Works

Little Boy! Halloo! - halloo!
Can't you hear me calling you? -
Little Boy that used to be,
Come in here and play with me.

Of all the doctors I could cite you to in this-'ere town
Doc Sifers is my favorite, jes' take him up and down!
Count in the Bethel Neighberhood, and Rollins, and Big Bear,...

Donn Piatt - of Mac-o-chee, -
Not the one of History,
Who, with flaming tongue and pen,
Scathes the vanities of men;
Not the one whose biting wit
Cuts pretense and etches it...

Ot's a leedle Christmas story
Dot I told der leedle folks -
Und I vant you stop dot laughin'
Und grackin' funny jokes' -
So-help me Peter-Moses!
Ot's no time for monkeyshine',...

Noon-time an' June-time, down around the river!
Have to furse with 'Lizey Ann - but lawzy! I fergive her!
Drives me off the place, an' says 'at all 'at she's a-wishin',...

"Best time to kill a hog's when he's fat." - Old Saw.

Mostly folks is law-abidin'
Down on Wriggle Crick,
Seein' they's no Squire residin'
In our bailywick;
No grand juries, no suppeenies,...

I' be'n down to the Capital at Washington, D. C.,
Where Congerss meets and passes on the pensions ort to be
Allowed to old one-legged chaps, like me, 'at sence the war...

Because her eyes were far too deep
And holy for a laugh to leap
Across the brink where sorrow tried
To drown within the amber tide;
Because the looks, whose ripples kissed...

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,...

"Wasn't it a funny dream! - perfectly bewild'rin'! -
Last night, and night before, and night before that,
Seemed like I saw the march o' regiments o' children,...

The frightened herds of clouds across the sky
Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day
Into the dusky forest-lands of gray
And sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high,...

May 1, 1891.

I.

Elizabeth! Elizabeth!
The first May-morning whispereth
Thy gentle name in every breeze
That lispeth through the young-leaved trees,
New raimented in white and green...

Awf'lest boy in this-here town
Er anywheres is Elmer Brown!
He'll mock you - yes, an' strangers, too,
An' make a face an' yell at you, -
"Here's the way you look!"
...

Many pleasures of youth have been buoyantly sung -
And, borne on the winds of delight, may they beat
With their palpitant wings at the hearts of the Young,
And in bosoms of Age find as warm a retreat! -...

Just as of old! The world rolls on and on;
The day dies into night - night into dawn -
Dawn into dusk - through centuries untold. -
Just as of old.

Time loiters not. The river ever flows,...

Lay away the story, -
Though the theme is sweet,
There's a lack of something yet,
Leaves it incomplete: -
There's a nameless yearning -
Strangely undefined -
For a story sweeter still...

I

A little boy once played so loud
That the Thunder, up in a thunder-cloud,
Said, "Since I can't be heard, why, then
I'll never, never thunder again!"




II
...

1
Once, in a dream, I saw a man,
With haggard face and tangled hair,
And eyes that nursed as wild a care
As gaunt Starvation ever can;
And in his hand he held a wand...

It's a mystery to see me - a man o' fifty-four,
Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more -
A-lookin' glad and smilin'! And they's none o' you can say...

A NEW VERSION BY LEE O. HARRIS AND JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

"You are old, Father William, and though one would think
All the veins in your body were dry,
Yet the end of your nose is red as a pink;...