Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NAME US NO NAMES NO MORE, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NAME US NO NAMES NO MORE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sing, oh, rarest of roundelays!
Last Line: "taste salt tears in our ""tee-hee-hee""!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Laughter; Names; Singing & Singers; Youth


SING, oh, rarest of roundelays! --
Sing the hilarity and delight
Of our childhood's gurgling, giggling days!
When our eyes were as twinkling-keen and bright
And our laughs as thick as the stars at night,
And our breasts volcanoes of pent hoorays!
When we grouped together in secret mirth
And sniggered at everything on earth --
But specially when strange visitors came
And we learned, for instance, that their name
was Fishback -- or Mothershead -- or Philpott -- or Dalrymple -- or
Fullenwider -- or Applewhite -- or Hunnicut -- or Tubbs -- or Oldshoe!
"'Oldshoe!' -- jeminy-jee!" thinks we --
"Hain't that a funny name! -- tee-hee-hee!"

Barefoot racers from everywhere,
We'd pelt in over the back-porch floor
For "the settin'-room," and cluster there
Like a clot of bees round an apple-core,
And sleeve our noses, and pinafore
Our smearcase-mouths, and slick our hair,
And stare and listen, and try to look
Like "Agnes" does in the old schoolbook, --
Till at last we'd catch the visitor's name, --
Reddinhouse, Lippscomb, or Burlingame, --
or Winkler -- or Smock -- or Tutewiler -- or Daubenspeck -- or Throckmorton --
or Rubottom -- or Bixler --
"'Bixler!' jeminy-jee!" thinks we --
"Hain't that a funny name! -- tee-hee-hee!"

. . . . . . .

Peace! -- Let be! -- Fall away! -- Fetch loose! --
We can't have fun as we had fun then! --
Shut up, Memory! -- what's the use? --
When the girls and boys of 8 and 10
Are now -- well, matronly, or old men,
And Time has (so to say) "cooked our goose"!
But ah! if we only could have back
The long-lost laughs that we now so lack
And so vainly long for, -- how -- we -- could
Naturely wake up the neigh-ber-hood,
over the still heterogenious names ever unrolling from the endless roster of
orthographic actualities, -- such names -- for further instance of good faith --
simply such names as Vanderlip -- or Funkhouser -- or Smoot -- or Galbreath --
or Frybarger -- or Dinwiddie -- or Bouslog -- or Puterbaugh -- or Longnecker --
or Hartpence -- or Wiggins -- or Pangborn -- or Bowersox --
"Bowersox"! Gee! -- But alas! now we
Taste salt tears in our "tee-hee-hee"!





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