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Riley Songs of Home

Chapter 4: WILL VAWTER
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About This Book

A collection of lyrical and narrative poems written in a homespun, plainspoken voice that evokes rural domestic life and childhood memories. Poems range from comic dialect vignettes to tender, reflective lyrics that consider longing, homecoming, and the passage of time. Everyday scenes and objects—porches, trees, simple rooms—are rendered with sensory detail and affectionate humor, while some pieces register quiet melancholy or moral reflection. The sequence alternates playful songs, nostalgic reveries, and occasional contemplative monologues, offering a varied portrait of ordinary pleasures, family ties, and the bittersweet ache of remembering.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Riley Songs of Home

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Riley Songs of Home

Author: James Whitcomb Riley

Illustrator: Will Vawter

Release date: July 12, 2005 [eBook #16265]
Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Scott G. Sims and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RILEY SONGS OF HOME ***





RILEY

SONGS OF HOME


JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY



WITH PICTURES BY

WILL VAWTER



NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS



1910

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY



TO

GEORGE A. CARR



CONTENTS



56

126

160

155

123

104

113

61

52

50

132

189

38

125

94

115

107

100

117

165

26

138

81

46

184

29

70

36

135

161

64

182

92

63

112

98

43

44

141

143

75

90

82

137

172

31

170

145

177

130

19

57

68

76




RILEY SONGS OF HOME




WE MUST GET HOME


We must get home! How could we stray like this?—

So far from home, we know not where it is,—

Only in some fair, apple-blossomy place

Of children's faces—and the mother's face—

We dimly dream it, till the vision clears

Even in the eyes of fancy, glad with tears.


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 song as vain,—

We must get home—we must get home again!


We must get home! With heart and soul we yearn

To find the long-lost pathway, and return!...

The child's shout lifted from the questing band

Of old folk, faring weary, hand in hand,

But faces brightening, as if clouds at last

Were showering sunshine on us as we passed.


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—home to the simple things—

The morning-glories twirling up the strings

And bugling color, as they blared in blue-

And-white o'er garden-gates we scampered through;

The long grape-arbor, with its under-shade

Blue as the green and purple overlaid.


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!


The rows of sweetcorn and the China beans

Beyond the lettuce-beds where, towering, leans

The giant sunflower in barbaric pride

Guarding the barn-door and the lane outside;

The honeysuckles, midst the hollyhocks,

That clamber almost to the martin-box.


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! The willow-whistle's call

Trills crisp and liquid as the waterfall—

Mocking the trillers in the cherry-trees

And making discord of such rhymes as these,

That know nor lilt nor cadence but the birds

First warbled—then all poets afterwards.


We must get home; and, unremembering there

All gain of all ambition 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!


We must get home again—we must—we must!—

(Our rainy faces pelted in the dust)

Creep back from the vain quest through endless strife

To find not anywhere in all of life

A happier happiness than blest us then ...

We must get home—we must get home again!





JUST TO BE GOOD


Just to be good—

This is enough—enough!

O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,

Do we not feel how more than any gold

Would be the blameless life we led of old

While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?

Ah! though we miss

All else but this,

To be good is enough!


It is enough—

Enough—just to be good!

To lift our hearts where they are understood;

To let the thirst for worldly power and place

Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face

With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.

Ah! though we miss

All else but this,

To be good is enough!







MY FRIEND


"He is my friend," I said,—

"Be patient!" Overhead

The skies were drear and dim;

And lo! the thought of him

Smiled on my heart—and then

The sun shone out again!


"He is my friend!" The words

Brought summer and the birds;

And all my winter-time

Thawed into running rhyme

And rippled into song,

Warm, tender, brave and strong.


And so it sings to-day.—

So may it sing alway!

Though waving grasses grow

Between, and lilies blow

Their trills of perfume clear

As laughter to the ear,

Let each mute measure end

With "Still he is thy friend."