Afterwhiles by James Whitcomb Riley
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James Whitcomb Riley >> Afterwhiles
***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 night
With lumps of ripeness and lush delight,
Till the stream, as it maunders on till dawn,
Is powdered and pelted and smiled upon.
Herr Weiser, with his wholesome face,
And the gentle blue of his eyes, and grace
Of unassuming honesty,
Be there to welcome you and me!
And what though the toil of the farm be stopped
And the tireless plans of the place be dropped,
While the prayerful master's knees are set
In beds of pansy and mignonette
And lily and aster and columbine,
Offered in love, as yours and mine--?
What, but a blessing of kindly thought,
Sweet as the breath of forget-me-not--!
What, but a spirit of lustrous love
White as the aster he bends above--!
What, but an odorous memory
Of the dear old man, made known to me
In days demanding a help like his--,
As sweet as the life of the lily is--
As sweet as the soul of a babe, bloom-wise
Born of a lily in paradise.
_The Beautiful City_
The Beautiful City! Forever
Its rapturous praises resound;
We fain would behold it-- but never
A glimpse of its dory is found:
We slacken our lips at the tender
White breasts of our mothers to hear
Of its marvellous beauty and splendor--;
We see-- but the gleam of a tear!
Yet never the story may tire us--
First graven in symbols of stone--
Rewritten on scrolls of papyrus
And parchment, and scattered and blown
By the winds of the tongues of all nations,
Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled
Down the rack of a hundred translations,
From the earliest lisp of the world.
We compass the earth and the ocean,
From the Orient's uttermost light,
To where the last ripple in motion
Lips hem of the skirt of the night--,
But the Beautiful City evades us--
No spire of it glints in the sun--
No glad-bannered battlement shades us
When all our Journey is done.
Where lies it? We question and listen;
We lean from the mountain, or mast,
And see but dull earth, or the glisten
Of seas inconceivably vast:
The dust of the one blurs our vision,
The glare of the other our brain,
Nor city nor island Elysian
In all of the land or the main!
We kneel in dim fanes where the thunders
Of organs tumultuous roll,
And the longing heart listens and wonders,
And the eyes look aloft from the soul:
But the chanson grows fainter and fainter,
Swoons wholly away and is dead;
AND our eyes only reach where the painter
Has dabbled a saint overhead.
The Beautiful City! O mortal,
Fare hopefully on in thy quest,
Pass down through the green grassy portal
That leads to the Valley of Rest;
There first passed the One who, in pity
Of all thy great yearning, awaits
To point out The Beautiful City,
And loosen the trump at the gates.
_Lockerbie Street_
Such a dear little street it is, nestled away
From the noise of the city and heat of the day,
In cool shady coverts of whispering trees,
With their leaves lifted up to shake hands with the breeze
Which in all its wide wanderings never may meet
With a resting-place fairer than Lockerbie street!
There is such a relief, from the clangor and din
Of the heart of the town, to go loitering in
Through the dim, narrow walks, with the sheltering shade
Of the trees waving over the long promenade,
And littering lightly the ways of our feet
With the gold of the sunshine of Lockerbie street.
And the nights that come down the dark pathways of dusk,
With the stars in their tresses, and odors of musk
In their moon-woven raiments, bespangled with dews,
And looped up with lilies for lovers to use
In the songs that they sing to the tinkle and beat
Of their sweet serenadings through Lockerbie street.
O my Lockerbie street! You are fair to be seen--
Be it noon of the day, or the rare and serene
Afternoon of the night-- you are one to my heart,
And I love you above all the phrases of art,
For no language could frame and no lips could repeat
My rhyme-haunted raptures of Lockerbie street.
_Das Krist Kindel_
I had fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in delight
Snapped their saucy little fingers at the chill December night;
And in dressing-gown and slippers, I had tilted back "my throne--"
The old split-bottomed rocker-- and was musing all alone.
I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door,
And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza floor;
But the sounds came to me only as the murmur of a stream
That mingled with the current of a lazy-flowing dream.
Like a fragrant incense rising, curled the smoke of my cigar,
With the lamplight gleaming through it like a mist-enfolded star--;
And as I gazed, the vapor like a curtain rolled away,
With a sound of bells that tinkled, and the clatter of a sleigh.
And in a vision, painted like a picture in the air,
I saw the elfish figure, of a man with frosty hair--
A quaint old man that chuckled with a laugh as he appeared,
And with ruddy cheeks like embers in the ashes of his beard.
He poised himself grotesquely, in an attitude of mirth,
On a damask-covered hassock that was sitting on the hearth;
And at a magic signal of his stubbly little thumb,
I saw the fireplace changing to a bright proscenium.
And looking there, I marvelled as I saw a mimic stage
Alive with little actors of a very tender age;
And some so very tiny that they tottered as they walked,
And lisped and purled and gurgled like the brooklets, when they talked.
And their faces were like lilies, and their eyes like purest dew,
And their tresses like the shadows that the shine is woven through;
And they each had little burdens, and a little tale to tell
Of fairy lore, and giants, and delights delectable.
And they mixed and intermingled, weaving melody with joy,
Till the magic circle clustered round a blooming baby-boy;
And they threw aside their treasures in an ecstasy of glee,
And bent, with dazzled faces and with parted lips, to see.
'Twas a wondrous little fellow, with a dainty double-chin
And chubby-cheeks, and dimples for the smiles to blossom in;
And he looked as ripe and rosy, on his bed of straw and reeds,
As a mellow little pippin that had tumbled in the weeds.
And I saw the happy mother, and a group surrounding her
That knelt with costly presents of frankincense and myrrh;
And I thrilled with awe and wonder, as a murmur on the air
Came drifting o'er the hearing in a melody of prayer--:
By the splendor in the heavens, and the hush upon the sea,
And the majesty of silence reigning over Galilee,
We feel Thy kingly presence, and we humbly bow the knee
And lift our hearts and voices in gratefulness to Thee.
Thy messenger has spoken, and our doubts have fled and gone
As the dark and spectral shadows of the night before the dawn;
And in kindly shelter of the light around us drawn,
We would nestle down forever in the breast we lean upon.
You have given us a shepherd-- You have given us a guide,
And the light of Heaven grew dimmer when You sent him from Your side--,
But he comes to lead Thy children where the gates will open wide
To welcome his returning when his works are glorified.
By the splendor in the heavens, and the hush upon the sea,
And the majesty of silence reigning over Galilee--,
We feel Thy kingly presence, and we humbly bow the knee
And lift our hearts and voices in gratefulness to Thee.
Then the vision, slowly failing, with the words of the refrain,
Fell swooning in the moonlight through the frosty window-pane;
And I heard the clock proclaiming, like an eager sentinel
Who brings the world good tidings--, "It is Christmas-- all is well!"
_Anselmo_
Years did I vainly seek the good Lord's grace--,
Prayed, fasted, and did penance dire and dread;
Did kneel, with bleeding knees and rainy face,
And mouth the dust, with ashes on my head;
Yea, still with knotted scourge the flesh I flayed,
Rent fresh the wounds, and moaned and shrieked insanely;
And froth oozed with the pleadings that I made,
And yet I prayed on vainly, vainly, vainly!
A time, from out of swoon I lifted eye,
To find a wretched outcast, gray and grim,
Bathing my brow, with many a pitying sigh,
And I did pray God's grace might rest on him--.
Then, lo! A gentle voice fell on mine ears--
"Thou shalt not sob in suppliance hereafter;
Take up thy prayers and wring them dry of tears,
And lift them, white and pure with love and laughter!"
So is it now for all men else I pray;
So is it I am blest and glad alway.
_A Home-Made Fairy Tale_
Bud, come here to your uncle a spell,
And I'll tell you something you mustn't tell--
For it's a secret and shore-'nuf true,
And maybe I oughtn't to tell it to you--!
But out in the garden, under the shade
Of the apple-trees, where we romped and played
Till the moon was up, and you thought I'd gone
Fast asleep--, That was all put on!
For I was a-watchin' something queer
Goin' on there in the grass, my dear--!
'Way down deep in it, there I see
A little dude-Fairy who winked at me,
And snapped his fingers, and laughed as low
And fine as the whine of a mus-kee-to!
I kept still-- watchin' him closer-- and
I noticed a little guitar in his hand,
Which he leant 'ginst a little dead bee-- and laid
His cigarette down on a clean grass-blade,
And then climbed up on the shell of a snail--
Carefully dusting his swallowtail--
And pulling up, by a waxed web-thread,
This little guitar, you remember. I said!
And there he trinkled and trilled a tune--,
"My Love, so Fair, Tans in the Moon!"
Till presently, out of the clover-top
He seemed to be singing to, came k'pop!
The purtiest, daintiest Fairy face
In all this world, or any place!
Then the little ser'nader waved his hand,
As much as to say, "We'll excuse you!" and
I heard, as I squinted my eyelids to,
A kiss like the drip of a drop of dew!
_The South Wind and the Sun_
O The South Wind and the Sun!
How each loved the other one
Full of fancy--- full folly--
Full of jollity and fun!
How they romped and ran about,
Like two boys when school is out,
With glowing face, and lisping lip,
Low laugh, and lifted shout!
And the South Wind-- he was dressed
With a ribbon round his breast
That floated, flapped and fluttered
In a riotous unrest,
And a drapery of mist
From the shoulder and the wrist
Flowing backward with the motion
Of the waving hand he kissed.
And the Sun had on a crown
Wrought of gilded thistle-down,
And a scarf of velvet vapor,
And a ravelled-rainbow gown;
And his tinsel-tangled hair,
Tossed and lost upon the air,
Was glossier and flossier
Than any anywhere.
And the South Wind's eyes were two
Little dancing drops of dew,
As he puffed his cheeks, and pursed his lips,
And blew and blew and blew!
And the Sun's-- like diamond-stone,
Brighter yet than ever known,
As he knit his brows and held his breath,
And shone and shone and shone!
And this pair of merry fays
Wandered through the summer days;
Arm-in-arm they went together
Over heights of morning haze--
Over slanting slopes of lawn
They went on and on and on,
Where the daisies looked like star-tracks
Trailing up and down the dawn.
And where'er they found the top
Of a wheat-stalk droop and lop
They chucked it underneath the chin
And praised the lavish crop,
Till it lifted with the pride
Of the heads it grew beside,
And then the South Wind and the Sun
Went onward satisfied.
Over meadow-lands they tripped,
Where the dandelions dipped
In crimson foam of clover-bloom,
And dripped and dripped and dripped;
And they clinched the bumble-stings,
Gauming honey on their wings,
And bundling them in lily-bells,
With maudlin murmurings.
And the humming-bird that hung
Like a jewel up among
The tilted honeysuckle-horns,
They mesmerized, and swung
In the palpitating air,
Drowsed with odors strange and rare,
And with whispered laughter, slipped away,
And left him hanging there.
And they braided blades of grass
Where the truant had to pass;
And they wriggled through the rushes
And the reeds of the morass,
Where they danced, in rapture sweet,
O'er the leaves that laid a street
Of undulant mosaic for
The touches of their feet.
By the brook with mossy brink
Where the cattle came to drink.
They trilled and piped and whistled
With the thrush and bobolink,
Till the kine in listless pause,
Switched their tails in mute applause,
With lifted heads and dreamy eyes,
And bubble-dripping jaws.
And where the melons grew,
Streaked with yellow, green and blue
These jolly sprites went wandering
Through spangled paths of dew;
And the melons, here and there,
They made love to, everywhere
Turning their pink souls to crimson
With caresses fond and fair.
Over orchard walls they went,
Where the fruited boughs were bent
Till they brushed the sward beneath them
Where the shine and shadow blent;
And the great green pear they shook
Till the sallow hue forsook
Its features, and the gleam of gold
Laughed out in every look.
And they stroked the downy cheek
Of the peach, and smoothed it sleek,
And flushed it into splendor;
And with many an elfish freak,
Gave the russet's rust a wipe--
Prankt the rambo with a stripe,
And the wine-sap blushed its reddest
As they spanked the pippins ripe.
Through the woven ambuscade
That the twining vines had made,
They found the grapes, in clusters,
Drinking up the shine and shade--
Plumpt like tiny skins of wine,
With a vintage so divine
That the tongue of fancy tingled
With the tang of muscadine.
And the golden-banded bees,
Droning o'er the flowery leas,
They bridled, reigned, and rode away
Across the fragrant breeze,
Till in hollow oak and elm
They had groomed and stabled them
In waxen stalls oozed with dews
Of rose and lily-stem.
Where the dusty highway leads,
High above the wayside weeds
They sowed the air with butterflies
Like blooming flower-seeds,
Till the dull grasshopper sprung
Half a man's height up, and hung
Tranced in the heat, with whirring wings,
And sung and sung and sung!
And they loitered, hand in hand,
Where the snipe along the sand
Of the river ran to meet them
As the ripple meets the land,
Till the dragon-fly, in light
Gauzy armor, burnished bright,
Came tilting down the waters
In a wild, bewildered flight.
And they heard the killdee's call,
And afar, the waterfall,
But the rustle of a falling leaf
They heard above it all;
And the trailing willow crept
Deeper in the tide that swept
The leafy shallop to the shore,
And wept and wept and wept!
And the fairy vessel veered
From its moorings-- tacked and steered
For the centre of the current
Sailed away and disappeared:
And the burthen that it bore
From the long-enchanted shore--
"Alas! The South Wind and the Sun!"
I murmur evermore.
For the South Wind and the Sun,
Each so loves the other one,
For all his jolly folly
And frivolity and fun,
That our love for them they weigh
As their fickle fancies may,
And when at last we love them most,
They laugh and sail away.
_The Lost Kiss_
I put by the half-written poem,
While the pen, idly trailed in my hand,
Writes on--, "Had I words to complete it,
Who'd read it, or who'd understand?"
But the little bare feet on the stairway,
And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,
And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,
Cry up to me over it all.
So I gather it up-- where was broken
The tear-faded thread of my theme,
Telling how, as one night I sat writing,
A fairy broke in on my dream,
A little inquisitive fairy--
My own little girl, with the gold
Of the sun in her hair, and the dewy
Blue eyes of the fairies of old.
'Twas the dear little girl that I scolded--
"For was it a moment like this,"
I said, "when she knew I was busy,
To come romping in for a kiss--?
Come rowdying up from her mother,
And clamoring there at my knee
For 'One 'ittle kiss for my dolly,
And one 'ittle uzzer for me!"
God pity, the heart that repelled her,
And the cold hand that turned her away,
And take, from the lips that denied her,
This answerless prayer of to-day!
Take Lord, from my mem'ry forever
That pitiful sob of despair,
And the patter and trip of the little bare feet,
And the one piercing cry on the stair!
I put by the half-written poem,
While the pen, idly trailed in my hand
Writes on--, "Had I words to complete it
Who'd read it, or who'd understand?"
But the little bare feet on the stairway,
And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,
And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,
Cry up to me over it all.
_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!
_If I knew What Poets Know_
If I knew what poets know,
Would I write a rhyme
Of the buds that never blow
In the summer-time ?
Would I sing of golden seeds
Springing up in ironweeds?
And of raindrops turned to snow,
If I knew what poets know?
Did I know what poets do,
Would I sing a song
Sadder than the pigeon's coo
When the days are long?
Where I found a heart in pain,
I would make it glad again;
And the false should be the true,
Did I know what poets do.
If I knew what poets know,
I would find a theme
Sweeter than the placid flow
Of the fairest dream:
I would sing of love that lives
On the errors it forgives;
And the world would better grow
If I knew what poets know.
_Ike Walton's Prayer_
I crave, dear Lord,
No boundless hoard
Of gold and gear,
Nor jewels fine,
Nor lands, nor kine,
Nor treasure-heaps of anything--.
Let but a little hut be mine
Where at the hearthstone I may hear
The cricket sing,
And have the shine
Of one glad woman's eyes to make,
For my poor sake,
Our simple home a place divine--;
Just the wee cot-- the cricket's chirr--
Love and the smiling face of her.
I pray not for
Great riches, nor
For vast estates and castle-halls--,
Give me to hear the bare footfalls
Of children o'er
An oaken floor
New-rinsed with sunshine, or bespread
With but the tiny coverlet
And pillow for the baby's head;
And pray Thou, may
The door stand open and the day
Send ever in a gentle breeze,
With fragrance from the locust-trees,
And drowsy moan of doves, and blur
Of robin-chirps, and drone of bees,
With after-hushes of the stir
Of intermingling sounds, and then
The good-wife and the smile of her
Filling the silences again--
The cricket's call
And the wee cot,
Dear Lord of all,
Deny me not!
I pray not that
Men tremble at
My power of place
And lordly sway--,
I only pray for simple grace
To look my neighbor in the face
Full honestly from day to day--
Yield me his horny palm to hold.
And I'll not pray
For gold--;
The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,
It hath the kingliest smile on earth;
The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,
Hath never need of coronet.
And so I reach,
Dear Lord, to Thee,
And do beseech
Thou givest me
The wee cot, and the cricket's chirr,
Love and the glad sweet face of her!
_A Rough Sketch_
I caught, for a second, across the crowd--
Just for a second, and barely that--
A face, pox-pitted and evil-browed,
Hid in the shade of a slouch-rim'd hat--
With small gray eyes, of a look as keen
As the long, sharp nose that grew between.
And I said: 'Tis a sketch of Nature's own,
Drawn i' the dark o' the moon, I swear,
On a tatter of Fate that the winds have blown
Hither and thither and everywhere--
With its keen little sinister eyes of gray,
And nose like the beak of a bird of prey!
_Our Kind of a Man_
1
The kind of a man for you and me!
He faces the world unflinchingly,
And smites, as long as the wrong resists,
With a knuckled faith and force like fists:
He lives the life he is preaching of,
And loves where most is the need of love;
His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears,
And his face sublime through the blind man's tears;
The light shines out where the clouds were dim,
And the widow's prayer goes up for him;
The latch is clicked at the hovel door
And the sick man sees the sun once more,
And out o'er the barren fields he sees
Springing blossoms and waving trees,
Feeling as only the dying may,
That God's own servant has come that way,
Smoothing the path as it still winds on
Through the golden gate where his loved have gone.
2
The kind of a man for me and you!
However little of worth we do
He credits full, and abides in trust
That time will teach us how more is just.
He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds
Of querulous and uneasy minds,
And sympathizing, he shares the pain
Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain;
And knowing this, as we grasp his hand
We are surely coming to understand!
He looks on sin with pitying eyes--
E'en as the Lord, since Paradise--,
Else, should we read, Though our sins should glow
As scarlet, they shall be white as snow--?
And feeling still, with a grief half glad,
That the bad are as good as the good are bad,
He strikes straight out for the Right-- and he
Is the kind of a man for you and me!