The Cyclone.

    So lone I stood, the very trees seemed drawn
        In conference with themselves. - Intense - intense
    Seemed everything; - the summer splendor on
        The sight, - magnificence!

    A babe's life might not lighter fail and die
        Than failed the sunlight - Though the hour was noon,
    The palm of midnight might not lighter lie
        Upon the brow of June.

    With eyes upraised, I saw the underwings
        Of swallows - gone the instant afterward -
    While from the elms there came strange twitterings,
        Stilled scarce ere they were heard.

    The river seemed to shiver; and, far down
        Its darkened length, I saw the sycamores
    Lean inward closer, under the vast frown
        That weighed above the shores.

    Then was a roar, born of some awful burst! -
        And one lay, shrieking, chattering, in my path -
    Flung - he or I - out of some space accurst
        As of Jehovah's wrath:

    Nor barely had he wreaked his latest prayer,
        Ere back the noon flashed o'er the ruin done,
    And, o'er uprooted forests touseled there,
        The birds sang in the sun.

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 Legend Glorified.

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Beautiful Hands.

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

The Tree-Toad.

James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

Down To The Capital

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 Shower

The landscape, like the awed face of a child,
Grew curiously blurred; a hush of death
Fell on the fields, and in the darkened wild
The zephyr held its breath.

No wavering glamour-work of light and shade
Dappled the shivering surface of the brook;
The frightened ripples in their ambuscade
Of willows thrilled and shook.

The sullen day grew darker, and anon
Dim flashes of pent anger lit the sky;
With rumbling wheels of wrath came rolling on
The storm's artillery.

The cloud above put on its blackest frown,
And then, as with a vengeful cry of pain,
The lightning snatched it, ripped and flung it down
In ravelled shreds of rain:

While I, transfigured by some wondrous art,
Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod,
My empty soul brimme...

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

Time Of Clearer Twitterings

I.

Time of crisp and tawny leaves,
And of tarnished harvest sheaves,
And of dusty grasses - weeds -
Thistles, with their tufted seeds
Voyaging the Autumn breeze
Like as fairy argosies:
Time of quicker flash of wings,
And of clearer twitterings
In the grove, or deeper shade
Of the tangled everglade, -
Where the spotted water-snake
Coils him in the sunniest brake;
And the bittern, as in fright,
Darts, in sudden, slanting flight,
Southward, while the startled crane
Films his eyes in dreams again.

II

Down along the dwindled creek
We go loitering. We speak
Only with old questionings
Of the dear remembered things
Of the days of long ago,
When the stream seemed thus and so
In our boyish eyes: - The bank
G...

James Whitcomb Riley

A Sudden Shower

Barefooted boys scud up the street
Or skurry under sheltering sheds;
And schoolgirl faces, pale and sweet,
Gleam from the shawls about their heads.

Doors bang; and mother-voices call
From alien homes; and rusty gates
Are slammed; and high above it all,
The thunder grim reverberates.

And then, abrupt, - the rain! the rain! -
The earth lies gasping; and the eyes
Behind the streaming window-pane
Smile at the trouble of the skies.

The highway smokes; sharp echoes ring;
The cattle bawl and cowbells clank;
And into town comes galloping
The farmer's horse, with streaming flank.

The swallow dips beneath the eaves,
And flirts his plumes and folds his wings;
And under the catawba leaves
The caterpillar curls and clings.

...

James Whitcomb Riley

Dead Leaves

    DAWN

As though a gipsy maiden with dim look,
    Sat crooning by the roadside of the year,
    So, Autumn, in thy strangeness, thou art here
To read dark fortunes for us from the book
Of fate; thou flingest in the crinkled brook
    The trembling maple's gold, and frosty-clear
    Thy mocking laughter thrills the atmosphere,
And drifting on its current calls the rook
To other lands.    As one who wades, alone,
    Deep in the dusk, and hears the minor talk
Of distant melody, and finds the tone,
    In some wierd way compelling him to stalk
The paths of childhood over, - so I moan,
    And like a troubled sleeper, groping, walk.

    DUSK

The frightened herds of clouds across the sky
    Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day

James Whitcomb Riley

Dusk

The frightened herds of clouds across the sky
Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day
Into the dusky forest-lands of gray
And sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high,
The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry
Sad as the wail of some poor castaway
Who sees a vessel drifting far astray
Of his last hope, and lays him down to die.
The children, riotous from school, grow bold
And quarrel with the wind whose angry gust
Plucks off the summer-hat, and flaps the fold
Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust
In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold
Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust.

James Whitcomb Riley