Riley Child-Rhymes with Hoosier Pictures

Envoy

165 ENVoy mANy pleasures of youth have been buoyantly sung— And, borne on the winds of delight, may they beat With their palpitant wings at the hearts of the young, And in bosoms of Age find as warm a retreat!— yet sweetest of all of the musical throng, Though least of the numbers that upward aspire, is the one rising now into wavering song, As i sit in the silence and gaze in the fire. ’tis a Winter long dead that beleaguers my door And muffles his steps in the snows of the past: And i see, in the embers i’m dreaming before, lost faces of love as they looked on me last:— The round, laughing eyes of the desk-mate of old Gleam out for a moment with truant desire— Then fade and are lost in a City of Gold, As i sit in the silence and gaze in the fire. And then comes the face, peering back in my own, of a shy little girl, with her lids drooping low, As she faltering tells, in a far-away tone, The ghost of a story of long, long ago.— 166 envoy Then her dewy blue eyes they are lifted again; but i see their glad light slowly fail and expire, As i reach and cry to her in vain, all in vain!— As i sit in the silence and gaze in the fire. Then the face of a mother looks back, through the mist of the tears that are welling; and, lucent with light, i see the dear smile of the lips i have kissed As she knelt by my cradle at morning and night; And my arms are outheld, with a yearning too wild For any but God in his love to inspire, As she pleads at the foot of his throne for her child,— As i sit in the silence and gaze in the fire. o pathos of rapture! o glorious pain! my heart is a blossom of joy over-run With a shower of tears, as a lily with rain That weeps in the shadow and laughs in the sun. The blight of the frost may descend on the tree, And the leaf and the flower may fall and expire, but ever and ever love blossoms for me, As i sit in the silence and gaze in the fire. thE FiRSt EDitioN of this book, published by the bobbsmerrill Company of indianapolis, was printed by the letterpress process in 1890 in a two-color (red and black) format, using either stereotype or electrotype plates made from the original linotype and foundry setting. The book was subsequently reprinted from these same plates in 1896, 1898, and 1905. Each printing caused a bit more wear on those printing plates, resulting in some smashed and worn letter shapes on many of the pages. The wash-drawing halftones, done in the copper-plated engraving process, survived better than the type. in 1992, a Commemorative Reprint Edition was published by the Guild Press of indiana. Each individual page of the book was painstakingly photographed by Alexander Graphics, enhancing the old printing where possible, using modern techniques and equipment. it was printed by use of the offset lithography process. For the 2010 edition, all the text has been reset using computer software, giving the poems new life while preserving as far as possible the feeling of the 1905 edition. Great care was taken by Jay’s Publishers Services to scan the halftones and line drawings. The book was composed at indiana University Press and printed by Thomson-Shore. The text face is Caslon, designed by William Caslon and issued by Adobe Systems. ...