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Armazindy / The Poems and Prose Sketches of James Whitcomb Riley cover

Armazindy / The Poems and Prose Sketches of James Whitcomb Riley

Chapter 77: THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND
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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.

THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND

Where do you go when you go to sleep,
Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
’Way—’way in where’s Little Bo-Peep,
And Little Boy Blue, and the Cows and Sheep
A-wandering ’way in there—in there—
A-wandering ’way in there!
And what do you see when lost in dreams,
Little Boy, ’way in there?
Firefly-glimmers and glow-worm gleams,
And silvery, low, slow-sliding streams,
And mermaids, smiling out—’way in where
They’re a-hiding—’way in there!
Where do you go when the Fairies call,
Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
Wade through the dews of the grasses tall,
Hearing the weir and the waterfall
And the Wee Folk—’way in there—in there—
And the Kelpies—’way in there!
And what do you do when you wake at dawn,
Little Boy! Little Boy! what?
Hug my Mommy and kiss her on
Her smiling eyelids, sweet and wan,
And tell her everything I’ve forgot,
A-wandering ’way in there—in there—
Through the blind-world ’way in there!