Riley Songs of Home | Page 7

no!--it is jest the sweet--?The sad-sweet feel in the air.
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AS CREATED
There's a space for good to bloom in?Every heart of man or woman,--?And however wild or human,?Or however brimmed with gall,?Never heart may beat without it;?And the darkest heart to doubt it?Has something good about it
After all.
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WHERE-AWAY
O the Lands of Where-Away!?Tell us--tell us--where are they??Through the darkness and the dawn?We have journeyed on and on--?From the cradle to the cross--?From possession unto loss.--?Seeking still, from day to day,?For the Lands of Where-Away.
When our baby-feet were first?Planted where the daisies burst,?And the greenest grasses grew?In the fields we wandered through,--?On, with childish discontent,?Ever on and on we went,?Hoping still to pass, some day,?O'er the verge of Where-Away.
Roses laid their velvet lips?On our own, with fragrant sips;?But their kisses held us not,?All their sweetness we forgot;--?Though the brambles in our track?Plucked at us to hold us back--?"Just ahead," we used to say,?"Lie the Lands of Where-Away."
Children at the pasture-bars,?Through the dusk, like glimmering stars,?Waved their hands that we should bide?With them over eventide;?Down the dark their voices failed?Falteringly, as they hailed,?And died into yesterday--?Night ahead and--Where-Away?
Twining arms about us thrown--?Warm caresses, all our own,?Can but stay us for a spell--?Love hath little new to tell?To the soul in need supreme,?Aching ever with the dream?Of the endless bliss it may?Find in Lands of Where-Away!
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DREAMER, SAY
Dreamer, say, will you dream for me?A wild sweet dream of a foreign land,?Whose border sips of a foaming sea?With lips of coral and silver sand;?Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps,?Or lave themselves in the tearful mist?The great wild wave of the breaker weeps?O'er crags of opal and amethyst?
Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream?Of tropic shades in the lands of shine,?Where the lily leans o'er an amber stream?That flows like a rill of wasted wine,--?Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green,?Parry the shafts of the Indian sun?Whose splintering vengeance falls between?The reeds below where the waters run?
Dreamer, say, will you dream of love?That lives in a land of sweet perfume,?Where the stars drip down from the skies above?In molten spatters of bud and bloom??Where never the weary eyes are wet,?And never a sob in the balmy air,?And only the laugh of the paroquette?Breaks the sleep of the silence there?
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OUR OWN
They walk here with us, hand-in-hand;?We gossip, knee-by-knee;?They tell us all that they have planned--?Of all their joys to be,--?And, laughing, leave us: And, to-day,?All desolate we cry?Across wide waves of voiceless graves--?Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
THE OLD TRUNDLE-BED
O the old trundle-bed where I slept when a boy!?What canopied king might not covet the joy??The glory and peace of that slumber of mine,?Like a long, gracious rest in the bosom divine:?The quaint, homely couch, hidden close from the light,?But daintily drawn from its hiding at night.?O a nest of delight, from the foot to the head,?Was the queer little, clear little, old trundle-bed!
O the old trundle-bed, where I wondering saw?The stars through the window, and listened with awe?To the sigh of the winds as they tremblingly crept?Through the trees where the robin so restlessly slept:?Where I heard the low, murmurous chirp of the wren,?And the katydid listlessly chirrup again,?Till my fancies grew faint and were drowsily led?Through the maze of the dreams of the old trundle bed.
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O the old trundle-bed! O the old trundle-bed!?With its plump little pillow, and old-fashioned spread;?Its snowy-white sheets, and the blankets above,?Smoothed down and tucked round with the touches of love;?The voice of my mother to lull me to sleep?With the old fairy-stories my memories keep?Still fresh as the lilies that bloom o'er the head?Once bowed o'er my own in the old trundle-bed.
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WHO BIDES HIS TIME
Who bides his time, and day by day?Faces defeat full patiently,?And lifts a mirthful roundelay,?However poor his fortunes be,--?He will not fail in any qualm?Of poverty--the paltry clime?It will grow golden in his palm,?Who bides his time.
Who bides his time--he tastes the sweet?Of honey in the saltest tear;?And though he fares with slowest feet,?Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;?The birds are heralds of his cause;?And, like a never-ending rhyme,?The roadsides bloom in his applause,?Who bides his time.
Who bides his time, and fevers not?In the hot race that none achieves,?Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought?With crimson berries in the leaves;?And he shall reign a goodly king,?And sway his hand o'er every clime,?With peace writ on his signet-ring,?Who bides his time.
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NATURAL PERVERSITIES
I am not prone to moralize?In scientific doubt?On certain facts that Nature tries?To puzzle us about,--?For I am no philosopher?Of wise elucidation,?But speak of things as they occur,?From simple observation.
I notice little things--to wit:--?I never missed a train?Because I didn't run for it;?I never knew it rain?That my umbrella wasn't lent,--?Or, when in my possession,?The sun but wore, to all intent,?A jocular expression.
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I never knew a creditor?To dun me for a debt?But I was "cramped" or "busted;" or?I never