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.