Explore "A Wrangdillion" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Dexery-tethery! down in the dike, / Under the ooze and the slime, / Nestles the wraith of a reticent Gryke, / Blubbering bubbles of rhyme: / Though the reeds touch him and tickle his teeth -- / Though the Graigroll and the Cheest / Pluck at the leaves of his laureate-wreath, / Nothing affects him the least.
He sinks to the dregs in the dead o' the night, / And he shuffles the shadows about / As he gathers the stars in a nest of delight / And sets there and hatches them out: / The Zhederrill peers from his watery mine / In scorn with the Will-o'-the-wisp, / As he twinkles his eyes in a whisper of shine / That ends in a luminous lisp.
The Morning is born like a baby of gold, / And it lies in a spasm of pink, / And rallies the Cheest for the horrible cold / He has dragged to the willowy brink, / The Gryke blots his tears with a scrap of his grief, / And growls at the wary Graigroll / As he twunkers a tune on a Tiljicum leaf / And hums like a telegraph pole.