The Project Gutenberg EBook of Afterwhiles, by James Whitcomb Riley

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Title: Afterwhiles

Author: James Whitcomb Riley

Release Date: May 19, 2005 [EBook #15862]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTERWHILES ***

Produced by "Teary Eyes" Anderson

***Transcriber's Note. Most of this etext was made with a "Top Scan" text scanner, with a bit of correcting here and there. Mr. Riley does spell pretty=purty and such things and have been left as printed, including the first poem in this book listed as "Proem" on both the contents page and the page headers, even though in later editions this poem is simply called "Afterwhiles." In "The South Wind and the Sun" the line is 'Laughed out in every look.' while in later versions it has the word 'nook', replacing 'look.' The poem "Old Aunt Mary's" is later retitled "Out To Old Aunt Mary's" and later enlarged by 13 verses. The "In Dalect" section has the ' to replace a letter that he left out, to make the word sound a certain way, including words like sure-enuff he writes as sho'-nuff, or He'pless as helpless and ect. This etext is based on the 1898 edition Published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis Publishers. "Teary Eyes" Anderson***

Afterwhiles by James Whitcomb Riley

Dedicated to my mother Elizabeth

   Contents
Proem (AKA "Afterwhiles")
Herr Weiser
The Beautiful City
Lockerbie Street
Das Krist Kindel
Anselmo
A Home Made Fairy Tale
The South Wind and the Sun
The Lost Kiss
The Sphinx
If I knew What Poets Know
Ike Walton's Prayer
A Rough Sketch
Our Kind of a Man
The Harper
Old Aunt Mary's (AKA "Out To Old Aunt Mary's" Later was enlarged by 13
verses)
Illileo
The King
A Bride
The Dead Lover
A Song
When Bessie Died
The Shower
A Life-Lesson
A Scrawl
Away
Who Bides His Time
From the Headboard of a Grave in Paraguay
Laughter Holding Both His Sides
Fame
The Ripest Peach
A Fruit Piece
Their Sweet Sorrow
John McKeen
Out of Nazareth
September Dark
We to Sigh Instead of Sing
The Blossoms on the Trees
Last Night And This
A Discouraging Model
Back from a Two Year Sentence
The Wandering Jew
Becalmed
To Santa Claus
Where the Children Used to Play
A Glipse of Pan

   Sonnets
Pan
Dusk
June
Silence
Sleep
Her Hair
Dearth
A Voice from the Farm
The Serenade
Art and Love
Longfellow
Indiana
Time
Grant At Rest August 8, 1885

   In Dialect
Old Fashioned Roses
Griggsby's Station
Knee Deep in June
When the Hearse Comes Back
A Canary at the Farm
A Liz Town Humorist
Kingry's Mill
Joney
Like His Mother Used to Make
The Train Misser
Granny
Old October
Jim
To Robert Burns
A New Year's Time at Willard's
The Town Karnteel
Regardin' Terry Hut
Leedle Dutch Baby
Down on Wriggle Crick
When de Folks is Gone
The Little Town o' Tailholt
Little Orphant Annie

Proem

Where are they— the Afterwhiles—
Luring us the lengthening miles
Of our lives? Where is the dawn
With the dew across the lawn
Stroked with eager feet the far
Way the hills and valleys are?
Were the sun that smites the frown
Of the eastward-gazer down?
Where the rifted wreaths of mist
O'er us, tinged with amethyst,
Round the mountain's steep defiles?
Where are the afterwhiles?

Afterwhile— and we will go
Thither, yon, and too and fro—
From the stifling city streets
To the country's cool retreats—
From the riot to the rest
Were hearts beat the placidest:
Afterwhile, and we will fall
Under breezy trees, and loll
In the shade, with thirsty sight
Drinking deep the blue delight
Of the skies that will beguile
Us as children— afterwhile.

Afterwhile— and one intends
To be gentler to his friends—,
To walk with them, in the hush
Of still evenings, o'er the plush
Of home-leading fields, and stand
Long at parting, hand in hand:
One, in time, will joy to take
New resolves for some one's sake,
And wear then the look that lies
Clear and pure in other eyes—
We will soothe and reconcile
His own conscience— afterwhile.

Afterwhile— we have in view
A far scene to journey to—,
Where the old home is, and where
The old mother waits us there,
Peering, as the time grows late,
Down the old path to the gate—.
How we'll click the latch that locks
In the pinks and hollyhocks,
And leap up the path once more
Where she waits us at the door—!
How we'll greet the dear old smile,
And the warm tears— afterwhile!

Ah, the endless afterwhiles—!
Leagues on leagues, and miles on miles,
In distance far withdrawn,
Stretching on, and on, and on,
Till the fancy is footsore
And faints in the dust before
The last milestone's granite face,
Hacked with: Here Beginneth Space.
O far glimmering worlds and wings,
Mystic smiles and beckonings,
Lead us through the shadowy aisles
Out into the afterwhiles.

Herr Weiser

Herr Weiser—! Three-score-years-and-ten—,
A hale white rose of his country-men,
Transplanted here in the Hoosier loam,
And blossomy as his German home—
As blossomy and as pure and sweet
As the cool green glen of his calm retreat,
Far withdrawn from the noisy town
Where trade goes clamoring up and down,
Whose fret and fever, and stress and strife,
May not trouble his tranquil life!

Breath of rest, what a balmy gust—!
Quite of the city's heat and dust,
Jostling down by the winding road,
Through the orchard ways of his quaint abode—.
Tether the horse, as we onward fare
Under the pear-trees trailing there,
And thumping the wood bridge at night
With lumps of ripeness and lush delight,
Till the stream, as it maunders on till dawn,
Is powdered and pelted and smiled upon.

Herr Weiser, with his wholesome face,
And the gentle blue of his eyes, and grace
Of unassuming honesty,
Be there to welcome you and me!
And what though the toil of the farm be stopped
And the tireless plans of the place be dropped,
While the prayerful master's knees are set
In beds of pansy and mignonette
And lily and aster and columbine,
Offered in love, as yours and mine—?

What, but a blessing of kindly thought,
Sweet as the breath of forget-me-not—!
What, but a spirit of lustrous love
White as the aster he bends above—!
What, but an odorous memory
Of the dear old man, made known to me
In days demanding a help like his—,
As sweet