The Poems and Prose Sketches of James Whitcomb Riley.: V. 3

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...lonely here in life's decline, Though fortune smiles around us everywhere: We look across the gold Of the harvests, as of old--The corn, the fragrant clover, and the hay; But most we turn our gaze, As with eyes of other days, To the orchard where the children used to play. Ofrom our life's full measure And rich hoard of worldly treasure We often turn our weary eyes away, And hand in hand we wander Down the old path winding yonder To the orchard where the children used to play. WHERE THE CHILDREN USED TO PLAY Our sloping pasture-lands are filled with herds; The barn and granary-bins are bulging o'er; The grove's a paradise of singing birds--The woodland brook leaps laughing by the door; Yet lonely, lonely still, Let us prosper as we will, Our old hearts seem so empty everyway--We can only through a mist See the faces we have kissed In the orchard where the children used to play. Ofrom our life's full measure And rich hoard of worldly treasure We often turn our weary eyes away, And hand in hand we wander Down the old path winding yonder To the orchard where the children used to play. A GLIMPSE OF PAN I CAUGHT but a glimpse of him. Summer was here, And I strayed from the town and its dust and heat, And walked in a wood, while the noon was near, Where the shadows were cool, and the atmosphere Was misty with fragrances stirred by my feet From surges of blossoms that billowed sheer Of the grasses, green and sweet. And I peered through a vista of leaning trees, Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept To the face of a river, that answered these With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze, Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept And kissed them, with quavering ecstasies, And wistfully laughed and wept. A GLIMPSE OF PAN And there, like a dream in a ...