The Project Gutenberg eBook, Songs of Friendship, by James Whitcomb Riley,
Illustrated by Will Vawter

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Title: Songs of Friendship

Author: James Whitcomb Riley

Release Date: October 20, 2007 [eBook #23111]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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RILEY SONGS OF FRIENDSHIP

by

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

With Pictures by Will Vawter

[Frontispiece: "Sleep, for thy mother bends over thee yet!"]

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

Copyright 1885, 1887, 1888, 1890,
1892, 1893, 1894, 1900, 1903, 1908,
1913, 1915
James Whitcomb Riley

To

Young E. Allison--Bookman

The bookman he's a humming-bird--
His feasts are honey-fine,--
(With hi! hilloo!
And clover-dew
And roses lush and rare!)
_His_ roses are the phrase and word
Of olden tomes divine;
(With hi! and ho!
And pinks ablow
And posies everywhere!)
The Bookman he's a humming-bird,--
He steals from song to song--
He scents the ripest-blooming rhyme,
And takes his heart along
And sacks all sweets of bursting verse
And ballads, throng on throng.
(With ho! and hey!
And brook and brae,
And brinks of shade and shine!)

A humming-bird the Bookman is--
Though cumbrous, gray and grim,--
(With hi! hilloo!
And honey-dew
And odors musty-rare!)
He bends him o'er that page of his
As o'er the rose's rim.
(With hi! and ho!
And pinks aglow
And roses everywhere!)
Ay, he's the featest humming-bird,
On airiest of wings
He poises pendent o'er the poem
That blossoms as it sings--
God friend him as he dips his beak
In such delicious things!
(With ho! and hey!
And world away
And