DAVE FIELD by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

LET me write you a rune of a rhyme, Dave Field,
For the sake of the past we knew,
When we were vagrants along the road,
Yet glad as the skies were blue;
When we struck hands, as in alien lands
Old friend to old friend is revealed,
And each hears a tongue that he understands
And a laugh that he loves, Dave Field.

Ho! let me chant you a stave, Dave Field,
Of those indolent days of ours,
With our chairs atilt at the wayside inn
Or our backs in the woodland flowers;
With your pipe alit, and the breath of it
Like a nimbus about your head,
While I sipped, like a monk, of your winy wit,
With my matins all unsaid.

Let me drone you a dream of the world, Dave Field,
And the glory it held for us --
You with your pencil-and-canvas dreams,
And I with my pencil thus;
Yet with never a thought of the prize we sought,
Being at best but a pain,
As we looked from the heights and our blurred eyes caught
The scenes of our youth again.

Oh, let me sing you a song, Dave Field,
Jolly and hale, but yet
With a quaver of pathos along the lines,
And the throb of a vain regret; --
A sigh for the dawn long dead and gone,
But a laugh for the dawn concealed,
As bravely a while we still toil on
Toward the topmost heights, Dave Field.

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