Explore "An Old Friend" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Hey, Old Midsummer! are you here again, / With all your harvest-store of olden joys, -- / Vast overhanging meadow-lands of rain, / And drowsy dawns, and noons when golden grain / Nods in the sun, and lazy truant boys / Drift ever listlessly adown the day, / Too full of joy to rest, and dreams to play.
The same old Summer, with the same old smile / Beaming upon us in the same old way / We knew in childhood! Though a weary while / Since that far time, yet memories reconcile / The heart with odorous breaths of clover hay; / And again I hear the doves, and the sun streams through / The old barn door just as it used to do.
And so it seems like welcoming a friend -- / An old, OLD friend, upon his coming home / From some far country -- coming home to spend / Long, loitering days with me: And I extend / My hand in rapturous glee: -- And so you've come! -- / Ho, I'm so glad! Come in and take a chair: / Well, this is just like OLD times, I declare!