Three sonnets

"When June is Here," "Pan," and "Silence"

Author

By James Whitcomb Riley

Publish Date

June 6, 2018

You know you've made it as a poet when your creation has not only become a beloved fixture of American pop culture, but has also been used to sell merchandise.

When June Is Here

When June is here—what art have we to sing
The whiteness of the lilies midst the green
Of noon-tranced lawns? Or flash of roses seen
Like redbirds’ wings? Or earliest ripening
Prince-Harvest apples, where the cloyed bees cling
Round winey juices oozing down between
The peckings of the robin, while we lean
In under-grasses, lost in marveling.
Or the cool term of morning, and the stir
Of odorous breaths from wood and meadow walks,
The bobwhite’s liquid yodel, and the whir
Of sudden flight; and, where the milkmaid talks
Across the bars, on tilted barley-stalks
The dewdrops’ glint in webs of gossamer.

Pan

Sponsored

This Pan is but an idle god, I guess,
Since all the fair midsummer of my dreams
He loiters listlessly by woody streams,
Soaking the lush glooms up with laziness;
Or drowsing while the maiden-winds caress
Him prankishly, and powder him with gleams
Of sifted sunshine. And he ever seems
Drugged with a joy unutterable—unless
His low pipes whistle hints of it far out
Across the ripples to the dragon-fly
That like a wind-born blossom blown about,
Drops quiveringly down, as though to die—
Then lifts and wavers on, as if in doubt
Whether to fan his wings or fly without.

Silence

Thousands of thousands of hushed years ago,
Out on the edge of Chaos, all alone
I stood on peaks of vapor, high upthrown
Above a sea that knew nor ebb nor flow,
Nor any motion won of winds that blow,
Nor any sound of watery wail or moan,
Nor lisp of wave, nor wandering undertone
Of any tide lost in the night below.
So still it was, I mind me, as I laid
My thirsty ear against mine own faint sigh
To drink of that, I sipped it, half afraid
‘Twas but the ghost of a dead voice spilled by
The one starved star that tottered through the shade
And came tiptoeing toward me down the sky.

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) was an American poet, known during his lifetime as the “Hoosier Poet.” A native of Indiana, Riley was immensely popular during his lifetime and achieved the rare feat of becoming wealthy from his poetry. His verse for children was his most popular, and it was on this verse that his fortune, if not his fame, rested during his lifetime. He was one of the first poets to establish a cultural identity in the Midwest, and he wrote many of his poems in a Midwestern dialect. He is best known for two poems: “Little Orphant Annie,” which was the inspiration for the popular comic strip “Little Orphan Annie,” and “The Raggedy Man,” which was the inspiration for the Raggedy Ann doll.