
By seas that bear no message to or fro
Between the loved and lost of long ago.




So were I but a minstrel, deft
At weaving, with the trembling strings
Of my glad harp, the warp and weft
Of rondels such as rapture sings, -
    I'd loop my lyre across my breast,
    Nor stay me till my knee found rest
    In midnight banks of bud and flower
    Beneath my lady's lattice-bower.

And there, drenched with the teary dews,
I'd woo her with such wondrous art
As well might stanch the songs that ooze
Out of the mockbird's breaking heart;
    So light, so tender, and so sweet
    Should be the words I would repeat,
    Her casement, on my gradual sight,
    Would blossom as a lily might.

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

The Boys

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

To Almon Keefer

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Has She Forgotten?

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Away

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 Southern Singer.

    Written In Madison Caweln's "Lyrics and Idyls."

    Herein are blown from out the South
    Songs blithe as those of Pan's pursed mouth -
    As sweet in voice as, in perfume,
    The night-breath of magnolia-bloom.

    Such sumptuous languor lures the sense -
    Such luxury of indolence -
    The eyes blur as a nymph's might blur,
    With water-lilies watching her.

    You waken, thrilling at the trill
    Of some wild bird that seems to spill
    The silence full of winey drips
    Of song that Fancy sips and sips.

    Betimes, in brambled lanes wherethrough
    The chipmunk stripes himself from view,
    You pause to lop a creamy spray
    Of elder-blossoms by the way.

    Or where the morning dew is yet
    Gra...

James Whitcomb Riley

A Scrawl

I want to sing something - but this is all -
I try and I try, but the rhymes are dull
As though they were damp, and the echoes fall
Limp and unlovable.

Words will not say what I yearn to say -
They will not walk as I want them to,
But they stumble and fall in the path of the way
Of my telling my love for you.

Simply take what the scrawl is worth -
Knowing I love you as sun the sod
On the ripening side of the great round earth
That swings in the smile of God.

James Whitcomb Riley

His Room

"I'm home again, my dear old Room,
I'm home again, and happy, too,
As, peering through the brightening gloom,
I find myself alone with you:
    Though brief my stay, nor far away,
    I missed you - missed you night and day -
    As wildly yearned for you as now. -
    Old Room, how are you, anyhow?

"My easy chair, with open arms,
Awaits me just within the door;
The littered carpet's woven charms
Have never seemed so bright before, -
    The old rosettes and mignonettes
    And ivy-leaves and violets,
    Look up as pure and fresh of hue
    As though baptized in morning dew.

"Old Room, to me your homely walls
Fold round me like the arms of love,
And over all my being falls
A blessing pure as from above -
    Even as a nestling ...

James Whitcomb Riley

A Ditty Of No Tone.

Piped to the Spirit of John Keats.

    I.

    Would that my lips might pour out in thy praise
        A fitting melody - an air sublime, -
    A song sun-washed and draped in dreamy haze -
        The floss and velvet of luxurious rhyme:
    A lay wrought of warm languors, and o'er-brimmed
        With balminess, and fragrance of wild flowers
            Such as the droning bee ne'er wearies of -
    Such thoughts as might be hymned
        To thee from this midsummer land of ours
            Through shower and sunshine blent for very love.


    II.

    Deep silences in woody aisles wherethrough
        Cool paths go loitering, and where the trill
    Of best-remembered birds hath something new
        In cadence for the hea...

James Whitcomb Riley

In The South.

There is a princess in the South
    About whose beauty rumors hum
Like honey-bees about the mouth
    Of roses dewdrops falter from;
    And O her hair is like the fine
    Clear amber of a jostled wine
    In tropic revels; and her eyes
    Are blue as rifts of Paradise.

Such beauty as may none before
    Kneel daringly, to kiss the tips
Of fingers such as knights of yore
    Had died to lift against their lips:
    Such eyes as might the eyes of gold
    Of all the stars of night behold
    With glittering envy, and so glare
    In dazzling splendor of despair.

So, were I but a minstrel, deft
    At weaving, with the trembling strings
Of my glad harp, the warp and weft
    Of rondels such as rapture sings, -
    I'd loop my l...

James Whitcomb Riley

Orlie Wilde

A goddess, with a siren's grace, -
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.

Wrought was she of a painter's dream, -
Wise only as are artists wise,
My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem,
With deep sad eyes of oversize,
And face of melancholy guise.

I pressed him that he tell to me
This masterpiece's history.
He turned - REturned - and thus beguiled
Me with the tale of Orlie Wilde: -

"We artists live ideally:
We breed our firmest facts of air;
We make our own reality -
We dream a thing and it is so.
The fairest scenes we ever see
Are mirages of memory;
The sweetest thoughts we ever know
We plagiarize from Long Ago:
And as the girl on canvas there
Is marv...

James Whitcomb Riley