The Best of James Whitcomb Riley

The Best of James Whitcomb Riley
Author: James Whitcomb Riley
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 1982
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780253106100

The best-loved poems by the "Hoosier Poet" are here collected to read and cherish time and time again. Included are some of Riley’s most durable and endearing works—poems about nature, home, and country as well as the dialect poems for which Riley is famous.

The Old Soldier's Story

The Old Soldier's Story
Author: James Whitcomb Riley
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
Total Pages: 104
Release: 2024-02-28
Genre: Poetry
ISBN:

Since we have had no stories to-night I will venture, Mr. President, to tell a story that I have heretofore heard at nearly all the banquets I have ever attended. It is a story simply, and you must bear with it kindly. It is a story as told by a friend of us all, who is found in all parts of all countries, who is immoderately fond of a funny story, and who, unfortunately, attempts to tell a funny story himself—one that he has been particularly delighted with. Well, he is not a story-teller, and especially he is not a funny story-teller. His funny stories, indeed, are oftentimes touchingly pathetic. But to such a story as he tells, being a good-natured man and kindly disposed, we have to listen, because we do not want to wound his feelings by telling him that we have heard that story a great number of times, and that we have heard it ably told by a great number of people from the time we were children. But, as I say, we can not hurt his feelings. We can not stop him. We can not kill him; and so the story generally proceeds.