James Whitcomb Riley

The Hoosier Poet

James Whitcomb Riley
October 7, 1849 to July 22, 1916

James Whitcomb Riley was born in Greenfield, Indiana on October 7, 1849. Riley died from a stroke at the young age of 66 on July 22, 1916 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

This famous America’s children’s poet is known as the “Hoosier Poet.” The themes of Riley’s poetry revolve around his own sympathetic nature, concerned with the plight of the importance of tolerating others, their situations or status in life. Many of his works were illustrated by the popular illustrator Howard Chandler Christy. Riley published his first poem in 1870, he often wrote in the regional dialect of his day.

In 1883, a collection of his poems was published, entitled “The Old Swimmin’ Hole and ‘Leven More Poems,” followed by “Rhymes of Childhood” in 1890, “Poems Here at Home” in 1893, and “Knee Deep in June,” in 1912. His most famous poems are “Little Orphant Annie,” “The Raggedy Man,” “When the Frost Is On the Punkin,” and “The Runaway Boy.”

In 1912 the National Institute of Arts and Letters gave him the gold medal of poetry.
His most famous poems were about people and situations from real life. His poems, “The Raggedy Man,” and “Little Orphant Annie,” are about a hired hand and an orphan girl who helped on the family farm. His poems, though of “epic proportion in many senses”, told of everyday things and situations.

Riley never married or had any children of his own,

his most popular works were written about children for children…

one of my favorites is “A Barefoot Boy”,,,

A Barefoot Boy

© James Whitcomb Riley

A barefoot boy!
I mark him at his play
For May is here once more,
and so is he,
His dusty trousers,
rolled half to the knee,
And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:
Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array
Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me
Of woody pathways winding endlessly
Along the creek, where even yesterday
He plunged his shrinking body

gasped and shook –

Yet called the water “warm,”
with never lack of joy.
And so, half enviously I look
Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,
His toe stubbed -
ay,
his big toe-nail knocked back
Like unto the clasp of an old pocketbook.

Published/Written in 1883
© James Whitcomb Riley

© 2008 photo courtesy L Watts

THE OLD SWIMMIN’ HOLE

© James Whitcomb Riley

OH! the old swimmin’-hole! whare the crick so still and deep

Looked like a baby-river that was laying half asleep,
And the gurgle of the worter round the drift jest below
Sounded like the laugh of something we onc’t ust to know
Before we could remember anything but the eyes
Of the angels lookin’ out as we left Paradise;
But the merry days of youth is beyond our controle,
And it’s hard to part ferever with the old swimmin’-hole.

Oh! the old swimmin’-hole! In the happy days of yore,
When I ust to lean above it on the old sickamore,
Oh! it showed me a face in its warm sunny tide
That gazed back at me so gay and glorified,
It made me love myself, as I leaped to caress
My shadder smilin’ up at me with sich tenderness.
But them days is past and gone, and old Time’s tuck his toll
From the old man come back to the old swimmin’-hole.

Oh! the old swimmin’-hole! In the long, lazy days
When the humdrum of school made so many run-a-ways,
How plesant was the jurney down the old dusty lane,
Whare the tracks of our bare feet was all printed so plane
You could tell by the dent of the heel and the sole
They was lots o’ fun on hands at the old swimmin’-hole.
But the lost joys is past! Let your tears in sorrow roll
Like the rain that ust to dapple up the old swimmin’-hole.

Thare the bullrushes growed, and the cattails so tall,
And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all;
And it mottled the worter with amber and gold
Tel the glad lilies rocked in the ripples that rolled;
And the snake-feeder’s four gauzy wings fluttered by
Like the ghost of a daisy dropped out of the sky,
Or a wownded apple-blossom in the breeze’s controle
As it cut acrost some orchard to’rds the old swimmin’-hole.

Oh! the old swimmin’-hole! When I last saw the place,
The scenes was all changed, like the change in my face;
The bridge of the railroad now crosses the spot
Whare the old divin’-log lays sunk and fergot.
And I stray down the banks whare the trees ust to be–
But never again will theyr shade shelter me!
And I wish in my sorrow I could strip to the soul,
And dive off in my grave like the old swimmin’-hole.

“The Old Swimmin’-Hole” is reprinted from Complete Works. James Whitcomb Riley. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1916.

Little Orphant Annie

© James Whitcomb Riley

INSCRIBED WITH ALL FAITH AND AFFECTION

To all the little children: –
The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones –
Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ‘at Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers,–
An’ when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an’ his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An’ when they turn’t the kivvers down, he wuzn’t there at all!
An’ they seeked him in the rafter-room, an’ cubby-hole, an’ press,
An’ seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an’ ever’-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an’ roundabout:–
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin,
An’ make fun of ever’ one, an’ all her blood-an’-kin;
An’ wunst, when they was “company,” an’ ole folks wuz there,
She mocked ‘em an’ shocked ‘em, an’ said she didn’t care!
An’ thist as she kicked her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin’ by her side,
An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed what she’s about!
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

An’ little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’-bugs in dew is all squenched away,–
You better mind yer parunts, an’ yer teachurs fond an’ dear,
An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,
An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

A partial list of the works of James Whitcomb Riley

Poetry – Partial List

A Life-Lesson
A Noon Interval
A Parting Guest
A Passing Hail
A Poet’s Wooing
A Song of the Road
A Summer Afternoon
At Broad Ripple
Ike Walton’s Prayer
Knee-Deep in June
Liberty
Orlie Wilde
The Harper
The Merman
The Old Guitar
The Old Times Were the Best
The Rapture of the Year
The Ripest Peach
The Song of Yesterday
The Willow
There Was a Cherry-Tree
To a Boy Whistling
Unless
We to Sigh Instead of Sing
Who Bides His Time
Ylladmar
Almost Beyond Endurance
Nine Little Goblins

Complete Works – Partial List

Little Orphant Annie
Our Hired Girl
The Old Swimmin’-Hole
When the Frost is on the Punkin
A Barefoot Boy
Granny
The Bumblebee
The Raggedy Man
Wet-weather Talk

© 2008 oOdles of infOrmation