Green Fields and Running Brooks

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and Other Poems, by James Whitcomb Riley
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Title: Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems
Author: James Whitcomb Riley
Release Date: February 16, 2005 [EBook #15079]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN
FIELDS ***
Produced by Al Haines
GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1893
BY JAMES W. RILEY

TO MY SISTERS
ELVA AND MARY
CONTENTS.
PROEM
Artemus of Michigan, The
As My Uncle Used to Say
At Utter Loaf

August
Autumn
Bedouin
Being His Mother
Blind
Blossoms on the Trees, The

By Any Other Name
By Her White Bed
Chant of the Cross-Bearing Child, The
Country Pathway, A
Cup of
Tea, A
Curse of the Wandering Foot, The
Cyclone, The
Dan Paine
Dawn, Noon and Dewfall
Discouraging Model, A

Ditty of No Tone, A
Don Piatt of Mac-o-chee
Dot Leedle Boy

Dream of Autumn, A
Elizabeth
Envoy
Farmer Whipple--Bachelor
Full Harvest, A
Glimpse of Pan, A
Go, Winter
Her Beautiful Eyes
Hereafter, The
His Mother's Way
His Vigil

Home at Night
Home-Going, The
Hoodoo, The
Hoosier
Folk-Child, The
How John Quit the Farm
Iron Horse, The
Iry and Billy and Jo
Jack the Giant-Killer
Jap Miller
John Alden and Percilly
John
Brown
John McKeen
Judith
June at Woodruff
Just to Be Good
Last Night--And This
Let Us Forget

Little Fat Doctor, The


Longfellow
Lounger, A
Monument for the Soldiers, A
Mr. What's-His-Name
My Friend
Nessmuk
North and South
Old Retired Sea Captain, The
Old Winters on the Farm
Old Year
and the New, The
On the Banks o' Deer Crick
Out of Nazareth
Passing of A Heart, The
Plaint Human, The
Quarrel, The
Quiet Lodger, The
Reach Your Hand to Me
Right Here at Home
Rival, The
Rivals,
The; or the Showman's Ruse
Robert Burns Wilson
Rose, The
September Dark
Shoemaker, The
Singer, The
Sister Jones's
Confession
Sleep
Some Scattering Remarks of Bub's
Song of
Long Ago, A
Southern Singer, A
Suspense
Thanksgiving
Their Sweet Sorrow
Them Flowers
To an
Importunate Ghost
To Hear Her Sing
Tom Van Arden
To the
Serenader
Tugg Martin
Twins, The
Wandering Jew, The
Watches of the Night, The
Water Color, A

We to Sigh Instead of Sing
What Chris'mas Fetched the Wigginses

When Age Comes On
Where-Away
While the Musician Played

Wife-Blessed, The
Wraith of Summertime, A
GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS
GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS
Ho! green fields and running brooks!

Knotted strings and
fishing-hooks
Of the truant, stealing down
Weedy backways of the
town.

Where the sunshine overlooks,
By green fields and running brooks,

All intruding guests of chance
With a golden tolerance,
Cooing doves, or pensive pair
Of picnickers, straying there--
By
green fields and running brooks,
Sylvan shades and mossy nooks!
And--O Dreamer of the Days,
Murmurer of roundelays
All unsung
of words or books,
Sing green fields and running brooks!
A COUNTRY PATHWAY.
I come upon it suddenly, alone--
A little pathway winding in the
weeds
That fringe the roadside; and with dreams my own,
I wander
as it leads.
Full wistfully along the slender way,
Through summer tan of freckled
shade and shine,
I take the path that leads me as it may--
Its every
choice is mine.
A chipmunk, or a sudden-whirring quail,
Is startled by my step as on
I fare--
A garter-snake across the dusty trail
Glances and--is not
there.
Above the arching jimson-weeds flare twos
And twos of
sallow-yellow butterflies,
Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing
loose
When autumn winds arise.
The trail dips--dwindles--broadens then, and lifts
Itself astride a
cross-road dubiously,
And, from the fennel marge beyond it, drifts

Still onward, beckoning me.
And though it needs must lure me mile on mile
Out of the public
highway, still I go,
My thoughts, far in advance in Indian-file,

Allure me even so.
Why, I am as a long-lost boy that went
At dusk to bring the cattle to

the bars,
And was not found again, though Heaven lent
His mother
ail the stars
With which to seek him through that awful night.
O years of nights as
vain!--Stars never rise
But well might miss their glitter in the light

Of tears in mother-eyes!
So--on, with quickened breaths, I follow still--
My avant-courier
must be obeyed!
Thus am I led, and thus the path, at will,
Invites
me to invade
A meadow's precincts, where my daring guide
Clambers the steps of
an old-fashioned stile,
And stumbles down again, the other side,
To
gambol there awhile
In pranks of hide-and-seek, as on ahead
I see it running, while the
clover-stalks
Shake rosy fists at me, as though they said--
"You dog
our country-walks
And mutilate us with your walking-stick!--
We will not suffer tamely
what you do
And warn you at your peril,--for we'll sic
Our
bumble-bees on you!"
But I smile back, in airy nonchalance,--
The more determined on my
wayward quest,
As some bright memory a moment dawns
A
morning in my breast--
Sending a thrill that hurries me along
In faulty similes of childish
skips,
Enthused with lithe contortions of a song
Performing on my
lips.
In wild meanderings o'er pasture wealth--
Erratic wanderings through
dead'ning-lands,
Where sly old brambles, plucking me by stealth,

Put berries in my