Nessmuk.

    I hail thee, Nessmuk, for the lofty tone
            Yet simple grace that marks thy poetry!
            True forester thou art, and still to be,
    Even in happier fields than thou hast known.
    Thus, in glad visions, glimpses am I shown
            Of groves delectable - "preserves" for thee -
            Ranged but by friends of thine - I name thee three: -

    First, Chaucer, with his bald old pate new-grown
        With changeless laurel; next, in Lincoln-green,
            Gold-belted, bowed and bugled, Robin Hood;
        And next, Ike Walton, patient and serene:
    These three, O Nessmuk, gathered hunter-wise,
    Are camped on hither slopes of Paradise
            To hail thee first and greet thee, as they should.

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

To Robert Burns

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Out Of The Hitherwhere

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

When De Folks Is Gone

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

When We Three Meet

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 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

Herr Weiser

Herr Weiser! Three-score-years-and-ten,
A hale white rose of his country-men,
Transplanted here in the Hoosier loam,
And blossomy as his German home -
As blossomy and as pure and sweet
As the cool green glen of his calm retreat,
Far withdrawn from the noisy town
Where trade goes clamoring up and down,
Whose fret and fever, and stress and strife,
May not trouble his tranquil life!

Breath of rest, what a balmy gust!
Quite of the city's heat and dust,
Jostling down by the winding road,
Through the orchard ways of his quaint abode.
Tether the horse, as we onward fare
Under the pear-trees trailing there,
And thumping the wood bridge at night
With lumps of ripeness and lush delight,
Till the stream, as it maunders on till dawn,
Is powdered and p...

James Whitcomb Riley

To My Good Master.

In fancy, always, at thy desk, thrown wide,
    Thy most betreasured books ranged neighborly -
    The rarest rhymes of every land and sea
And curious tongue - thine old face glorified, -
Thou haltest thy glib quill, and, laughing-eyed,
    Givest hale welcome even unto me,
    Profaning thus thine attic's sanctity,
To briefly visit, yet to still abide
Enthralled there of thy sorcery of wit,
    And thy songs' most exceeding dear conceits.
    O lips, cleft to the ripe core of all sweets,
    With poems, like nectar, issuing therefrom,
    Thy gentle utterances do overcome
My listening heart and all the love of it!

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

On a Cone of the Big Trees

Brown foundling of the Western wood,
Babe of primeval wildernesses!
Long on my table thou hast stood
Encounters strange and rude caresses;
Perchance contented with thy lot,
Surroundings new, and curious faces,
As though ten centuries were not
Imprisoned in thy shining cases.

Thou bringst me back the halcyon days
Of grateful rest, the week of leisure,
The journey lapped in autumn haze,
The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure,
The morning ride, the noonday halt,
The blazing slopes, the red dust rising,
And then the dim, brown, columned vault,
With its cool, damp, sepulchral spicing.

Once more I see the rocking masts
That scrape the sky, their only tenant
The jay-bird, that in frolic casts
From some high yard his broad blue pennant.

Bret Harte

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