Title: Riley Songs of Friendship
Author: James Whitcomb Riley
Illustrator: Will Vawter
Release date: October 20, 2007 [eBook #23111]
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Al Haines
E-text prepared by Al Haines
The bookman he's a humming-bird—
His feasts are honey-fine,—
(With hi! hilloo!
And clover-dew
And roses lush and rare!)
His roses are the phrase and word
Of olden tomes divine;
(With hi! and ho!
And pinks ablow
And posies everywhere!)
The Bookman he's a humming-bird,—
He steals from song to song—
He scents the ripest-blooming rhyme,
And takes his heart along
And sacks all sweets of bursting verse
And ballads, throng on throng.
(With ho! and hey!
And brook and brae,
And brinks of shade and shine!)
A humming-bird the Bookman is—
Though cumbrous, gray and grim,—
(With hi! hilloo!
And honey-dew
And odors musty-rare!)
He bends him o'er that page of his
As o'er the rose's rim.
(With hi! and ho!
And pinks aglow
And roses everywhere!)
Ay, he's the featest humming-bird,
On airiest of wings
He poises pendent o'er the poem
That blossoms as it sings—
God friend him as he dips his beak
In such delicious things!
(With ho! and hey!
And world away
And only dreams for him!)
O friends of mine, whose kindly words come to me
Voiced only in lost lisps of ink and pen,
If I had power to tell the good you do me,
And how the blood you warm goes laughing through me,
My tongue would babble baby-talk again.
And I would toddle round the world to meet you—
Fall at your feet, and clamber to your knees
And with glad, happy hands would reach and greet you,
And twine my arms about you, and entreat you
For leave to weave a thousand rhymes like these—
A thousand rhymes enwrought of nought but presses
Of cherry-lip and apple-cheek and chin,
And pats of honeyed palms, and rare caresses,
And all the sweets of which as Fancy guesses
She folds away her wings and swoons therein.
Old friends allus is the best,
Halest-like and heartiest:
Knowed us first, and don't allow
We're so blame much better now!
They was standin' at the bars
When we grabbed "the kivvered kyars"
And lit out fer town, to make
Money—and that old mistake!
We thought then the world we went
Into beat "The Settlement,"
And the friends 'at we'd make there
Would beat any anywhere!—
And they do—fer that's their biz:
They beat all the friends they is—
'Cept the raal old friends like you
'At staid at home, like I'd ort to!
W'y, of all the good things yit
I ain't shet of, is to quit
Business, and git back to sheer
These old comforts waitin' here—
These old friends; and these old hands
'At a feller understands;
These old winter nights, and old
Young-folks chased in out the cold!
Sing "Hard Times'll come ag'in
No More!" and neighbors all jine in!
Here's a feller come from town
Wants that-air old fiddle down
From the chimbly!—Git the floor
Cleared fer one cowtillion more!—
It's poke the kitchen fire, says he,
And shake a friendly leg with me!
Oh, the hobo's life is a roving life;
It robs pretty maids of their heart's delight—
It causes them to weep and it causes them to mourn
For the life of a hobo, never to return.
The hobo's heart it is light and free,
Though it's Sweethearts all, farewell, to thee!—
Farewell to thee, for it's far away
The homeless hobo's footsteps stray.
In the morning bright, or the dusk so dim,
It's any path is the one for him!
He'll take his chances, long or short,
For to meet his fate with a valiant heart.
Oh, it's beauty mops out the sidetracked-car,
And it's beauty-beaut' at the pigs-feet bar;
But when his drinks and his eats is made
Then the hobo shunts off down the grade.
He camps near town, on the old crick-bank,
And he cuts his name on the water-tank—
He cuts his name and the hobo sign,—
"Bound for the land of corn and wine!"
(Oh, it's I like friends that he'ps me through,
And the friends also that he'ps you, too,—
Oh, I like all friends, 'most every kind
But I don't like friends that don't like mine.)
There's friends of mine, when they gits the hunch,
Comes a swarmin' in, the blasted bunch,—
"Clog-step Jonny" and "Flat-wheel Bill"
And "Brockey Ike" from Circleville.
With "Cooney Ward" and "Sikes the Kid"
And old "Pop Lawson"—the best we had—
The rankest mug and the worst for lush
And the dandiest of the whole blame push.
Oh, them's the times I remembers best
When I took my chance with all the rest,
And hogged fried chicken and roastin' ears, too,
And sucked cheroots when the feed was through.
Oh, the hobo's way is the railroad line,
And it's little he cares for schedule time;
Whatever town he's a-striken for
Will wait for him till he gits there.
And whatever burg that he lands in
There's beauties there just thick for him—
There's beauty at "The Queen's Taste Lunch-stand," sure,
Or "The Last Chance Boardin' House" back-door.
He's lonesome-like, so he gits run in,
To git the hang o' the world ag'in;
But the laundry circles he moves in there
Makes him sigh for the country air,—
So it's Good-by gals! and he takes his chance
And wads hisself through the workhouse-fence:
He sheds the town and the railroad, too,
And strikes mud roads for a change of view.
The jay drives by on his way to town,
And looks on the hobo in high scorn,
And so likewise does the farmhands stare—
But what the haids does the hobo care!
He hits the pike, in the summer's heat
Or the winter's cold, with its snow and sleet—
With a boot on one foot, and one shoe—
Or he goes barefoot, if he chooses to.
But he likes the best, when the days is warm,
With his bum Prince-Albert on his arm—
He likes to size up a farmhouse where
They haint no man nor bulldog there.
Oh, he gits his meals wherever he can,
So natchurly he's a handy man—
He's a handy man both day and night,
And he's always blest with an appetite!
A tin o' black coffee, and a rhuburb pie—
Be they old and cold as charity—
They're hot-stuff enough for the pore hobo,
And it's "Thanks, kind lady, for to treat me so!"
Then he fills his pipe with a stub cigar
And swipes a coal from the kitchen fire,
And the hired girl says, in a smilin' tone,—
"It's good-by, John, if you call that goin'!"
Oh, the hobo's life is a roving life,
It robs pretty maids of their heart's delight—
It causes them to weep and it causes them to mourn
For the life of a hobo, never to return.
Be our fortunes as they may,
Touched with loss or sorrow,
Saddest eyes that weep to-day
May be glad to-morrow.
Yesterday the rain was here,
And the winds were blowing—
Sky and earth and atmosphere
Brimmed and overflowing.
But to-day the sun is out,
And the drear November
We were then so vexed about
Now we scarce remember.
Yesterday you lost a friend—
Bless your heart and love it!—
For you scarce could comprehend
All the aching of it;—
But I sing to you and say:
Let the lost friend sorrow—
Here's another come to-day,
Others may to-morrow.