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James Whitcomb Riley Quotes

1849–1916 United States

James Whitcomb Riley (Greenfield, Indiana, October 7, 1849 – July 22, 1916) was an American writer and poet. Known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the "Children's Poets," he started his career in 1875 writing newspaper verse in Indiana dialect for the Indianapolis Journal.

United States
19th-century poets
Poets

Also known as: Riley, James Whitcomb

Random James Whitcomb Riley quote

7 quotes

The ripest peach is highest on the tree.

O’er folded blooms,
On swirls of musk,
The beetle booms adown the glooms
And bumps along the dusk.

Old-Fashioned Roses (1889)

Just the wee cot—the cricket's chirr—
Love and the smiling face of her.

One naked star has waded through
The purple shadows of the night,
And faltering as falls the dew
It drips its misty light.

Old-Fashioned Roses (1889)

An’ the Gobble-uns ’ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

Old-Fashioned Roses (1889)

Say good-bye er howdy-do—
What's the odds betwixt the two?
Comin'—goin'—every day—
Best friends first to go away—
Grasp of hands you'd ruther hold
Than their weight in solid gold,
Slips their grip while greetin' you,—
Say good-bye er howdy-do?

As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till in shadowy design
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: James Whitcomb Riley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.