Produced by David Edwards, Therese Wright and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) RUBÁIYÁT OF DOC SIFERS BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY Other Books by James Whitcomb Riley POEMS HERE AT HOME. NEGHBORLY POEMS. SKETCHES IN PROSE AND OCCASIONAL VERSES. AFTERWHILES. PIPES O' PAN (Prose and Verse). RHYMES OF CHILDHOOD. FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT. OLD-FASHIONED ROSES (English Edition). GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS. ARMAZINDY. A CHILD-WORLD. AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE. [Illustration] --------------------------- RUBÁIYÁT OF DOC SIFERS BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY --------------------------- ILLUSTRATED BY C. M. RELYEA [Illustration] PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. NEW YORK M DCCC XC VII Copyright, 1897, BY THE CENTURY CO. Copyright, 1897, BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY THE DE VINNE PRESS. TO DR. FRANKLIN W. HAYS THE LOYAL CHUM OF MY LATEST YOUTH AND LIKE FRIEND AND COMRADE STILL WITH ALL GRATEFUL AFFECTION OF THE AUTHOR. _We found him in that Far-away_ _that yet to us seems near--_ _We vagrants of but yesterday_ _when idlest youth was here,--_ _When lightest song and laziest mirth_ _possessed us through and through,_ _And all the dreamy summer-earth_ _seemed drugged with morning dew:_ _When our ambition scarce had shot_ _a stalk or blade indeed:_ _Yours,--choked as in the garden-spot_ _you still deferred to "weed":_ _Mine,--but a pipe half-cleared of pith--_ _as now it flats and whines_ _In sympathetic cadence with_ _a hiccough in the lines._ _Aye, even then--O timely hour!--_ _the High Gods did confer_ _In our behalf:--And, clothed in power,_ _lo, came their Courier--_ _Not winged with flame nor shod with wind,--_ _but ambling down the pike_, _Horseback, with saddlebags behind,_ _and guise all human-like._ _And it was given us to see,_ _beneath his rustic rind,_ _A native force and mastery_ _of such inspiring kind,_ _That half unconsciously we made_ _obeisance.--Smiling, thus_ _His soul shone from his eyes and laid_ _its glory over us._ * * * * * _Though, faring still that Far-away_ _that yet to us seems near,_ _His form, through mists of yesterday,_ _fades from the vision here,_ _Forever as he rides, it is_ _in retinue divine,--_ _The hearts of all his time are his,_ _with your hale heart and mine._ [Illustration] RUBÁIYÁT OF DOC SIFERS BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY [Illustration] RUBÁIYÁT OF DOC SIFERS I