The Sphinx

I know all about the Sphinx -
I know even what she thinks,
Staring with her stony eyes
Up forever at the skies.

For last night I dreamed that she
Told me all the mystery -
Why for aeons mute she sat:
She was just cut out for that!

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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James Whitcomb Riley, Simple Poetry

English

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The Sphinx

She was half Lady and half cat--
What is so wonderful in that?
Half of our lady friends (so say
The other half) are Cats to-day.
In Egypt she made quite a stir,
They carved huge Images of her.
Riddles she asked of all she met
And all who answered wrong, she ate.
When Oedipus her riddle solved
The minx--I mean the Sphinx--dissolved
In tears. What is there, when one thinks,
So wonderful about the Sphinx?

Oliver Herford

The Sphinx

The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer
While they slumbered and slept:--

"The fate of the man-child,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?

"Erect as a sunbeam,
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
Your silence he sings.

"The waves, unashamèd,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,
Primordial wh...

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dream

Because her eyes were far too deep
And holy for a laugh to leap
Across the brink where sorrow tried
To drown within the amber tide;
Because the looks, whose ripples kissed
The trembling lids through tender mist,
Were dazzled with a radiant gleam -
Because of this I called her "Dream."

Because the roses growing wild
About her features when she smiled
Were ever dewed with tears that fell
With tenderness ineffable;
Because her lips might spill a kiss
That, dripping in a world like this,
Would tincture death's myrrh-bitter stream
To sweetness - so I called her "Dream."

Because I could not understand
The magic touches of a hand
That seemed, beneath her strange control,
To smooth the plumage of the soul
And calm it, till, with folded ...

James Whitcomb Riley

Only A Dream

Only a dream!
            Her head is bent
Over the keys of the instrument,
While her trembling fingers go astray
In the foolish tune she tries to play.
He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes
Never change to a glad surprise
As he finds the answer he seeks confessed
In glowing features, and heaving breast.

Only a dream!
            Though the fete is grand,
And a hundred hearts at her command,
She takes no part, for her soul is sick
Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick, -
She someway feels she would like to fling
Her sins away as a robe, and spring
Up like a lily pure and white,
And bloom alone for HIM to-night.

Only a dream
            That the fancy weaves.
The lids unfold like the rose's leaves,
And th...

James Whitcomb Riley

A Dream Of Long Ago

Lying listless in the mosses
Underneath a tree that tosses
Flakes of sunshine, and embosses
    Its green shadow with the snow -
Drowsy-eyed, I sink in slumber
Born of fancies without number -
Tangled fancies that encumber
    Me with dreams of long ago.

Ripples of the river singing;
And the water-lilies swinging
Bells of Parian, and ringing
    Peals of perfume faint and fine,
While old forms and fairy faces
Leap from out their hiding-places
In the past, with glad embraces
    Fraught with kisses sweet as wine.

Willows dip their slender fingers
O'er the little fisher's stringers,
While he baits his hook and lingers
    Till the shadows gather dim;
And afar off comes a calling
Like the sounds of water falling,
With the...

James Whitcomb Riley

The Sphinx Of The Tuileries.

Out of the Latin Quarter
    I came to the lofty door
Where the two marble Sphinxes guard
    The Pavillon de Flore.
Two Cockneys stood by the gate, and one
    Observed, as they turned to go,
"No wonder He likes that sort of thing, -
    He's a Sphinx himself, you know."

I thought as I walked where the garden glowed
    In the sunset's level fire,
Of the Charlatan whom the Frenchmen loathe
    And the Cockneys all admire.
They call him a Sphinx, - it pleases him, -
    And if we narrowly read,
We will find some truth in the flunkey's praise, -
    The man is a Sphinx indeed.

For the Sphinx with breast of woman
    And face so debonair
Had the sleek false paws of a lion,
    That could furtively seize and tear.
So far to the sho...

John Hay