Armazindy Page #14

James Whitcomb Riley poems book published in the 1894 book Armazindy and received very negative reviews that referred to poems like "The Little Dog-Woggy" and "Jargon-Jingle" as "drivel" and to Riley as a "worn out genius". Most of his growing number of critics suggested that he ignored the quality of the poems for the sake of making money.

• Poetry

								

  And fraught with sobs—the more profound
  For that peculiar laughing sound
  We hear when strong men weep.... I leant
  With warmest sympathy—I bent
  To stroke with soothing hand his brow,
  He murmuring—“’Tis over now!—
  And shall I tie the silken thread
  Of my frail romance?” “Yes,” I said.—
  He faintly smiled; and then, with brow
  In kneading palm, as one in dread—
  His tasselled cap pushed from his head;—
  “‘Her voice’s music,’ I repeat,”
  He said,—“’twas sweet—O passing sweet!—
  Though she herself, in uttering
  Its melody, proved not the thing
  Of loveliness my dreams made meet
  For me—there, yearning, at her feet—
  Prone at her feet—a worshipper,—
  For lo! she spake a tongue,” moaned he,
  “Unknown to me;—unknown to me
  As mine to her—as mine to her.”

LEONAINIE

  Leonainie—Angels named her;
    And they took the light
  Of the laughing stars and framed her
    In a smile of white;
        And they made her hair of gloomy
        Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy
        Moonshine, and they brought her to me
    In the solemn night.—

  In a solemn night of summer,
    When my heart of gloom
  Blossomed up to greet the comer
    Like a rose in bloom;
        All forebodings that distressed me
        I forgot as Joy caressed me—
        (Lying Joy! that caught and pressed me
    In the arms of doom!)

  Only spake the little lisper
    In the Angel-tongue;
  Yet I, listening, heard her whisper,—
    “Songs are only sung
        Here below that they may grieve you—
        Tales but told you to deceive you,—
        So must Leonainie leave you
    While her love is young.”

  Then God smiled and it was morning.
    Matchless and supreme
  Heaven’s glory seemed adorning
    Earth with its esteem:
        Every heart but mine seemed gifted
        With the voice of prayer, and lifted
        Where my Leonainie drifted
    From me like a dream.

TO A JILTED SWAIN

  Get thee back neglected friends;
  And repay, as each one lends,
  Tithes of shallow-sounding glee
  Or keen-ringing raillery:
  Get thee from lone vigils; be
  But in jocund company,
  Where is laughter and acclaim
  Boisterous above the name.—
  Get where sulking husbands sip
  Ale-house cheer, with pipe at lip;
  And where Mol the barmaid saith
  Curst is she that marrieth.

THE VOICES

  Down in the night I hear them:
    The Voices—unknown—unguessed,—
  That whisper, and lisp, and murmur,
    And will not let me rest.—

  Voices that seem to question,
    In unknown words, of me,
  Of fabulous ventures, and hopes and dreams
    Of this and the World to be.

  Voices of mirth and music,
    As in sumptuous homes; and sounds
  Of mourning, as of gathering friends
    In country burial-grounds.

  Cadence of maiden voices—
    Their lovers’ blent with these;
  And of little children singing,
    As under orchard trees.

  And often, up from the chaos
    Of my deepest dreams, I hear
  Sounds of their phantom laughter
    Filling the atmosphere:

  They call to me from the darkness;
    They cry to me from the gloom,
  Till I start sometimes from my pillow
    And peer through the haunted room;

  When the face of the moon at the window
    Wears a pallor like my own,
  And seems to be listening with me
    To the low, mysterious tone,—

  The low, mysterious clamor
    Of voices that seem to be
  Striving in vain to whisper
    Of secret things to me;—

  Of a something dread to be warned of;
    Of a rapture yet withheld;
  Or hints of the marvellous beauty
    Of songs unsyllabled.

  But ever and ever the meaning
    Falters and fails and dies,
  And only the silence quavers
    With the sorrow of my sighs.

  And I answer:—O Voices, ye may not
    Make me to understand
  Till my own voice, mingling with you,
    Laughs in the Shadow-land.

A BAREFOOT BOY

  A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play—
    For May is here once more, and so is he,—
    His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,
  And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:
  Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array
    Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me
    Of woody pathways winding endlessly
  Along the creek, where even yesterday
  He plunged his shrinking body—gasped and shook—
    Yet called the water “warm,” with never lack
  Of joy. And so, half enviously I look
    Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,—
    His toe stubbed—ay, his big toe-nail knocked back
  Like unto the clasp of an old pocket-book.

THE YOUTHFUL PATRIOT

  O what did the little boy do
  ’At nobody wanted him to?
  Didn’t do nothin’ but romp an’ run,
  An’ whoop an’ holler an’ bang his gun
  An’ bu’st fire-crackers, an’ ist have fun—
      An’ ’at’s all the little boy done!

PONCHUS PILUT

  Ponchus Pilut ust to be
  Ist a Slave, an’ now he’s free.
  Slaves wuz on’y ist before
  The War wuz—an’ ain’t no more.

  He works on our place fer us,—
  An’ comes here—sometimes he does.
  He shocks corn an’ shucks it.—An’
  He makes hominy “by han’!”—

  Wunst he bringed us some, one trip,
  Tied up in a piller-slip:
  Pa says, when Ma cooked it, “MY!
  This-here’s gooder’n you buy!”

  Ponchus pats fer me an’ sings;
  An’ he says funny things!
  Ponchus calls a dish a “deesh”—
  Yes, an’ he calls fishes “feesh”!

  When Ma want him eat wiv us
  He says, “’Skuse me—’deed you mus’!—
  Ponchus know’ good manners, Miss.—
  He ain’ eat wher’ White-folks is!”

  ’Lindy takes his dinner out
  Wher’ he’s workin’—roun’ about.—
  Wunst he et his dinner spread
  In our ole wheelborry-bed.

  Ponchus Pilut says “’at’s not
  His right name,—an’ done fergot
  What his sho’-’nuff name is now—
  An’ don’ matter none nohow!”

  Yes, an’ Ponchus he’ps Pa, too,
  When our butcherin’s to do,
  An’ scalds hogs—an’ says, “Take care
  ’Bout it, er you’ll set the hair!”

  Yes, an’ out in our back-yard
  He he’ps ’Lindy rendur lard;
  An’, wite in the fire there, he
  Roast’ a pigtail wunst fer me.—

  An’ ist nen th’ole tavurn-bell
  Rung, down-town, an’ he says, “Well!—
  Hear dat! Lan’ o’ Caanan, Son,
  Ain’t dat bell say ‘Pigtail done!’

            —‘Pigtail done!
            Go call Son!—
              Tell dat
              Chile dat
            Pigtail done!’”

A TWINTORETTE

  Ho! my little maiden
      With the glossy tresses,
    Come thou and dance with me
      A measure all divine;
  Let my breast be laden
      With but thy caresses—
    Come thou and glancingly
      Mate thy face with mine.

  Thou shalt trill a rondel,
      While my lips are purling
    Some dainty twitterings
      Sweeter than the birds’;
  And, with arms that fondle
      Each as we go twirling,
    We will kiss, with titterings,
      Lisps and loving words.

SLUMBER-SONG

  Sleep, little one! The Twilight folds her gloom
    Full tenderly about the drowsy Day,
  And all his tinselled hours of light and bloom
              Like toys are laid away.

  Sleep! sleep! The noon-sky’s airy cloud of white
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