Songs of Friendship

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Title: Songs of Friendship
Author: James Whitcomb Riley
Release Date: October 20, 2007 [eBook #23111]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF FRIENDSHIP***
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RILEY SONGS OF FRIENDSHIP
by
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
With Pictures by Will Vawter
[Frontispiece: "Sleep, for thy mother bends over thee yet!"]
New York?Grosset & Dunlap?Publishers
Copyright 1885, 1887, 1888, 1890,?1892, 1893, 1894, 1900, 1903, 1908,?1913, 1915?James Whitcomb Riley
To
Young E. Allison--Bookman
The bookman he's a humming-bird--?His feasts are honey-fine,--?(With hi! hilloo!?And clover-dew?And roses lush and rare!)?_His_ roses are the phrase and word?Of olden tomes divine;?(With hi! and ho!?And pinks ablow?And posies everywhere!)?The Bookman he's a humming-bird,--?He steals from song to song--?He scents the ripest-blooming rhyme,?And takes his heart along?And sacks all sweets of bursting verse?And ballads, throng on throng.?(With ho! and hey!?And brook and brae,?And brinks of shade and shine!)
A humming-bird the Bookman is--?Though cumbrous, gray and grim,--?(With hi! hilloo!?And honey-dew?And odors musty-rare!)?He bends him o'er that page of his?As o'er the rose's rim.?(With hi! and ho!?And pinks aglow?And roses everywhere!)?Ay, he's the featest humming-bird,?On airiest of wings?He poises pendent o'er the poem?That blossoms as it sings--?God friend him as he dips his beak?In such delicious things!?(With ho! and hey!?And world away?And only dreams for him!)
O friends of mine, whose kindly words come to me?Voiced only in lost lisps of ink and pen,?If I had power to tell the good you do me,?And how the blood you warm goes laughing through me,?My tongue would babble baby-talk again.
And I would toddle round the world to meet you--?Fall at your feet, and clamber to your knees?And with glad, happy hands would reach and greet you,?And twine my arms about you, and entreat you?For leave to weave a thousand rhymes like these--
A thousand rhymes enwrought of nought but presses?Of cherry-lip and apple-cheek and chin,?And pats of honeyed palms, and rare caresses,?And all the sweets of which as Fancy guesses?She folds away her wings and swoons therein.
{xv}
CONTENTS
PAGE
ABE MARTIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 AMERICA'S THANKSGIVING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 ANCIENT PRINTERMAN, THE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 ART AND POETRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 BACK FROM TOWN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 BE OUR FORTUNES AS THEY MAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 BECAUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 CHRISTMAS GREETING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 DAN O'SULLIVAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 DEAD JOKE AND THE FUNNY MAN, THE . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 DOWN TO THE CAPITAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 FRIEND OF A WAYWARD HOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 GOOD-BY ER HOWDY-DO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 HER VALENTINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 HERR WEISER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 HOBO VOLUNTARY, A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 I SMOKE MY PIPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 IN THE AFTERNOON . . . .