Armazindy / The Poems and Prose Sketches of James Whitcomb Riley

Chapter 17: I

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About This Book

A mixed collection of poems and prose sketches that depicts small‑town and rural life through vernacular narration, sentimental observation, and comic detail. Longer narrative pieces explore personal loss, domestic struggles, and neighborhood intrigues, while shorter lyrics and children’s verses celebrate play, memory, and everyday tenderness. The voice shifts between musical, folksy dialect and plain colloquial phrasing, producing a rhythmic, conversational tone. Recurrent concerns include household labor, family ties, youthful fancy, and the mingled humor and nostalgia of ordinary community experience.

“THIS DEAR CHILD-HEARTED WOMAN THAT IS DEAD”

I

This woman, with the dear child-heart,

Ye mourn as dead, is—where and what?

With faith as artless as her Art,

I question not,—

But dare divine, and feel, and know

Her blessedness—as hath been writ

In allegory.—Even so

I fashion it:—

II

A stately figure, rapt and awed

In her new guise of Angelhood,

Still lingered, wistful—knowing God

Was very good.—

Her thought’s fine whisper filled the pause;

And, listening, the Master smiled,

And lo! the stately angel was

—A little child.