THE NINE LITTLE GOBLINS
by James Whitcomb Riley

They all climbed up on a high board-fence—
Nine little goblins, with green-glass eyes—
Nine little goblins that had no sense,
And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies;
And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat—
And I asked them what they were staring at.

And the first one said, as he scratched his head
With a queer little arm that reached out of his ear
And rasped its claws in his hair so red—
"This is what this little arm is fer!"
And he scratched and stared, and the next one said,
"How on earth do you scratch your head ?"

And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge—
Laughed and laughed till his face grew black;
And when he choked, with a final twinge
Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back
With a fist that grew on the end of his tail
Till the breath came back to his lips so pale.

And the third little goblin leered round at me—
And there were no lids on his eyes at all,—
And he clucked one eye, and he says, says he,
"What is the style of your socks this fall?"
And he clapped his heels—and I sighed to see
That he had hands where his feet should be.

Then a bald-faced goblin, gray and grim,
Bowed his head, and I saw him slip
His eyebrows off, as I looked at him,
And paste them over his upper lip;
And then he moaned in remorseful pain—
"Would—Ah, would I'd me brows again!"

And then the whole of the goblin band
Rocked on the fence-top to and fro,
And clung, in a long row, hand in hand,
Singing the songs that they used to know—
Singing the songs that their grandsires sung
In the goo-goo days of the goblin-tongue.

And ever they kept their green-glass eyes
Fixed on me with a stony stare—
Till my own grew glazed with a dread surmise,
And my hat whooped up on my lifted hair,
And I felt the heart in my breast snap to,
As you've heard the lid of a snuff-box do.

And they sang: "You're asleep! There is no boardfence,
And never a goblin with green-glass eyes!—
'Tis only a vision the mind invents
After a supper of cold mince pies.—
And you're doomed to dream this way," they said, —
"And you sha'nt wake up till you're clean plum dead!"

OLD OCTOBER
by James Whitcomb Riley

Old October's purt' nigh gone,
And the frosts is comin' on
Little heavier every day—
Like our hearts is thataway!
Leaves is changin' overhead
Back from green, to gray and red,
Brown, and yeller, with their stems
Loosenin' on the oaks and e'ms;
And the balance of the trees
Gittin' balder every breeze —
Like the heads we're scratchin' on!
Old October's purt' nigh gone.

I love Old October so,
I can't bear to see her go —
Seems to me like losin' some
Old-home relative, er chum —
'Pears like sorto' settin' by
Some old friend 'at sigh by sigh
Was a-passin' out o' sight
Into everlastin' night!
Hickernuts a feller hears
Eattlin' down is more like tears
Drappin' on the leaves below —
I love Old October so!

Can't tell what it is about
Old October knocks me out! —
I sleep well enough at night —
And the blamedest appetite
Ever mortal man possessed,—
Last thing et, it tastes the best! —
Warnuts, butternuts, pawpaws,
Iles and limbers up my jaws
Fer raal service, sich as new
Pork, spareribs, and sausage, too.—
Yit, fer all, they's somepin' 'bout
Old October knocks me out! 

A ROSE IN OCTOBER
by James Whitcomb Riley

I

I strayed, all alone, where the Autumn
Had swept, in her petulant wrath:
All the flowers, that had bloomed in the garden,
She had gathered, and flung in her path.
And I saw the dead face of the lily,
Struck down, by the rain, and the sleet,
And the pink, with her lashes yet weeping,
Drooped low in the dust, at my feet.

II

The leaves on the branches still swinging,
Were blanched with the crimson of death;
And the vines that still clung to the trellis,
Were palsied, and shook at a breath.

III

"Heigho!" said a voice of low laughter—
"How blind are you poets !" And there,
At the gate, just in front of me, leaning,
Stood Rosalind May, I declare!
I stammered, confused, for the moment;
But was blest for the rest of my life,
For my Rose of October there promised
She'd bloom for me aye, as—my wife.