The Project Gutenberg eBook of Riley Songs of Home by James Whitcomb Riley.

He faces the world unflinchingly,

And smites, as long as the wrong resists,

With a knuckled faith and force like fists:

He lives the life he is preaching of,

And loves where most is the need of love;

His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears,

And his face sublime through the blind man's tears;

The light shines out where the clouds were dim,

And the widow's prayer goes up for him;

The latch is clicked at the hovel door

And the sick man sees the sun once more,

And out o'er the barren fields he sees

Springing blossoms and waving trees,

Feeling as only the dying may,

That God's own servant has come that way,

Smoothing the path as it still winds on

Through the Golden Gate where his loved have gone.

II

The kind of a man for me and you!

However little of worth we do

He credits full, and abides in trust

That time will teach us how more is just.

He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds

Of querulous and uneasy minds,

And, sympathizing, he shares the pain

Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain;

And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand,

We are surely coming to understand!

He looks on sin with pitying eyes—

E'en as the Lord, since Paradise,—

Else, should we read, "Though our sins should glow

As scarlet, they shall be white as snow"?—

And, feeling still, with a grief half glad,

That the bad are as good as the good are bad,

He strikes straight out for the Right—and he

Is the kind of a man for you and me!

Man reading

"HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?"

"How did you rest, last night?"—

I've heard my gran'pap say

Them words a thousand times—that's right—

Jes them words thataway!

As punctchul-like as morning dast

To ever heave in sight

Gran'pap 'ud allus haf to ast—

"How did you rest, last night?"

Elderly man and boy

Us young-uns used to grin,

At breakfast, on the sly,

And mock the wobble of his chin

And eyebrows belt so high

How did you rest, last night?

We'd mumble and let on

Our voices trimbled, and our sight

Was dim, and hearin' gone.

Bad as I used to be,

All I'm a-wantin' is

As puore and ca'm a sleep fer me

And sweet a sleep as his!

And so I pray, on Jedgment Day

To wake, and with its light

face dawn, and hear him say—

"How did you rest, last night?"

Tree with blossoms

OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE

Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon—

The land that the Lord's love rests upon;

Where one may rely on the friends he meets,

And the smiles that greet him along the streets:

Where the mother that left you years ago

Will lift the hands that were folded so,

And put them about you, with all the love

And tenderness you are dreaming of.

Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon—

Where all of the friends of your youth have gone,—

Where the old schoolmate that laughed with you,

Will laugh again as he used to do,

Running to meet you, with such a face

As lights like a moon the wondrous place

Where God is living, and glad to live,

Since He is the Master and may forgive.

Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon!—

Stay the hopes we are leaning on—

You, Divine, with Your merciful eyes

Looking down from the far-away skies,—

Smile upon us, and reach and take

Our worn souls Home for the old home's sake.—

And so Amen,—for our all seems gone

Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon.

Jack-in-the-box

JACK-IN-THE-BOX

(Grandfather, musing.)

In childish days! O memory,

You bring such curious things to me!—

Laughs to the lip—tears to the eye,

In looking on the gifts that lie

Like broken playthings scattered o'er

Imagination's nursery floor!

Did these old hands once click the key

That let "Jack's" box-lid upward fly,

And that blear-eyed, fur-whiskered elf

Leap, as though frightened at himself,

And quiveringly lean and stare

At me, his jailer, laughing there?

Elderly man and girl

A child then! Now—I only know

They call me very old; and so

They will not let me have my way,—

But uselessly I sit all day

Here by the chimney-jamb, and poke

The lazy fire, and smoke and smoke,

And watch the wreaths swoop up the flue,

And chuckle—ay, I often do—

Seeing again, all vividly,

Jack-in-the-box leap, as in glee

To see how much he looks like me!

... They talk. I can't hear what they say—

But I am glad, clean through and through

Sometimes, in fancying that they

Are saying, "Sweet, that fancy strays

In age back to our childish days!"

Pipe and eyeglasses

THE BOYS

Where are they?—the friends of my childhood enchanted—

The clear, laughing eyes looking back in my own,

And the warm, chubby fingers my palms have so wanted,

As when we raced over

Pink pastures of clover,

And mocked the quail's whir and the bumblebee's drone?

Have the breezes of time blown their blossomy faces

Forever adrift down the years that are flown?

Am I never to see them romp back to their places,

Where over the meadow,

In sunshine and shadow,

The meadow-larks trill, and the bumblebees drone?

Where are they? Ah! dim in the dust lies the clover;

The whippoorwill's call has a sorrowful tone,

And the dove's—I have wept at it over and over;—

I want the glad luster

Of youth, and the cluster

Of faces asleep where the bumblebees drone!

IT'S GOT TO BE

to be,"—like! always say,

As I notice the years whiz past,

And know each day is a yesterday,

When we size it up, at last,—

Same as I said when my

And I knowed we had to quit,—

to be, and it's

So I said "Good-by" to it.

to be, and it's

So at least I always try

To kind o' say in a hearty way,—

"Well, it's got to be. Good-by!"

The time jes melts like a late, last snow,—

When it's got to be, it melts!

But I aim to keep a cheerful mind,

Ef I can't keep nothin' else!

I knowed, when I come to twenty-one,

That I'd soon be twenty-two,—

So I waved one hand at the soft young man,

And I said, "Good-by to you!"

to be, and it's

So at least I always try

To kind o' say, in a cheerful way,—

"Well, it's got to be.—Good-by!"

They kep' a-goin', the years and years,

Yet still I smiled and smiled,—

For I'd said "Good-by" to my single life,

And I now had a wife and child:

Mother and son and the father—one,—

Till, last, on her bed of pain,

She jes' smiled up, like she always done,—

And I said "Good-by" again.

to be, and it's

So at least I always try

To kind o' say, in a humble way,—

"Well, it's got to be. Good-by!"

Man weeping over body of another man

And then my boy—as he growed to be

Almost a man in size,—

Was more than a pride and joy to me,

With his mother's smilin' eyes.—

He gimme the slip, when the War broke out,

And followed me. And I

Never knowed till the first right's end ...

I found him, and then, ... "Good-by."

to be, and it's

So at least I always try

To kind o' say, in a patient way,

"Well, it's got to be. Good-by!"

I have said, "Good-by!—Good-by!—Good-by!"

With my very best good will,

All through life from the first,—and I

Am a cheerful old man still:

to end, and it's

And this is the thing I'll do,—

With my last breath I will laugh, O Death,

And say "Good-by" to you!...

to be! And again I say,—

When his old scythe circles high,

I'll laugh—of course, in the kindest way,—

As I say "Good-by!—Good-by!"

"OUT OF REACH?"

You think them "out of reach," your dead?

Nay, by my own dead, I deny

Your "out of reach."—Be comforted:

'Tis not so far to die.

O by their dear remembered smiles

And outheld hands and welcoming speech,

They wait for us, thousands of miles