Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems by James Whitcomb Riley

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GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

INDIANAPOLIS

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1893

BY JAMES W. RILEY

TO MY SISTERS

ELVA AND MARY

CONTENTS.

PROEM

Artemus of Michigan, The
As My Uncle Used to Say
At Utter Loaf
August
Autumn

Bedouin
Being His Mother
Blind
Blossoms on the Trees, The
By Any Other Name
By Her White Bed

Chant of the Cross-Bearing Child, The
Country Pathway, A
Cup of Tea, A
Curse of the Wandering Foot, The
Cyclone, The

Dan Paine
Dawn, Noon and Dewfall
Discouraging Model, A
Ditty of No Tone, A
Don Piatt of Mac-o-chee
Dot Leedle Boy
Dream of Autumn, A

Elizabeth
Envoy

Farmer Whipple--Bachelor
Full Harvest, A

Glimpse of Pan, A
Go, Winter

Her Beautiful Eyes
Hereafter, The
His Mother's Way
His Vigil
Home at Night
Home-Going, The
Hoodoo, The
Hoosier Folk-Child, The
How John Quit the Farm

Iron Horse, The
Iry and Billy and Jo

Jack the Giant-Killer
Jap Miller
John Alden and Percilly
John Brown
John McKeen
Judith
June at Woodruff
Just to Be Good

Last Night--And This
Let Us Forget
Little Fat Doctor, The
Longfellow
Lounger, A

Monument for the Soldiers, A
Mr. What's-His-Name
My Friend

Nessmuk
North and South

Old Retired Sea Captain, The
Old Winters on the Farm
Old Year and the New, The
On the Banks o' Deer Crick
Out of Nazareth

Passing of A Heart, The
Plaint Human, The

Quarrel, The
Quiet Lodger, The

Reach Your Hand to Me
Right Here at Home
Rival, The
Rivals, The; or the Showman's Ruse
Robert Burns Wilson
Rose, The

September Dark
Shoemaker, The
Singer, The
Sister Jones's Confession
Sleep
Some Scattering Remarks of Bub's
Song of Long Ago, A
Southern Singer, A
Suspense

Thanksgiving
Their Sweet Sorrow
Them Flowers
To an Importunate Ghost
To Hear Her Sing
Tom Van Arden
To the Serenader
Tugg Martin
Twins, The

Wandering Jew, The
Watches of the Night, The
Water Color, A
We to Sigh Instead of Sing
What Chris'mas Fetched the Wigginses
When Age Comes On
Where-Away
While the Musician Played
Wife-Blessed, The
Wraith of Summertime, A

GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS

GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS

Ho! green fields and running brooks!
Knotted strings and fishing-hooks
Of the truant, stealing down
Weedy backways of the town.

Where the sunshine overlooks,
By green fields and running brooks,
All intruding guests of chance
With a golden tolerance,

Cooing doves, or pensive pair
Of picnickers, straying there--
By green fields and running brooks,
Sylvan shades and mossy nooks!

And--O Dreamer of the Days,
Murmurer of roundelays
All unsung of words or books,
Sing green fields and running brooks!

A COUNTRY PATHWAY.

I come upon it suddenly, alone--
A little pathway winding in the weeds
That fringe the roadside; and with dreams my own,
I wander as it leads.

Full wistfully along the slender way,
Through summer tan of freckled shade and shine,
I take the path that leads me as it may--
Its every choice is mine.

A chipmunk, or a sudden-whirring quail,
Is startled by my step as on I fare--
A garter-snake across the dusty trail
Glances and--is not there.

Above the arching jimson-weeds flare twos
And twos of sallow-yellow butterflies,
Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose
When autumn winds arise.

The trail dips--dwindles--broadens then, and lifts
Itself astride a cross-road dubiously,
And, from the fennel marge beyond it, drifts
Still onward, beckoning me.

And though it needs must lure me mile on mile
Out of the public highway, still I go,
My thoughts, far in advance in Indian-file,
Allure me even so.

Why, I am as a long-lost boy that went
At dusk to bring the cattle to the bars,
And was not found again, though Heaven lent
His mother ail the stars

With which to seek him through that awful night.
O years of nights as vain!--Stars never rise
But well might miss their glitter in the light
Of tears in mother-eyes!

So--on, with quickened breaths, I follow still--
My _avant-courier_ must be obeyed!
Thus am I led, and thus the path, at will,
Invites me to invade

A meadow's precincts, where my daring guide
Clambers the steps of an old-fashioned stile,
And stumbles down again, the other side,
To gambol there awhile

In pranks of hide-and-seek, as on ahead
I see it running, while the clover-stalks
Shake rosy fists at me, as though they said--
"You dog our country-walks

And mutilate us with your walking-stick!--
We will not suffer tamely what you do
And warn you at your peril,--for we'll sic
Our bumble-bees on you!"

But I smile back, in airy nonchalance,--
The more determined on my wayward quest,
As some bright memory a moment dawns
A morning in my breast--

Sending a thrill that hurries me along
In faulty similes of childish skips,
Enthused with lithe contortions of a song
Performing on my lips.

In wild meanderings o'er pasture wealth--
Erratic wanderings through dead'ning-lands,
Where sly old brambles, plucking me by stealth,
Put berries in my hands:

Or, the path climbs a boulder--wades a slough--
Or, rollicking through buttercups and flags,
Goes gaily dancing o'er a deep bayou
On old tree-trunks and snags:

Or, at the creek, leads o'er a limpid pool
Upon a bridge the stream itself has made,
With some Spring-freshet for the mighty tool
That its foundation laid.

I pause a moment here to bend and muse,
With dreamy eyes, on my reflection, where
A boat-backed bug drifts on a helpless cruise,
Or wildly oars the air,

As, dimly seen, the pirate of the brook--
The pike, whose jaunty hulk denotes his speed--
Swings pivoting about, with wary look
Of low and cunning greed.

Till, filled with other thought, I turn again
To where the pathway enters in a realm
Of lordly woodland, under sovereign reign
Of towering oak and elm.

A puritanic quiet here reviles
The almost whispered warble from the hedge,
And takes a locust's rasping voice and files
The silence to an edge.

In such a solitude my somber way
Strays like a misanthrope within a gloom
Of his own shadows--till the perfect day
Bursts into sudden bloom,

And crowns a long, declining stretch of space,
Where King Corn's armies lie with flags unfurled,
And where the valley's dint in Nature's face
Dimples a smiling world.

And lo! through mists that may not be dispelled,
I see an old farm homestead, as in dreams,
Where, like a gem in costly setting held,
The old log cabin gleams.

* * * * *

O darling Pathway! lead me bravely on
Adown your valley way, and run before
Among the roses crowding up the lawn
And thronging at the door,--

And carry up the echo there that shall
Arouse the drowsy dog, that he may bay
The household out to greet the prodigal
That wanders home to-day.

ON THE BANKS O' DEER CRICK.

On the banks o' Deer Crick! There's the place fer me!--
Worter slidin' past ye jes as clair as it kin be:--
See yer shadder in it, and the shadder o' the sky,
And the shadder o' the buzzard as he goes a-lazein' by;
Shadder o' the pizen-vines, and shadder o' the trees--
And I purt'-nigh said the shadder o' the sunshine and the breeze!
Well--I never seen the ocean ner I never seen the sea:
On the banks o' Deer Crick's grand enough fer me!

On the banks o' Deer Crick--mild er two from town--
'Long up where the mill-race comes a-loafin' down,--
Like to git up in there--'mongst the sycamores--
And watch the worter at the dam, a-frothin' as she pours:
Crawl out on some old log, with my hook and line,
Where the fish is jes so thick you kin see 'em shine
As they flicker round yer bait, _coaxin_' you to jerk,
Tel yer tired ketchin' of 'em, mighty nigh, as _work_!

On the banks o' Deer Crick!--Allus my delight
Jes to be around there--take it day er night!--
Watch the snipes and killdees foolin' half the day--
Er these-'ere little worter-bugs skootin' ever'way!--
Snakefeeders glancin' round, er dartin' out o' sight;
And dew-fall, and bullfrogs, and lightnin'-bugs at night--
Stars up through the tree-tops--er in the crick below,--
And smell o' mussrat through the dark clean from the old b'y-o!

Er take a tromp, some Sund'y, say, 'way up to "Johnson's Hole,"
And find where he's had a fire, and hid his fishin' pole;
Have yer "dog-leg," with ye and yer pipe and "cut-and-dry"--
Pocketful o' corn-bred, and slug er two o' rye,--
Soak yer hide in sunshine and waller in the shade--
Like the Good Book tells us--"where there're none to make afraid!"
Well!--I never seen the ocean ner I never seen the sea--
On the banks o' Deer Crick's grand enough fer me!

A DITTY OF NO TONE.

_Piped to the Spirit of John Keats._

I.

Would that my lips might pour out in thy praise
A fitting melody--an air sublime,--
A song sun-washed and draped in dreamy haze--
The floss and velvet of luxurious rhyme:
A lay wrought of warm languors, and o'er-brimmed
With balminess, and fragrance of wild flowers
Such as the droning bee ne'er wearies of--
Such thoughts as might be hymned
To thee from this midsummer land of ours
Through shower and sunshine blent for very love.

II.

Deep silences in woody aisles wherethrough
Cool paths go loitering, and where the trill
Of best-remembered birds hath something new
In cadence for the hearing--lingering still
Through all the open day that lies beyond;
Reaches of pasture-lands, vine-wreathen oaks,
Majestic still in pathos of decay,--
The road--the wayside pond
Wherein the dragonfly an instant soaks
His filmy wing-tips ere he flits away.

III.

And I would pluck from out the dank, rich mould,
Thick-shaded from the sun of noon, the long
Lithe stalks of barley, topped with ruddy gold,
And braid them in the meshes of my song;
And with them I would tangle wheat and rye,
And wisps of greenest grass the katydid
Ere crept beneath the blades of, sulkily,
As harvest-hands went by;
And weave of all, as wildest fancy bid,
A crown of mingled song and bloom for thee.

A WATER-COLOR.

Low hidden in among the forest trees
An artist's tilted easel, ankle-deep
In tousled ferns and mosses, and in these
A fluffy water-spaniel, half asleep
Beside a sketch-book and a fallen hat--
A little wicker flask tossed into that.

A sense of utter carelessness and grace
Of pure abandon in the slumb'rous scene,--
As if the June, all hoydenish of face,
Had romped herself to sleep there on the green,
And brink and sagging bridge and sliding stream
Were just romantic parcels of her dream.

THE CYCLONE.

So lone I stood, the very trees seemed drawn
In conference with themselves.--Intense--intense
Seemed everything;--the summer splendor on
The sight,--magnificence!

A babe's life might not lighter fail and die
Than failed the sunlight--Though the hour was noon,
The palm of midnight might not lighter lie
Upon the brow of June.

With eyes upraised, I saw the underwings
Of swallows--gone the instant afterward--
While from the elms there came strange twitterings,
Stilled scarce ere they were heard.

The river seemed to shiver; and, far down
Its darkened length, I saw the sycamores
Lean inward closer, under the vast frown
That weighed above the shores.

Then was a roar, born of some awful burst!--
And one lay, shrieking, chattering, in my path--
Flung--he or I--out of some space accurst
As of Jehovah's wrath:

Nor barely had he wreaked his latest prayer,
Ere back the noon flashed o'er the ruin done,
And, o'er uprooted forests touseled there,
The birds sang in the sun.

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!

THE HOME-GOING.

We must get home--for we have been away
So long it seems forever and a day!
And O so very homesick we have grown,
The laughter of the world is like a moan
In our tired hearing, and its songs as vain,--
We must get home--we must get home again!

We must get home: It hurts so, staying here,
Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear,
And where to wear wet lashes means, at best,
When most our lack, the least our hope of rest
When most our need of joy, the more our pain--
We must get home--we must get home again!

We must get home: All is so quiet there:
The touch of loving hands on brow and hair--
Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild---
The lost love of the mother and the child
Restored in restful lullabies of rain.--
We must get home--we must get home again!

We must get home, where, as we nod and drowse,
Time humors us and tiptoes through the house,
And loves us best when sleeping baby-wise,
With dreams--not tear-drops--brimming our clenched eyes,--
Pure dreams that know nor taint nor earthly stain--
We must get home--we must get home again!

We must get home; and, unremembering there
All gain of all ambitions otherwhere,
Rest--from the feverish victory, and the crown
Of conquest whose waste glory weighs us down.--
Fame's fairest gifts we toss back with disdain--
We must get home--we must get home again!

HOW JOHN QUIT THE FARM.

Nobody on the old farm here but Mother, me and John,
Except, of course, the extry he'p when harvest-time come on--
And then, I want to say to you, we _needed_ he'p about,
As you'd admit, ef you'd a-seen the way the crops turned out!

A better quarter-section, ner a richer soil warn't found
Than this-here old-home place o' ourn fer fifty miles around!--
The house was small--but plenty-big we found it from the day
That John--our only livin' son--packed up and went way.

You see, we tuck sich pride in John--his mother more 'n me--
That's natchurul; but _both_ of us was proud as proud could be;
Fer the boy, from a little chap, was most oncommon bright,
And seemed in work as well as play to take the same delight.

He allus went a-whistlin' round the place, as glad at heart
As robins up at five o'clock to git an airly start;
And many a time 'fore daylight Mother's waked me up to say--
"Jest listen, David!--listen!--Johnny's beat the birds to-day!"

High-sperited from boyhood, with a most inquirin' turn,--
He wanted to learn ever'thing on earth they was to learn:
He'd ast more plaguey questions in a mortal-minute here
Than his grandpap in Paradise could answer in a year!

And read! w'y, his own mother learnt him how to read and spell;
And "The Childern of the Abbey"--w'y, he knowed that book as well
At fifteen as his parents!--and "The Pilgrim's Progress," too--
Jest knuckled down, the shaver did, and read 'em through and through!

At eighteen, Mother 'lowed the boy must have a better chance--
That we ort to educate him, under any circumstance;
And John he j'ined his mother, and they ding-donged and kep' on,
Tel I sent him off to school in town, half glad that he was gone.

But--I missed him--w'y of course I did!--The Fall and Winter through
I never built the kitchen-fire, er split a stick in two,
Er fed the stock, er butchered, er swung up a gambrel-pin,
But what I thought o' John, and wished that he was home agin.

He'd come, sometimes--on Sund'ys most--and stay the Sund'y out;
And on Thanksgivin'-Day he 'peared to like to be about:
But a change was workin' on him--he was stiller than before,
And did n't joke, ner laugh, ner sing and whistle any more.

And his talk was all so proper; and I noticed, with a sigh,
He was tryin' to raise side-whiskers, and had on a striped tie,
And a standin'-collar, ironed up as stiff and slick as bone;
And a breast-pin, and a watch and chain and plug-hat of his own.

But when Spring-weather opened out, and John was to come home
And he'p me through the season, I was glad to see him come;
But my happiness, that evening, with the settin' sun went down,
When he bragged of "a position" that was offered him in town.

"But," says I, "you'll not accept it?" "W'y, of course
I will," says he.--
"This drudgin' on a farm," he says, "is not the life fer me;
I've set my stakes up higher," he continued, light and gay,
"And town's the place fer me, and I'm a-goin' right away!"

And go he did!--his mother clingin' to him at the gate,
A-pleadin' and a-cryin'; but it hadn't any weight.
I was tranquiller, and told her 'twarn't no use to worry so,
And onclasped her arms from round his neck round mine--and let him go!

I felt a little bitter feelin' foolin' round about
The aidges of my conscience; but I didn't let it out;--
I simply retch out, trimbly-like, and tuck the boy's hand,
And though I did n't say a word, I knowed he'd understand.

And--well!--sence then the old home here was mighty lonesome, shore!
With me a-workin' in the field, and Mother at the door,
Her face ferever to'rds the town, and fadin' more and more---
Her only son nine miles away, a-clerkin' in a store!

The weeks and months dragged by us; and sometimes the boy would write
A letter to his mother, savin' that his work was light,
And not to feel oneasy about his health a bit--
Though his business was confinin', he was gittin' used to it.

And sometimes he would write and ast how _I_ was gittin' on,
And ef I had to pay out much fer he'p sence he was gone;
And how the hogs was doin', and the balance of the stock,
And talk on fer a page er two jest like he used to talk.

And he wrote, along 'fore harvest, that he guessed he would git home,
Fer business would, of course be dull in town.--But _didn't_ come:--
We got a postal later, sayin' when they had no trade
They filled the time "invoicin' goods," and that was why he staid.

And then he quit a-writin' altogether: Not a word--
Exceptin' what the neighbors brung who'd been to town and heard
What store John was clerkin' in, and went round to inquire
If they could buy their goods there less and sell their produce higher.

And so the Summer faded out, and Autumn wore away,
And a keener Winter never fetched around Thanksgivin'-Day!
The night before that day of thanks I'll never quite fergit,
The wind a-howlin' round the house--it makes me creepy yit!

And there set me and Mother--me a-twistin' at the prongs
Of a green scrub-ellum forestick with a vicious pair of tongs,
And Mother sayin', "_David! David!_" in a' undertone,
As though she thought that I was thinkin' bad-words unbeknown.

"I've dressed the turkey, David, fer to-morrow," Mother said,
A-tryin' to wedge some pleasant subject in my stubborn head,--
"And the mince-meat I'm a-mixin' is perfection mighty nigh;
And the pound-cake is delicious-rich--" "Who'll eat 'em?" I-says-I.

"The cramberries is drippin-sweet," says Mother, runnin' on,
P'tendin' not to hear me;--"and somehow I thought of John
All the time they was a-jellin'--fer you know they allus was
His favour--he likes 'em so!" Says I, "Well, s'pose he does?"

"Oh, nothin' much!" says Mother, with a quiet sort o' smile--
"This gentleman behind my cheer may tell you after while!"
And as I turned and looked around, some one riz up and leant
And put his arms round Mother's neck, and laughed in low content.

"It's _me_," he says--"your fool-boy John, come back to shake your hand;
Set down with you, and talk with you, and make you understand
How dearer yit than all the world is this old home that we
Will spend Thanksgivin' in fer life--jest Mother, you and me!"

* * * * * *

Nobody on the old farm here but Mother, me and John,
Except of course the extry he'p, when harvest-time comes on;
And then, I want to say to you, we _need_ sich he'p about,
As you'd admit, ef you could see the way the crops turns out!

NORTH AND SOUTH.

Of the North I wove a dream,
All bespangled with the gleam
Of the glancing wings of swallows
Dipping ripples in a stream,
That, like a tide of wine,
Wound through lands of shade and shine
Where purple grapes hung bursting on the vine.

And where orchard-boughs were bent
Till their tawny fruitage blent
With the golden wake that marked the
Way the happy reapers went;
Where the dawn died into noon
As the May-mists into June,
And the dusk fell like a sweet face in a swoon.

Of the South I dreamed: And there
Came a vision clear and fair
As the marvelous enchantments
Of the mirage of the air;
And I saw the bayou-trees,
With their lavish draperies,
Hang heavy o'er the moon-washed cypress-knees.

Peering from lush fens of rice,
I beheld the Negro's eyes,
Lit with that old superstition
Death itself can not disguise;
And I saw the palm tree nod
Like an oriental god,
And the cotton froth and bubble from the pod,

And I dreamed that North and South,
With a sigh of dew and drouth,
Blew each unto the other
The salute of lip and mouth;
And I wakened, awed and thrilled--
Every doubting murmur stilled
In the silence of the dream I found fulfilled.

THE IRON HORSE.

No song is mine of Arab steed--
My courser is of nobler blood,
And cleaner limb and fleeter speed,
And greater strength and hardihood
Than ever cantered wild and free
Across the plains of Araby.

Go search the level desert-land
From Sana on to Samarcand--
Wherever Persian prince has been
Or Dervish, Sheik or Bedouin,
And I defy you there to point
Me out a steed the half so fine--
From tip of ear to pastern-joint--
As this old iron horse of mine.

You do not know what beauty is--
You do not know what gentleness
His answer is to my caress!--
Why, look upon this gait of his,--
A touch upon his iron rein--
He moves with such a stately grace
The sunlight on his burnished mane
Is barely shaken in its place;
And at touch he changes pace,
And, gliding backward, stops again.

And talk of mettle--Ah! my friend,
Such passion smoulders in his breast
That when awakened it will send
A thrill of rapture wilder than
Ere palpitated heart of man
When flaming at its mightiest.
And there's a fierceness in his ire--
A maddened majesty that leaps
Along his veins in blood of fire,
Until the path his vision sweeps
Spins out behind him like a thread
Unraveled from the reel of time,
As, wheeling on his course sublime,
The earth revolves beneath his tread.

Then stretch away, my gallant steed!
Thy mission is a noble one:
You bear the father to the son,
And sweet relief to bitter need;
You bear the stranger to his friends;
You bear the pilgrim to the shrine,
And back again the prayer he sends
That God will prosper me and mine,--
The star that on thy forehead gleams
Has blossomed in our brightest dreams.
Then speed thee on thy glorious race!
The mother waits thy ringing pace;
The father leans an anxious ear
The thunder of thy hoofs to hear;
The lover listens, far away,
To catch thy keen exultant neigh;
And, where thy breathings roll and rise,
The husband strains his eager eyes,
And laugh of wife and baby-glee
Ring out to greet and welcome thee.
Then stretch away! and when at last
The master's hand shall gently check
Thy mighty speed, and hold thee fast,
The world will pat thee on the neck.

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