Explore "The Guide. Imitated" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
We rode across the level plain -- / We -- my sagacious guide and I. -- / He knew the earth -- the air -- the sky; / He knew when it would blow or rain, / And when the weather would be dry: / The blended blades of grass spake out / To him when Redskins were about; / The wagon tracks would tell him too, / The very day that they rolled through: / He knew their burden -- whence they came -- / If any horse along were lame, / And what its owner ought to do; / He knew when it would snow; he knew, / By some strange intuition, when / The buffalo would overflow / The prairies like a flood, and then / Recede in their stampede again. / He knew all things -- yea, he did know / The brand of liquor in my flask, / And many times did tilt it up, / Nor halt or hesitate one whit, / Nor pause to slip the silver cup / From off its crystal base, nor ask / Why I preferred to drink from it.
And more and more I plied him, and / Did query of him o'er and o'er, / And seek to lure from him the lore / By which the man did understand / These hidden things of sky and land: / And, wrought upon, he sudden drew / His bridle -- wheeled, and caught my hand -- / Pressed it, as one that loved me true, / And bade me listen.