Armazindy Page #16

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

								

  Firefly-glimmers and glow-worm gleams,
  And silvery, low, slow-sliding streams,
    And mermaids, smiling out—’way in where
      They’re a-hiding—’way in there!

  Where do you go when the Fairies call,
    Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
  Wade through the dews of the grasses tall,
  Hearing the weir and the waterfall
    And the Wee Folk—’way in there—in there—
      And the Kelpies—’way in there!

  And what do you do when you wake at dawn,
    Little Boy! Little Boy! what?
  Hug my Mommy and kiss her on
  Her smiling eyelids, sweet and wan,
    And tell her everything I’ve forgot,
    A-wandering ’way in there—in there—
      Through the blind-world ’way in there!

THE TRESTLE AND THE BUCK-SAW

  The Trestle and the Buck-Saw
    Went out a-walking once,
  And staid away and staid away
    For days and weeks and months:
  And when they got back home again,
    Of all that had occurred,
  The neighbors said the gossips said
    They never said a word.

THE KING OF OO-RINKTUM-JING

  Dainty Baby Austin!
  Your Daddy’s gone to Boston
    To see the King
    Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
  And the whale he rode acrost on!

  Boston Town’s a city:
  But O it’s such a pity!—
    They’ll greet the King
    Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
  With never a nursery ditty!

  But me and you and Mother
  Can stay with Baby-brother,
    And sing of the King
    Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
  And laugh at one another!

  So what cares Baby Austin
  If Daddy has gone to Boston
    To see the King
    Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
  And the whale he rode acrost on?

THE TOY PENNY-DOG

  Ma put my Penny-Dog
    Safe on the shelf,
  An’ left no one home but him,
    Me an’ myself;
  So I clumbed a big chair
    I pushed to the wall—
  But the Toy Penny-Dog
    Ain’t there at all!
  I went back to Dolly—
    An’ she ’uz gone too,
  An’ little Switch ’uz layin’ there;—
    An’ Ma says “Boo!”—
  An’ there she wuz a-peepin’
    Through the front-room door:
  An’ I ain’t goin’ to be a bad
    Little girl no more!

JARGON-JINGLE

  Tawdery!—faddery! Feathers and fuss!
  Mummery!—flummery! wusser and wuss!
  All o’ Humanity—Vanity Fair!—
  Heaven for nothin’, and—nobody there!

THE GREAT EXPLORER

  He sailed o’er the weltery watery miles
    For a tabular year-and-a-day,
  To the kindless, kinkable Cannibal Isles
    He sailed and he sailed away!
  He captured a loon in a wild lagoon,
    And a yak that weeps and smiles,
  And a bustard-bird, and a blue baboon,
    In the kindless Cannibal Isles
      And wilds
        Of the kinkable Cannibal Isles.

  He swiped in bats with his butterfly-net,
    In the kinkable Cannibal Isles,
  And got short-waisted and over-het
    In the haunts of the crocodiles;
  And nine or ten little Pygmy Men
    Of the quaintest shapes and styles
  He shipped back home to his old Aunt Jenn,
    From the kindless Cannibal Isles
      And wilds
        Of the kinkable Cannibal Isles.

THE SCHOOL-BOY’S FAVORITE

  “Over the river and through the wood
    Now Grandmother’s cap I spy:
  Hurrah for the fun!—Is the pudding done?
    Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!”

  SCHOOL READER.

  Fer any boy ’at’s little as me,
    Er any little girl,
  That-un’s the goodest poetry-piece
    In any book in the worl’!
  An’ ef grown-peoples wuz little ag’in
    I bet they’d say so, too,
  Ef they’d go see their ole Gran’ma,
    Like our Pa lets us do!

  Over the river an’ through the wood
    Now Gran’mother’s cap I spy:
  Hurrah fer the fun!—Is the puddin’ done?—
    Hurrah fer the punkin-pie!

  An’ ’ll tell you why ’at’s the goodest piece:—
    ’Cause it’s ist like we go
  To our Gran’ma’s, a-visitun there,
    When our Pa he says so;
  An’ Ma she fixes my little cape-coat
    An’ little fuzz-cap; an’ Pa
  He tucks me away—an’ yells “Hoo-ray!”—
  An’ whacks Ole Gray, an’ drives the sleigh
    Fastest you ever saw!

  Over the river an’ through the wood
    Now Gran’mother’s cap I spy:
  Hurrah fer the fun!—Is the puddin’ done?—
    Hurrah fer the punkin-pie!

  An’ Pa ist snuggles me ’tween his knees—
    An’ I he’p hold the lines,
  An’ peek out over the buffalo-robe;—
  An’ the wind ist blows!—an’ the snow ist snows!—
    An’ the sun ist shines! an’ shines!—
  An’ th’ ole horse tosses his head an’ coughs
    The frost back in our face.—
  An’ I ruther go to my Gran’ma’s
    Than any other place!

  Over the river an’ through the wood
    Now Gran’mother’s cap I spy:
  Hurrah fer the fun!—Is the puddin’ done?—
    Hurrah fer the punkin-pie!

  An’ all the peoples they is in town
    Watches us whizzin’ past
  To go a-visitun our Gran’ma’s,
    Like we all went there last;—
  But they can’t go, like ist our folks
    An’ Johnny an’ Lotty, an’ three
  Er four neighber-childerns, an’ Rober-ut Volney,
    An’ Charley an’ Maggy an’ me!

  Over the river an’ through the wood
    Now Gran’mother’s cap I spy:
  Hurrah fer the fun!—Is the puddin’ done?—
    Hurrah fer the punkin-pie!

ALBUMANIA

  Some certain misty yet tenable signs
    Of the oracular Raggedy Man,
  Happily found in these fugitive lines
    Culled from the album of ’Lizabuth Ann.

FRIENDSHIP

  O Friendship, when I muse on you,
  As thoughtful minds, O Friendship, do,
  I muse, O Friendship, o’er and o’er,
  O Friendship—as I said before.

LIFE

  “What is Life?” If the Dead might say,
    ’Spect they’d answer, under breath,
  Sorry-like yet a-laughin’:—A
    Poor pale yesterday of Death!

LIFE’S HAPPIEST HOURS

          Best, I guess,
          Was the old “Recess.”—
  ’Way back there’s where I’d love to be—
    Shet of each lesson and hateful rule,
  When the whole round World was as sweet to me
    As the big ripe apple I brung to School.

MARION-COUNTY MAN HOMESICK ABROAD

  I, who had hobnobbed with the shades of kings,
    And canvassed grasses from old masters’ graves,
  And in cathedrals stood and looked at things
    In niches, crypts and naves;—
  My heavy heart was sagging with its woe,
    Nor Hope to prop it up, nor Promise, nor
  One woman’s hands—and O I wanted so
    To be felt sorry for!

BIRDY! BIRDY!

  The Redbreast loves the blooming bough—
    The Bluebird loves it same as he;—
  And as they sit and sing there now,
    So do I sing to thee—
  Only, dear heart, unlike the birds,
    I do not climb a tree
      To sing—
    I do not climb a tree.

  When o’er this page, in happy years to come,
    Thou jokest on these lines and on my name,
  Doubt not my love and say, “Though he lies dumb,
    He’s lying, just the same!”

THE LITTLE MOCK-MAN

  The Little Mock-man on the Stairs—
  He mocks the lady’s horse ’at rares
    At bi-sickles an’ things,—
  He mocks the mens ’at rides ’em, too;
  An’ mocks the Movers, drivin’ through.
  An’ hollers, “Here’s the way you do
    With them-air hitchin’-strings!”
      “Ho! ho!” he’ll say,
      Ole Settlers’ Day,
    When they’re all jogglin’ by,—
      “You look like this,”
      He’ll say, an’ twis’
    His mouth an’ squint his eye
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