*. THE ok PRAYER PERFECT A ND OTHER POEMS JAMES WHITCOMB I L E Y Book L GopghtN?.- ? COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/prayerperfectothOOrile THE PRAYER PERFECT AND OTHER POEMS BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 11 WITH PICTURES BY WILL VAWTER INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1912, BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY All Rights Reserved PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & COMPANY BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. §CI.A320935 THE PRAYER PERFECT EAR Lord! kind Lord! Gracious Lord ! I pray Thou wilt look on all I love, Tenderly to-day ! Weed their hearts of weariness; Scatter every care Down a wake of angel-wings Winnowing the air. Bring unto the sorrowing All release from pain; Let the lips of laughter Overflow again; And with all the needy O divide, I pray, This vast treasure of content That is mine to-day ! JUST TO BE GOOD T UST to be good— ^J This is enough — enough ! O we who find sin's billows wild and rough, Do we not feel how more than any gold Would be the blameless life we led of old While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss ? Ah ! though we miss All else but this, To be good is enough! It is enough — Enough — just to be good ! To lift our hearts where they are understood ; To let the thirst for worldly power and place Go unappeased ; to smile back in God's face With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss. Ah ! though we miss All else but this, To be good is enough ! i H ! tell me a tale of the airly days — Of the times as they ust to be ; 'Tiller of Fi-er" and "Shakespeare's Plays" Is a' most too deep f'er me ! I want plane facts, and I want plane words, Of the good old-fashioned ways, When speech run free as the songs of birds 'Way back in the airly days. A TALE OF THE AIRLY DAYS Tell me a tale of the timber-lands — Of the old-time pioneers ; Somepin' a pore man understands With his feelins 's well as ears. Tell of the old log house, — about The loft, and the puncheon flore — The old fi-er-place, with the crane swung out 3 And the latch-string thrugh the doer. Tell of the things jest as they was — They don't need no excuse ! — Don't tech 'em up like the poets does, Tel theyr all too fine fer use ! — • Say they was 'leven in the fambily — ■ Two beds, and the chist, below, And the trundle-beds that each belt three, And the clock and the old bureau. Then blow the horn at the old back-door Tel the echoes all halloo, A.nd the childern gethers home onc't more, Jest as they ust to do : 10 '.'. A TALE OF THE AIRLY DAYS Blow fer Pap tel he hears and comes, With Tomps and Elias, too, A-marchin' home, with the fife and drums And the old Red White and Blue ! Blow and blow tel the sound draps low As the moan of the whipperwill, And wake up Mother, and Ruth and Jo, All sleepin' at Bethel Hill: Blow and call tel the faces all Shine out in the back-log's blaze, And the shadders dance on the old hewed wall As they did in the airly days. 12 OLD MAN'S NURSERY RHYME I N the jolly winters Of the long-ago, It was not so cold as now— O! No! No! Then, as I remember, Snowballs to eat Were as good as apples now And every bit as sweet ! 13 OLD MAN S NURSERY RHYME IT In the jolly winters Of the dead-and-gone. Bub was warm as summer, With his red mitts on, — ■ Just in his little waist- And-pants all together. Who ever heard him growl About cold weather? Ill In the jolly winters Of the long-ago — Was it half so cold as now? O ! No ! No ! W T ho caught his death o' cold, Making prints of men Flat-backed in snow that now's Twice as cold asrain? J OLD MAN S NURSERY RHYME IV In the jolly winters Of the dead-and-gone, Startin' out rabbit-huntin' — Early as the dawn, — Who ever froze his fingers, Ears, heels, or toes, — Or'd 'a' cared if he had? Nobody knows ! Nights by the kitchen-stove, Shellin' white and red Corn m the skillet, and Sleepin' four abed ! Ah! the jolly winters Of the long-ago! We were not as old as now- O! No! No! 16 " MYLO JONES'S WIFE " "" MYLO JONES'S wife" was all I heerd, mighty near, last Fall- Visitun relations down T'other side of Morgantown ! Mylo Jones's wife she does This and that, and "those" and "thus" !- Can't 3 bide babies in her sight — Ner no childern, day and night, Whoopin' round the premises— Ner no nothin' else, I guess ! 17 " mylo jones's wife " Mylo Jones's wife she 'lows She's the boss of her own house ! — Mylo — consequences is — ■ Stays whare things seem some like his,—' Uses, mostly, with the stock — Coaxin' "Old Kate" not to balk, Ner kick hoss-flies' branes out, ner Act, I s'pose, so much like her! Yit the wimmern-folks tells you She's perfection. — Yes they do! Mylo's wife she says she's found Home hain't home with men-folks round When they's work like hern to do — Picklin' pears and butchern, too, And a-rendern lard, and then Cookin' fer a pack of men To come trackin' up the flore She's scrubbed tel she'll scrub no more!— Yit she'd keep things clean ef they Made her scrub tel Jedgmunt Day ! Mylo Jones's wife she sews Carpet-rags and patches clothes 18 MYLO JONES S WIFE Jest year in and out! — and yit Whare's the livin' use of it? She asts Mylo that. — And he Gits back whare he'd ruther be. With his team;— jest plows — and don't Never sware — like some folks won't! Think ef he'd cut loose, I gum ! J D he'p his heavenly chances some! Mylo's wife don't see no use, Ner no reason ner excuse Fer his pore relations to Hang round like they alius do! Thare 'bout onc't a year — and she — She jest ga'nts 'em, folks tells me, On spiced pears ! — Pass Mylo one, He says "No, he don't chuse none!'* Workin'men like Mylo they ! D ort to have meat ev'ry day ! Dad-burn Mylo Jones's wife ! % Ruther rake a blame caseknife 'Crost my wizzen than to see Sich a womern rulin' me! — 20 " mylo jones's wife Ruther take and turn in and Raise a fool mule-colt by hand ! Mylo, though — od-rot the man ! — Jest keeps ca'm — like some folks can- And 'lows sich as her, I s'pose, Is Man's he'pmeet! — Mercy knows! 21 WORTERMELON TIME OLD wortermelon time is a-comin' round again, And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me, Fer the way I hanker after wortermelons is a sin — Which is the why and wharefore, as you can plainly see. Oh ! it's in the sandy soil wortermelons does the best, And it's thare they'll lay and waller in the sunshine and the dew Tel they wear all the green streaks clean off of theyr breast ; And you bet I ain't a-findin' any fault with them ; air you? 22 WORTERMELON TIME They ain't no better thing in the vegetable line ; And they don't need much 'tendin', as ev'ry farmer knows ; And when theyr ripe and ready fer to pluck from the vine, I want to say to you theyr the best fruit that grows. It's some likes the yeller-core, and some likes the red, And it's some says "The Little Californy" is the best; But the sweetest slice of all I ever wedged in my head, Is the old "Edingburg Mounting-sprout," of the west. You don't want no punkins nigh your wortermelon vines — 'Cause, some-way-another, they'll spile your melons, shore ; — I've seed 'em taste like punkins, from the core to the rines, Which may be a fact you have heerd of before. But your melons that's raised right and 'tended to with care, You can walk around amongst 'em with a parent's pride and joy, And thump 'em on the heads with as fatherly a air As ef each one of them was your little girl er boy. 23 WORTERMELON TIME I joy in my hart jest to hear that rippin' sound When you split one down the back and jolt the halves in two, And the friends you love the best is gethered all around — And you says unto your sweethart, "Oh, here's the core fer you !" And I like to slice 'em up in big pieces fer 'em all, Espeshally the childern, and watch theyr high delight As one by one the rines with theyr pink notches falls, And they holler fer some more, with unquenched appetite. Boys takes to it natchurl, and I like to see 'em eat — A slice of wortermelon's like a frenchharp in theyr hands, And when they "saw" it through theyr mouth sich music can't be beat — 'Cause it's music both the sperit and the stummick understands. Oh, they's more in wortermelons than the purty-colored meat, And the overflowin' sweetness of the worter squshed betwixt 24 ■ZMf WORTERMELON TIME The up'ard and the down'ard motions of a feller's teeth, And it's the taste of ripe old age and juicy childhood mixed. Fer I never taste a melon but my thoughts flies away To the summertime of youth ; and again I see the dawn, And the fadin' afternoon of the long summer day, And the dusk and dew a-fallin', and the night a-comin' on. And thare's the corn around us, and the lispin' leaves and trees, And the stars a-peekin' down on us as still as silver mice, - And us boys in the wortermelons on our hands and knees, And the new-moon hangin' ore us like a yeller-cored slice. Oh! it's wortermelon time is a-comin' round again, And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me, Fer the way I hanker after wortermelons is a sin — Which is the why and wharefore, as you can plainly see. 26 THE BROOK-SONG L ITTLE brook ! Little brook ! You have such a happy look — Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and curve and crook — And your ripples, one and one, Reach each other's hands and run Like laughing little children in the sun ! 27 THE BROOK-SONG Little brook, sing to me : Sing about a bumblebee That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled mum- blingly, Because he wet the film Of his wings, and had to swim, While the water-bugs raced round and laughed at him ! Little brook — sing a song Of a leaf that sailed along Down the golden-braided centre of your current swift and strong, And a dragon-fly that lit On the tilting rim of it, And rode away and wasn't scared a bit. And sing — how oft in glee Came a truant boy like me, Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting melody, Till the gurgle and refrain Of your music in his brain Wrought a happiness as keen to him as pain. 28 THE BROOK-SONG Little brook — laugh and leap ! Do not let the dreamer weep : Sing him all the songs of summer till he sink in softest sleep ; And then sing soft and low Through his dreams of long ago — - Sing back to him the rest he used to know! 29 iDeacidified using the Bookkeeper procs Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 PreservatsonTechnologii A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVAT 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 (724) 779-2111