The Ripest Peach

The ripest peach is highest on the tree -
And so her love, beyond the reach of me,
Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes bow
Her heart down to me where I worship now!

She looms aloft where every eye may see
The ripest peach is highest on the tree.
Such fruitage as her love I know, alas!
I may not reach here from the orchard grass.

I drink the sunshine showered past her lips
As roses drain the dewdrop as it drips.
The ripest peach is highest on the tree,
And so mine eyes gaze upward eagerly.

Why - why do I not turn away in wrath
And pluck some heart here hanging in my path?
Lover's lower boughs bend with them - but, ah me!
The ripest peach is highest on the tree!

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

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English

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A Fruit Piece

The afternoon of summer folds
Its warm arms round the marigolds,

And with its gleaming fingers, pets
The watered pinks and violets

That from the casement vases spill,
Over the cottage window-sill,

Their fragrance down the garden walks
Where droop the dry-mouthed hollyhocks.

How vividly the sunshine scrawls
The grape-vine shadows on the walls!

How like a truant swings the breeze
In high boughs of the apple-trees!

The slender "free-stone" lifts aloof,
Full languidly above the roof,

A hoard of fruitage, stamped with gold
And precious mintings manifold.

High up, through curled green leaves, a pear
Hangs hot with ripeness here and there.

Beneath the sagging trellisings,
In lush, lack-lustre cluste...

James Whitcomb Riley

The Blossoms on the Trees

Blossoms crimson, white, or blue,
Purple, pink, and every hue,
From sunny skies, to tintings drowned
In dusky drops of dew,
I praise you all, wherever found,
And love you through and through;
But, Blossoms On The Trees,
With your breath upon the breeze
There's nothing all the world around
As half as sweet as you!

Could the rhymer only wring
All the sweetness to the lees
Of all the kisses clustering
In juicy Used-to-bes,
To dip his rhymes therein and sing
The blossoms on the trees,
"O Blossoms on the Trees,"
He would twitter, trill, and coo,
"However sweet, such songs as these
Are not as sweet as you:
For you are blooming melodies
The eyes may listen to!"

James Whitcomb Riley

Dearth

I hold your trembling hand to-night - and yet
I may not know what wealth of bliss is mine,
My heart is such a curious design
Of trust and jealousy! Your eyes are wet -
So must I think they jewel some regret,
And lo, the loving arms that round me twine
Cling only as the tendrils of a vine
Whose fruit has long been gathered: I forget,
While crimson clusters of your kisses press
Their wine out on my lips, my royal fair
Of rapture, since blind fancy needs must guess
They once poured out their sweetness otherwhere,
With fuller flavoring of happiness
Than e'en your broken sobs may now declare.

James Whitcomb Riley

The Blossoms On The Trees.

    Blossoms crimson, white, or blue,
        Purple, pink, and every hue,
    From sunny skies, to tintings drowned
        In dusky drops of dew,
    I praise you all, wherever found,
        And love you through and through; -
            But, Blossoms On The Trees,
            With your breath upon the breeze,
    There's nothing all the world around
        As half as sweet as you!

    Could the rhymer only wring
        All the sweetness to the lees
    Of all the kisses clustering
        In juicy Used-to-bes,
    To dip his rhymes therein and sing
        The blossoms on the trees, -
    "O Blossoms on the Trees,"
        He would twitter, trill and coo,
    "However sweet, such songs as these
        Are not as sweet as you...

James Whitcomb Riley

Cherry Ripe

Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones; come, and buy:
If so be you ask me where
They do grow? I answer, there
Where my Julia's lips do smile;
There's the land, or cherry-isle;
Whose plantations fully show
All the year where cherries grow.

Robert Herrick

Sweet-Apple

At the end of the bough, at the top of the tree
(As fragrant, as high, and as lovely as thou)
One sweet apple reddens which all men may see,
At the end of the bough.

Swinging full to the view, tho' the gatherers now
Pass, and evade, and o'erlook busily:
Overlook! nay, but pluck it! they cannot tell how.

For it swings out of reach as a cloud, and as free
As a star, or thy beauty, which seems too, I vow,
Remote as the sweet rosy apple - ah me!
At the end of the bough.

James Stephens