Poems Here at Home

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Century Company, 1893 - History - 192 pages
 

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Page 43 - Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f !" Think of a private, now, perhaps, We'll say like Jim, 'At's dumb clean up to the shoulder-straps — And the old man jes' wrapped up in him! Think of him — with the war plum' through, And the glorious old Red-White-and-Blue A-laughin' the news down over Jim, And the old man, bendin' over him — The surgeon turnin...
Page 41 - Was, jes' as we turned to start away, — "Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f !" Teared-like, he was more satisfied Jes' lookin' at Jim And likin' him all to hisse'f-like, see? — 'Cause he was jes' wrapped up in him! And over and over I mind the day The old man come and stood round in the way While we was drillin', a-watchin...
Page 16 - NOTHIN' TO SAY NOTHIN' to say, my daughter! Nothin' at all to say! Gyrls that's in love, I've noticed, giner"ly has their way! Yer mother did, afore you, when her folks objected to me — Yit here I am and here you air! and yer mother— where is she? You look lots like yer mother: purty much same in size; And about the same complected; and favor about the eyes: Like her, too, about livin' here, because she couldn't stay; . It'll 'most seem like you was dead like her!— but I hain't got nothin
Page 63 - Air you go' to keep a fine store like his— An' be a rich merchunt— an' wear fine clothes?— Er what air you go' to be, goodness knows?" An' nen he laughed at 'Lizabuth Ann, An' I says, '"M go' to be a Raggedy Man!— I'm ist go
Page 15 - And touch her, as when first in the old days I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress. Then silence ; and the perfume of her dress.
Page 43 - Some way — jes' wrapped up in him ! — And many a time the word 'u'd come "At stirred him up like the tap of a drum — At Petersburg, fer instunce, where Jim rid right into their cannons there, And tuk 'em, and pinted "em...
Page 42 - Tuk the papers, the old man did, A-watchin' fer Jim, Fully believin' he'd make his mark Some way — jes' wrapped up in him! And many a time the word 'ud come 'At stirred him up like the tap of a drum: At Petersburg, fer...
Page 41 - peared wrapped up in him: But when Cap. Biggler, he writ back 'At Jim was the bravest boy we had In the whole dern rigiment, white er black, And his fightin' good as his farmin' bad, — 'At he had led, with a bullet clean Bored through his thigh, and carried the flag Through the bloodiest battle you ever seen, — The old man wound up a letter to him 'At, Cap. read to us, 'at said, — "Tell Jim Good-by; And take keer of hisse'f !" Jim come home jes' long enough To take the whim 'At he'd like to...
Page 181 - Let me, who have not any child to die, Weep with you for the little one whose love I have known nothing of. The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed Their pressure round your neck; the hands you used To kiss. — Such arms — such hands I never knew. May I not weep with you? Fain would I be of service — say some thing, Between the tears, that would be comforting, — But ah ! so sadder than yourselves am I, Who have no child to die.
Page 62 - The Raggedy Man— Ain't he a' awful kind Raggedy Man? Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man! An' The Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes An' tells 'em, ef I be good, sometimes: Knows 'bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, an' Elves, An' the Squidgicum'Squees 'at swallers ther

About the author (1893)

Poet, lecturer, and journalist, Riley gained popularity with his series of poems in the Hoosier dialect written under the pseudonym "Benjamin F. Johnson, of Boone." These originally appeared in the Indianapolis Journal, where he worked from 1877 to 1885; in 1883 they were published as The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Leven More Poems. His most popular poems are "When the Frost is on the Punkin"' and "The Old Man and Jim." Riley went on numerous lecture tours, entertaining as an actor and humorist. Although best known for his dialect poetry---"comforting, familiar platitudes, restated in verse" (Richard Crowder)---Riley also wrote humorous sketches and other poems. He produced more than 90 volumes of popular poetry, some of which are available in reprinted editions.

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