Armazindy / The Poems and Prose Sketches of James Whitcomb Riley

Chapter 91: SUMMER-TIME AND WINTER-TIME

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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.

SUMMER-TIME AND WINTER-TIME

In the golden noon-shine,

Or in the pink of dawn;

In the silver moonshine,

Or when the moon is gone;

Open eyes, or drowsy lids,

’Wake or ’most asleep,

I can hear the katydids,—

“Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!”

Only in the winter-time

Do they ever stop,

In the chip-and-splinter-time,

When the backlogs pop,—

Then it is, the kettle-lids,

While the sparkles leap,

Lisp like the katydids,—

“Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!”