Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BACK FROM TOWN, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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First Line: Old friends allus is the best
Last Line: And shake a friendly leg with me!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Friendship; Home; Winter


OLD friends allus is the best,
Halest-like and heartiest:
Knowed us first, and don't allow
We're so blame much better now!
They was standin' at the bars
When we grabbed "the kivvered kyars"
And lit out fer town, to make
Money -- and that old mistake!

We thought then the world we went
Into beat "The Settlement,"
And the friends 'at we'd make there
Would beat any anywhere! --
And they do -- fer that's their biz:
They beat all the friends they is --
'Cept the raal old friends like you
'At staid at home, like I'd ort to!

W'y, of all the good things yit
I ain't shet of, is to quit
Business, and git back to sheer
These old comforts waitin' here --
These old friends; and these old hands
'At a feller understands;
These old winter nights, and old
Young-folks chased in out the cold!

Sing "Hard Times'll come ag'in
No More!" and neighbers all jine in!
Here's a feller come from town
Wants that-air old fiddle down
From the chimbly! -- Git the floor
Cleared fer one cowtillion more! --
It's poke the kitchen fire, says he,
And shake a friendly leg with me!





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