Afterwhiles

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Afterwhiles, by James Whitcomb Riley
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Title: Afterwhiles
Author: James Whitcomb Riley
Release Date: May 19, 2005 [EBook #15862]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTERWHILES ***
Produced by "Teary Eyes" Anderson
***Transcriber's Note.?Most of this etext was made with a "Top Scan" text scanner, with a bit of correcting here and there. Mr. Riley does spell pretty=purty and such things and have been left as printed, including the first poem in this book listed as "Proem" on both the contents page and the page headers, even though in later editions this poem is simply called "Afterwhiles." In "The South Wind and the Sun" the line is 'Laughed out in every look.' while in later versions it has the word 'nook', replacing 'look.' The poem "Old Aunt Mary's" is later retitled "Out To Old Aunt Mary's" and later enlarged by 13 verses. The "In Dalect" section has the ' to replace a letter that he left out, to make the word sound a certain way, including words like sure-enuff he writes as sho'-nuff, or He'pless as helpless and ect. This etext is based on the 1898 edition Published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis Publishers. "Teary Eyes" Anderson***
Afterwhiles by James Whitcomb Riley
Dedicated to my mother Elizabeth
Contents?Proem (AKA "Afterwhiles")?Herr Weiser?The Beautiful City?Lockerbie Street?Das Krist Kindel?Anselmo?A Home Made Fairy Tale?The South Wind and the Sun?The Lost Kiss?The Sphinx?If I knew What Poets Know?Ike Walton's Prayer?A Rough Sketch?Our Kind of a Man?The Harper?Old Aunt Mary's (AKA "Out To Old Aunt Mary's" Later was enlarged by 13 verses)?Illileo?The King?A Bride?The Dead Lover?A Song?When Bessie Died?The Shower?A Life-Lesson?A Scrawl?Away?Who Bides His Time?From the Headboard of a Grave in Paraguay?Laughter Holding Both His Sides?Fame?The Ripest Peach?A Fruit Piece?Their Sweet Sorrow?John McKeen?Out of Nazareth?September Dark?We to Sigh Instead of Sing?The Blossoms on the Trees?Last Night And This?A Discouraging Model?Back from a Two Year Sentence?The Wandering Jew?Becalmed?To Santa Claus?Where the Children Used to Play?A Glipse of Pan
Sonnets?Pan?Dusk?June?Silence?Sleep?Her Hair?Dearth?A Voice from the Farm?The Serenade?Art and Love?Longfellow?Indiana?Time?Grant At Rest August 8, 1885
In Dialect?Old Fashioned Roses?Griggsby's Station?Knee Deep in June?When the Hearse Comes Back?A Canary at the Farm?A Liz Town Humorist?Kingry's Mill?Joney?Like His Mother Used to Make?The Train Misser?Granny?Old October?Jim?To Robert Burns?A New Year's Time at Willard's?The Town Karnteel?Regardin' Terry Hut?Leedle Dutch Baby?Down on Wriggle Crick?When de Folks is Gone?The Little Town o' Tailholt?Little Orphant Annie
Proem
Where are they-- the Afterwhiles--?Luring us the lengthening miles?Of our lives? Where is the dawn?With the dew across the lawn?Stroked with eager feet the far?Way the hills and valleys are??Were the sun that smites the frown?Of the eastward-gazer down??Where the rifted wreaths of mist?O'er us, tinged with amethyst,?Round the mountain's steep defiles??Where are the afterwhiles?
Afterwhile-- and we will go?Thither, yon, and too and fro--?From the stifling city streets?To the country's cool retreats--?From the riot to the rest?Were hearts beat the placidest:?Afterwhile, and we will fall?Under breezy trees, and loll?In the shade, with thirsty sight?Drinking deep the blue delight?Of the skies that will beguile?Us as children-- afterwhile.
Afterwhile-- and one intends?To be gentler to his friends--,?To walk with them, in the hush?Of still evenings, o'er the plush?Of home-leading fields, and stand?Long at parting, hand in hand:?One, in time, will joy to take?New resolves for some one's sake,?And wear then the look that lies?Clear and pure in other eyes--?We will soothe and reconcile?His own conscience-- afterwhile.
Afterwhile-- we have in view?A far scene to journey to--,?Where the old home is, and where?The old mother waits us there,?Peering, as the time grows late,?Down the old path to the gate--.?How we'll click the latch that locks?In the pinks and hollyhocks,?And leap up the path once more?Where she waits us at the door--!?How we'll greet the dear old smile,?And the warm tears-- afterwhile!
Ah, the endless afterwhiles--!?Leagues on leagues, and miles on miles,?In distance far withdrawn,?Stretching on, and on, and on,?Till the fancy is footsore?And faints in the dust before?The last milestone's granite face,?Hacked with: Here Beginneth Space.?O far glimmering worlds and wings,?Mystic smiles and beckonings,?Lead us through the shadowy aisles?Out into the afterwhiles.
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