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James Whitcomb Riley - Wash Lowry`s Reminiscence
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And you`re the poet of this concern?
    I`ve seed your name in print
A dozen times, but I`ll be dern
    I`d `a` never `a` took the hint
O` the size you are--fer I`d pictured you
    A kind of a tallish man--
Dark-complected and sallor too,
    And on the consumpted plan.

`Stid o` that you`re little and small,
    With a milk-and-water face--
`Thout no snap in your eyes at all,
    Er nothin` to suit the case!
Kind o`look like a--I don`t know--
    One o` these fair-ground chaps
That runs a thingamajig to blow,
    Er a candy-stand perhaps.

`Ll I`ve allus thought that poetry
    Was a sort of a--some disease--
Fer I knowed a poet once, and he
    Was techy and hard to please,
And moody-like, and kindo` sad
    And didn`t seem to mix
With other folks--like his health was bad,
    Er his liver out o` fix.

Used to teach fer a livelihood--
    There`s folks in Pipe Crick yit
Remembers him--and he was good
    At cipherin` I`ll admit--
And posted up in G`ography
    But when it comes to tact,
And gittin` along with the school, you see,
    He fizzled, and that`s a fact!

Boarded with us fer fourteen months
    And in all that time I`ll say
We never catched him a-sleepin` once
    Er idle a single day.
But shucks!  It made him worse and worse
    A-writin` rhymes and stuff,
And the school committee used to furse
    `At the school warn`t good enough.

He warn`t as strict as he ought to been,
    And never was known to whip,
Or even to keep a scholard in
    At work at his penmanship;
`Stid o` that he`d learn `em notes,
    And have `em every day,
Spilin` hymns and a-splittin` th`oats
    With his "Do-sol-fa-me-ra!"

Tel finally it was jest agreed
    We`d have to let him go,
And we all felt bad--we did indeed,
    When we come to tell him so;
Fer I remember, he turned so white,
    And smiled so sad, somehow,
I someway felt it wasn`t right,
    And I`m shore it wasn`t now!

He hadn`t no complaints at all--
    He bid the school adieu,
And all o` the scholards great and small
    Was mighty sorry too!
And when he closed that afternoon
    They sung some lines that he
Had writ a purpose, to some old tune
    That suited the case, you see.

And then he lingered and delayed
    And wouldn`t go away--
And shet himself in his room and stayed
    A-writin` from day to day;
And kep` a-gittin` stranger still,
    And thinner all the time,
You know, as any feller will
    On nothin` else but rhyme.

He didn`t seem adzactly right,
    Er like he was crossed in love,
He`d work away night after night,
    And walk the floor above;
We`d hear him read and talk, and sing
    So lonesome-like and low,
My woman`s cried like ever`thing--
    `Way in the night, you know.

And when at last he tuck to bed
    He`d have his ink and pen;
"So`s he could coat the muse" he said,
    "He`d die contented then";
And jest before he past away
    He read with dyin` gaze
The epitaph that stands to-day
    To show you where he lays.

And ever sence then I`ve allus thought
    That poetry`s some disease,
And them like you that`s got it ought
    To watch their q`s and p`s ;
And leave the sweets of rhyme, to sup
    On the wholesome draughts of toil,
And git your health recruited up
    By plowin` in rougher soil.
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