JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.COM

"Where we celebrate the child in us all"

RILEY'S POETRY OF            
DESPAIR AND WANDERING:   
Song, Wraith Song of Spraivoll, Advertising Doggerel, AEO! AEO! AEO!, AY, DWAINIE!,MY DWAINIE!, A Dream Unfinished, Bells Jangled, The Chamber Over the Gate, Charles H. Philips, Death, Dream, Fame, Fantasy, John Goliher's Third Womern, Johnson's Boy, Leonainie, A Letter to a Friend,  A Line to an Unsettled Young Man, A Local Politician, Luther Benson, The Old Band, On Quitting California, On the Love of Intoxication as a Queen, Life Without Nellie Cooley, A Poet's Wooing, Since My Mother Died.

SONG

WRAITH SONG OF SPRAIVOLL

ADVERTISING DOGGEREL*

*An advertisement "poem" written while the poet traveled with a miracle medicine show wagon around Indiana as a young man.

AEO! AEO! AEO!*

AEo! AEo! AEo!
Thou dost all things know -
Waving all claims of mine to dare to pray
Save that I needs must: - Lo
What may I pray for? Yea,
I have not any way,
An Thou gainsayest me a tolerance so. -
I dare not pray
Forgiveness - too great
My vast o'ertoppling weight
Of sinning; nor can I
Pray my
Poor soul unscouraged to go. -
Frame Thou my prayer, AEo!

*A poem of the poet's despair over the loss of his mother, Elizabeth Riley who was the poet's alpha (A) and omega (O).  

AY, DWAINIE! - MY DWAINIE!*

Ay, Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The lurloo ever sings,
A tremor in his flossy crest
And in his glossy wings.
And Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The sinno-welvers call; -
But Dwainie hides in Spirkland
And answers not at all.

The teeper twitters Dwainie! -
The tcheucker on his spray
Teeters up and down the wind
And will not fly away:
And Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The drowsy oovers drawl; -
But Dwainie hides in Spirkland
And answers not at all.

O Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The breezes hold their breath -
The stars are pale as blossoms,
And the night as still as death:
And Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The fainting echoes fall; -
But Dwainie in Spirkland
And answers not at all.

* A poem of the poet's despair at the death of Nellie Cooley, the poet's beloved friend who died in Illinois married to another man. Riley brought her back to Greenfield (IN) for burial shortly before writing this poem of terrible bereavement.

A DREAM UNFINISHED*

Only a dream unfinished; only a form at rest
With weary hands clasped lightly over a peaceful breast.

And the lonesome light of summer through the open door-way
falls,
But it makes no laugh in the parlor - no voice in the vacant
halls.

It throws no spell of music over the slumbrous air;
It meets no step on the carpet - no form in the easy chair.

It finds no queenly presence blessing the solitude
With the gracious benediction of royal womanhood.

It finds no willowy figure tilting the cage that swings
With the little pale canary that forgets the song he sings.

No face at the open window to welcome the fragrant breeze;
No touch at the old piano to waken the sleeping keys.

The idle book lies open, and the folded leaf is pressed
Over the half-told story while death relates the rest.

Only a dream unfinished; only a form at rest,
With weary hands clasped tightly over a peaceful breast.

The light steals into the corner where the darkest shadows
are,
And sweeps with its golden fingers the strings of the mute
guitar.

And over the drooping mosses it clambers the rustic stand,
And over the ivy's tresses it trails a trembling hand.

But it brings no smile from the darkness - it calls no face
from the gloom -
No song flows out of the silence that aches in the empty
room.

And we look in vain for the dawning in the depths of our
despair,
Where the weary voice goes wailing through the empty aisles
of prayer.

And the hands reach out through the darkness for the touches
we have known
When the icy palms lay warmly in the pressure of our own.

When the folded eyes were gleaming with a glory God designed
To light a way to Heaven by the smiles they left behind.

Only a dream unfinished; only a form at rest
With weary hands clasped lightly over a peaceful breast."

*A poem written upon the death of the poet's beloved Nellie Cooley.

BELLS JANGLED*

I lie low-ceiled in a nest of dreams;
The lamp gleams dim i' the odorous gloom,
And the stars at the casement leak long gleams
Of misty light through the haunted room
Where I lie low-coiled in dreams.

The night-winds ooze o'er my dusk-drowned face
In a dewy flood that ebbs and flows,
Washing a surf of dim white lace
Under my throat and the dark red rose
In the shade of my dusk-drowned face.

There's a silken strand of some strange sound
Slipping out of skein of song:
Eerily as a call unwound
From a fairy-bugle, it slides along
In a silken strand of sound.

There's a tinkling drip of faint guitar;
There's a gurgling flute, and a blaring horn
Billowing bubbles of tune afar
O'er the misty heights of the hills of morn,
To the drip of a faint guitar.

And I dream that I neither sleep nor wake -
Careless am I if I wake or sleep,
For my soul floats on the waves that break
In crests of song on the shoreless deep
Where I neither sleep nor wake.

*A poem of Riley's situation of loneliness and alcoholism during his late twenties.

THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE

Is it too fine for thee
To drop onto, and see,
In the chamber over the gate
That old man hesitate -
Watching and waiting there
To swoop down unaware?
O Absalom, my son!
Is it so long ago
That in the street below
Thou hungst there on the gate
While the clock banged on from eight
Till thy footsteps died away
Into the dawning of the day?
O Absolam, my son!

There is no near or far.
There is neither here nor thar.
There is neither soon nor late
In that chamber over the gate
Nor any long ago
To that wail of human woe,
O Absalom, my son!

In dreams of the van shed past
The voice comes like a blast
Over the window-sill
Thou hears it howling still.
And in nightmares yet to be
Will its echoes tackle thee
O Absolam, my son!

He goes forth from the door
Who shall return no more:
With him the flower- pot goes
And the boot a spector throws
From the chamber over the gate
Where the old man lies in wait
O Absalom, my son!

That tis a common grief
Bringeth but slight relief;
Her's is the bitterest loss-
For the old man is the boss -
And forever the cry must be:
Would I had fled with thee
O Absalom, my son!

*A Riley caricature of a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem of similar name. Although Riley was widely considered the successor to Longfellow as America's most prominent folk poet, he nevertheless espoused kenotic themes rather than transcendalist ones as did those poets of the East such as Longfellow.

CHARLES H. PHILIPS*

Obit November 5th, 1881

O Friend! There is no way
To bid farewell to thee!
The words that we would say
Above thy grave to-day
Still falter and delay
And fail us utterly.

When walking with us here,
The hand we loved to press
Was gentle, and sincere
As thy frank eyes were clear
Through every smile and tear
Of pleasure and distress.

In years, young; yet in thought
Mature; thy spirit, free,
And fired with fervor caught
Of thy proud sire, who fought
His way to fame, and taught
Its toilsome way to thee.

So even thou hast gained
The victory God-given -
Yea, as our cheeks are stained
With tears, and our souls pained
And mute, thou hast attained
Thy high reward in Heaven!

DEATH*

"Lo, I am dying! And to feel the King
Of Terrors fasten on me, steeps all sense
Of life, and love, and loss, and everything.
In such deep calms of restful indolence,
His keenest fangs of pain are sweet to me
As fused kisses of mad lovers' lips
When, flung shut-eyed in spasmed ecstasy,
They feel the world spin past them in eclipse,
And so thank God with ever-tightening lids!
But what I see, the soul of me forbids
All utterance of; and what I hear and feel
The rattle in my throat could ill reveal
Though it were music to your ears as to
Mine own. - Press closer - closer - I have grown
So great, your puny arms about me thrown
Seem powerless to hold me here with you; -
I slip away - I waver - and - I fall -
Christ! What a plunge! Where am I dropping? All
My breath bursts into dust - I can not cry -
I whirl - I reel and veer up overhead,
And drop flat-faced against - the sky -
Soh, bless me! I am dead!"

*A poem of Riley's imagining the feelings of the hanged black man William Kemmer, lynched following a vigilante break in of the Hancock County (IN) jail.  Riley reacted to this  incident with horror and shortly after left his birthhome to travel with a miracle medicine show that traveled Indiana.

DREAM*

Because her eyes were far too deep
And holy for a laugh to leap
Across the brink where sorrow tried
To drown within the amber tide;
Because the looks, whose ripples kissed
The trembling lids through tender mist,
Were dazzled with a radiant gleam -
Because of this I called her "Dream."

Because the roses growing wild
About her features when she smiled
Were ever dewed with tears that fell
With tenderness ineffable;
Because her lips might spill a kiss
That, dripping in a world like this
Would tincture death's myrrh-bitter stream
To sweetness - so I called her "Dream."

Because I could not understand
The magic touches of a hand
That seemed, beneath her strange control,
To smooth the plumage of the soul
And calm it, till, with folded wings,
It half forgot its flutterings,
And, nestled in her palm, did seem
To trill a song that called her "Dream."

Because I saw her, in a sleep
As dark and desolate and deep
And fleeting as the taunting night
That flings a vision of delight
To some lorn martyr as he lies
In slumber ere the day he dies -
Because she vanished like a gleam
Of glory, do I call her "Dream."

*A poem said to have been inspired by the poet's friendship with Clara Bottsford who refused to marry the poet claiming she did not wish to marry an alcoholic.

FAME

Once, in a dream, I saw a man
With haggard face and tangled hair,
And eyes that nursed as wild a care
As gaunt Starvation ever can;
And in his hand he held a wand1
Whose magic touch gave life and thought
Unto a form his fancy wrought
And robed with coloring so grand
It seemed the reflex of some child
Of Heaven, fair and undefiled -
A face of purity and love -
To woo him into worlds above:
And as I gazed with dazzled eyes,
A gleaming smile lit up his lips
As his bright soul from its eclipse
Went flashing into Paradise.
Then tardy Fame came through the door
And found a picture - nothing more.2

... And this is Fame! A thing, indeed,
That only comes when least the need:
The wisest minds of every age
The book of life from page to page
Have searched in vain; each lesson conned
Will promise it the page beyond -
Until the last, when dusk of night
Falls over it, and reason's light
Is smothered by that unknown friend
Who signs his nom de plume, The End.

FANTASY

A Fantasy that came to me
As wild and wantonly designed
As ever any dream might be
Unraveled from a madman's mind, -
A tangle-work of tissue, wrought
By cunning of the spider-brain,
And woven, in an hour of pain,
To trap the giddy flies of thought -.

I stood beneath a summer moon
All swollen to uncanny girth,
And hanging, like the sun at noon,
Above the center of the earth;
But with a sad and sallow light,
As it had sickened of the night
And fallen in a pallid swoon.
Around me I could hear the rush
Of sullen winds, and feel the whir
Of unseen wings apast me brush
like phantoms round a sepulcher;
And, like a carpeting of plush,
A lawn unrolled beneath my feet,
Bespangled o'er with flowers as sweet
To look upon as those that nod
Within the garden-fields of God,
But odorless as those that blow
In ashes in the shades below.

And on my hearing fell a storm
Of gusty music, sadder yet
Than every whimper of regret
That sobbing utterance could form,
And patched with scraps of sound that seemed
Torn out of tunes that demons dreamed,
And pitched to such a piercing key,
It stabbed the ear with agony;
And when at last it lulled and died,
I stood aghast and terrified.
I shuddered and I shut my eyes
And still could see, and feel aware
Some mystic presence waited there;
And staring, with a dazed surprise,
I saw a creature so divine
That never subtle thought of mine
May reproduce to inner sight
So fair a vision of delight.

A syllable of dew that drips
From out a lily's laughing lips
Could not be sweeter than the word
I listened to, yet never heard. -
For, oh, the woman hiding there
Within the shadows of her hair,
Spake to me in an undertone
So delicate, my soul alone
But understood it as a moan
Of some weak melody of wind
A heavenward breeze had left behind.

A tracery of trees, grotesque
Against the sky, behind her seem
Like shapeless shapes of arabesque
Wrought in an oriental screen;
And tall, austere and statuesque
She loomed before it - e'en as though
The spirit-hand of Angelo
Had chiseled her to life complete,
With chips of moonshine round her feet.
And I grew jealous of the dusk,
To see it softly touch her face,
As lover-like, with fond embrace
It folded round her like a husk:
But when the glitter of her hand
Like wasted glory, beckoned me,
My eyes grew blurred and dull and dim -
My vision failed - I could not see -
I could not stir - I could but stand,
Till, quivering in every limb,
I flung me prone, as though to swim
The tide of grass whose waves of green
Went rolling ocean-wide between
My helpless shipwrecked heart and her
Who claimed me for a worshiper.

And writhing thus in my despair,
I heard a weird, unearthly sound,
That seemed to lift me from the ground
And hold me floating in the air.
I looked, and lo! I saw her bow
Above a harp within her hands;
A crown of blossoms bound her brow,
And on her harp were twisted strands
Of silken starlight, rippling o'er
With music never heard before
By mortal ears; and, at the strain,
I felt my Spirit snap its chain
And break away, - and I could see
It as it turned and fled from me
To greet its mistress, where she smiled
To see the phantom dancing wild
And wizard-like before the spell
Her mystic fingers knew so well.

What is it? Who will rightly guess
If it be aught but nothingness
That dribbles from a wayward pen
To spatter in the eyes of men?
What matter! I will call it mine,
And I will take the changeling home
And bathe its face with morning-shine,
And comb it with a golden comb
Till every tangled tress of rhyme
Will fairer be than summer-time;
And I will nurse it on my knee
And dandle it beyond the clasp
Of hands that grip and hands that grasp
Through life and all eternity!

JOHN GOLIHER'S THIRD WOMERN

I'm a-talkin' - not adzac'ly in the old-maid kindo way
O' sayin' things onpleasant `cause there're plenty sich to
say: -
`Ner cause I am a womern `ats tuck sich manly part
In Tempernce institutions as to spile her womern's heart:-

But I `low `at married people, as a rule, all has their sheer
O' troubles and vexations. - Yet theyr're one example here
`At some folks find confusin' - seein's how they used to say
John Golliher's third womern wouldn't be alive today!

You see, John's ben a drinker - jest a SOAKER thue and thue!-
As his daddy was afore him, and his old grandaddy, too! -
W'y, the Golliher's, I reckon, ef you'd stand `em in a row,
Would make a string o' drunkards clean from here to Jericho.

John was drunk at his first weddin', But his wife had made
her brags
She'd have him, drunk or sober, ef she had to dress in rags,-
And thems the kind o' clothin' she dome to `fore she died,
And laid `em down forever, thanking God, and saisfied.

John's sobered up a little after that; and found a place
For the little girl still left him - like her mother in the
face;
And fer-well, a year and better, he kep' straight enough, I
guess
Til he met a widder womern `at upset him more or less.

He was warned agin the womern -she was warned agin the man,-
And ef that won't make a weddin', w'y there're nothin' else
`at can!
And when THAT couple married, they was some `at even bet
The widder would out-last him, but - John's a-livin yet!

Things was might bad, I tell you, at that funeral o'hern!-
No serous indications o' very deep concern-
Except the tears `at Mary his grow'd-up dorter shed
Fer the crazy wretch with tremans howlin' there beside the
dead!

W'y the preachers worked their sermints out o' that!- and
women wrung
Their empty hands in meetin! and shouted, cried and sung:
And little sleepy childern was shuck awake to pray,
With "Golliher'll git ye fer neglectin' that-away!"

They was no one else to `tend him, so I staid there -more on
Account of Mary's feelin's than fur any keer o' John, -
Fer that fust thing, when he rallied so's he knowed me, I-
says- I-
"I'm mighty feered the chances is you aint a-goin' to die!"

O I said it! and I meant it! and was jest a stoopin' down
To bathe the feller's forred when he whispered, with a
frown,-
"Don't, then! I'll DIE - A DRUNKARD! and the womern who can
say
As mean a thing as that is, ortn't tetch him! GO AWAY!"

It was afterwards `at Mary told me she was peekin' thue
The kitchen-door, and saw me, knelln'- like I used to do
In public meetins' - on'y, the prayer, she said was more
Full o' lovin' stren'th `an any `at she'd ever heerd afore.-

And, railly, I reckon the girl's opinion was
About as nigh pefection as they git `em now - because,
Her father he forgive me- quit his drinkin'- and is- Well,
John Golliher's third womern ain't got nuthin' else to tell.

JOHNSON'S BOY

The world is turned ag'in me,
And people says, "They guess
That nothin' else is in me
But pure maliciousness."
I git the blame for doin'
What other chaps destroy;
And I' jist a-goin' to ruin
Because I'm "Johnson's Boy"

That ain't my name - I'd ruther
They'd call me Ike or Pat. -
But they've forgot the other -
And so have I, for that!
I reckon it's as handy,
When "Nibsy" breaks his toy,
Or some one steals his candy.
To say 'twas "Johnson's Boy."

You can't git any worter
At a pump, and find the spout
So durn chuck full o' mortar
That you have to bore it out;
You tackle any scholar
In Wisdom's wise employ,
And I'll bet you half a dollar
He'll say its "Johnson's Boy."

Folks don't know how I suffer
In my uncomplainin' way!
They say I'm gittin' "tougher"
And "tougher" every day.
Last Sunday night, when Flinder
Was a-shoutin' out for joy
And some one shook the winder
He prayed for "Johnson's Boy."

I'm tired o' bein' follered
By farmers every day
And then o' bein' collared
For coaxin' hounds away.
Hounds always plays me double -
It's a trick they all enjoy
To git me into trouble
Because I'm "Johnson's Boy."

I'm tired o' havin' fellers
Tie strings across the floor,
And havin' bloody "smellers"
A layin' at my door;
And people intimatin'
It's a life that I destroy
If a feller drownds a skatin'
When he's out with "Johnson's Boy."

But if I git to Heaven,
I hope the Lord'll see
Some feller has been perfect,
And lay it on to me;
I'll swell the song sonorous
As I clap my wings for joy,
And sail off on the chorus -
"Hurray for Johnson's Boy."

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 meet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;
All the 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 are 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.

*This is the famous hoax poem written by James Whitcomb Riley and passed off as the poem of Edgar Allan Poe in the newspapers of the land.  Its "discovery" in a book flyleaf allegedly brought from Virginia to Indiana was a national phenomenon attended by great publicity and much enjoyed by Riley.

A LETTER TO A FRIEND

The past is like a story
I have listened to in dreams
That vanished in the glory
Of the Morning's early gleams;
And - at my shadow glancing -
I feel a loss of strength,
As the Day of Life advancing
leaves it shorn of half its length.

But it's all in vain to worry
At the rapid race of Time -
And he flies in such a flurry
When I trip him with a rhyme,
I'll bother him no longer
Than to thank you for the thought
That "my fame is growing stronger
As you really think it ought."

And though I fall below it,
I might know as much of mirth
To live and die a poet
Of unacknowledged worth;
For Fame is but a vagrant -
Though a loyal one and brave,
And his laurels ne'er so fragrant
As when scattered o'er the grave.

A LINE TO AN UNSETTLED YOUNG MAN

"O what is Life at last," says you,
`At woman-folks and man-folks, too,
Cain't oncomplainin', worry through?

"An' waht is Love, `at no one yit
`At's monkeyed with it kin forgit,
Er gits fat on remembern hit?

"An' what is Death?" - W'y, looky hyur -
Ef Life an' Love don't suit you, sir,
Hit's jes' the thing yer lookin' fer!

A LOCAL POLITICIAN

Jedge is good at argyin' -
No mistake in that!
Most folks 'at takles him
He'll skin 'em like a cat!
You see, the Jedge is read up,
And b'en in politics,
Hand-in-glove, you might say,
Sence back in '56.

Elected to the Shurrif, first,
Then elected Clerk;
And buckled down to work;
Practised three or four terms,
Then he run for jedge -
Speechified a little 'round
And went in like a wedge!

LUTHER BENSON

Poor victim of that vulture curse
That hovers o'er the universe,
With ready talons quick to strike
In every human heart alike,
And cruel beak to stab and tear
In virtue's vitals everywhere, -
You need no sympathy of mine
To aid you, for a strength divine
Encircles you, and lifts you clear
Above this earthly atmosphere.

And yet I can but call you poor,
As, looking through the open door
Of your sad life, I only see
A broad landscape of misery,
And catch through mists of pitying tears
The ruins of your younger years,
I see a father's shielding arm
Thrown round you in a wild alarm -
Struck down, and powerless to free
Or aid you in your agony.

I see a happy home grow dark
And desolate - the latest spark
Of hope is passing in eclipse -
The prayer upon a mother's lips
Has fallen with her latest breath
In ashes on the lips of death -
I see a penitent who reels,
And writes, and clasps his hands, and kneels,
And moans for mercy for the sake
Of that fond heart he dared to break.

And lo! as when in Galilee
A voice above the troubled sea
Commanded "Peace; be still!" the flood
That rolled in tempest-waves of blood
Within you, fell in calm so sweet
It ripples round the Savior's feet;
And all your noble nature thrilled
With brightest hope and faith, and filled
Your thirsty soul with joy and peace
And praise to Him who gave release.

THE OLD BAND

It's mighty good to git back to the old town, shore,
Considerin' I've b'en away twenty year and more.
Sense I moved then to Kansas, of course I see a change,
A-comin' back, and notice things that's new to me and
strange;
Especially at evening when yer new band--fellers meet,
In fancy uniforms and all, and play out on the street -
...What's come of old Bill Lindsey and the Saxhorn fellers -
say?
I want to hear the old band play.

What's come of Eastman, and Nat Snow? And where's War Barnett
at?
And Nate and Bony Meek; Bill Hart; Tom Richa'son and that
Air brother of him played the drum as twic't as big as Jim;
And old Hi Kerns, the carpenter - say, what's become o' him?
I make no doubt yer new band now's a competenter band,
And plays their music more by note than what they play by
hand,
And stylisher and grander tunes; but somehow - anyway,
I want to hear the old band play.

Sich tunes as "John Brown's Body" and "Sweet Alice," don't
you know;
And "The Camel Is A-Comin'," and "John Anderson, My Jo";
And a dozent others of 'em - "Number Nine" and "Number
'Leaven"
Was favor-rites that fairly made a feller dream o' Heaven.
And when the boys 'ud saranade, I've laid so still in bed
I've even heerd the locus' blossoms droppin' on the shed
When "Lilly Dale," er "Hazel Dell," had sobbed and died away
...I want to hear the old band play.

Yer new band ma'by beats it, but the old band's what I said -
It allus 'peared to kind o' chord with somepin' in my head;
And, whilse I'm no musicianer, when my blame' eyes is jes'
Nigh drowned out, and Mem'ry squares her jaws and sort o'
says
She won't ner never will fergit, I want to jes' turn in
And take and light right out o' here and git back West ag'in
And stay there, when I git there, where I never haf' to say
I want to hear the old band play.

ON QUITTING CALIFORNIA*

O rare old drink, the oldest, strongest far
Of which the house can boast,
Whose guardian, smiling, betteth at the bar
On who can drink the most -

How art thou conquered - tamed in all the pride
Of average beauty still!
How brought, O painter of the human hide,
To know thy master's will!

No more the shallow goblet is baptized
Until it overflows;
No more thy liquid blushes are capsized,
And succored by the nose.

For now the wild oats thou hast helped to till
In pain are harvested,
And, as the boss presents his little bill,
The gleaner droops his head.

Yet at thy shrine shall thousands kneel again
Beneath thy mystic spell;
O mother-in-law of great and mighty men,
Thou do'st thy mission well!

Thy newer children shall restore the right
I force you to resign
And future years yield up an appetite,
Perchance as wild as mine.

Though order, justice, social law shall scowl
On all the works reveal,
And art and science shake their heads and howl
With unabated zeal,

The marble, shaken from its glassy sheath,
Shall twirl and palpitate
For those of fiery eye and potent breath
Who take their whisky straight.

The cornless cob shall drain its warmest blood -
The still its blackest lees,
And all transfusive percolations flood
Thy swollen arteries,

Till "Tremens," as he hides himself away
Within thy depths, shall wink
As victims pour him down from day to day
At fifteen cents a drink.

*A brand of cheap whiskey.  

ON THE LOVE OF INTOXICATION AS A QUEEN

I loved her, - Why? I never knew. - Perhaps
Because her face was fair; perhaps because
Her eyes were blue and wore a weary air; -
Perhaps... perhaps because her limpid face
Was eddied with a restless tide, wherein
The dimples found no place to anchor and
Abide: perhaps because her tresses beat
A froth of gold about her throat, and poured
In splendor to the feet that ever seemed
Afloat. Perhaps because of that wild way
Her sudden laughter overleapt propriety;
Or - who will say? - perhaps the way she wept.
Ho! have ye seen the swollen heart of summer
Tempest, o'er the plain, with throbs of thunder
Burst apart and drench the earth with rain? She
Wept life that. - And to recall, with one wild glance
Of memory, our last love-parting - tears
And all...It thrills and maddens me! And yet
My dreams will hold her, flushed from lifted brow
To finger-tips, with passion's ripest kisses
Crushed and mangled on her lips...O woman! while
Your face was fair, and heart was pure, and lips
Were true, and hope as golden as your hair,
I should have strangled you!

LIFE WITHOUT NELLIE COOLEY

Only a dream!
Her head is bent
Over the keys of the instrument,
While her trembling fingers go astray
In the foolish tune she tries to play.
He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes
Never change to a glad surprise
As he finds the answer he seeks confessed
In glowing features, and heaving breast.

Only a dream!
Though the fete is grand,
And a hundred hearts at her command,
She takes no part, for her soul is sick
Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick, -
She someway feels she would like to fling
Her sins away as a robe, and spring
Up like a lily pure and white,
And bloom alone for him to-night.

Only a dream
That the fancy weaves.
The lids unfold like the rose's leaves,
And the upraised eyes are moist and mild
As the prayerful eyes of a drowsy child.
Does she remember the spell they once
Wrought in the past a few short months?
Haply not - yet her lover's eyes
Never change to the glad surprise.

Only a dream!
He winds her form
Close in the coil of his curving arm,
And whirls her away in a gust of sound
As wild and sweet as the poets found
In the paradise where the silken tent
Of the Persian blooms in the Orient, -
While ever the chords of the music seem
Whispering sadly, - "Only a dream!"

A POET'S WOOING

What can I do to make you glad -
As glad as glad can be,
Till your clear eyes seem
Like the rays that gleam
And glint through a dew-decked tree? -
Will it please you, dear, that I now begin
A grand old air on my violin?"
And she spoke again in the following way, -
"Yes, oh yes, it would please me, sir;
I would be so glad you'd play
Some grand old march - in character, -
And then as you march away
I will no longer thus be sad,
But oh, so glad - so glad - so glad!"

SINCE MY MOTHER DIED

"Since my mother died, my face
Knows not any resting-place,
Save in visions, lightly pressed
In its old accustomed rest
On her shoulder. But I wake
With a never-ending ache
In my heart, and naught beside,
Since my mother died. ...