After remaining with that patent medicine doctor for about a year, Riley, in conjunction with a halfdozen companions of his own age, organized their so-called Graphic Company. This combination traveled all over Indiana on a sign-painting tour lasting four or five years, and its members netted considerable profits. During these trips, however, Mr. Riley was continually writing poetry, and at last he obtained a position on a weekly paper at Anderson, Ind. His duties were to collect local news and to canvass for advertisements and for subscriptions. He used to transform the regular advertisements of the paper into catchy rhymes, a feature that proved immensely popular. It was not Riley's ambition, however, to waste his mental effort upon the barren air of a rustic periodical, so he was constantly submitting his more pretentious efforts to leading magazines and as constantly having them rejected. con His Riley was somewhat handicapped at Anderson, owing to the enmity of a rival paper that was constantly ridiculing him, stigmatizing him as a poetaster. Riley had fidence that his poetry was equal to the effusions that were lauded so highly by the other paper, and he resolved to lay a snare for it. He wrote a careful imitation of Edgar Allan Poe, which he had published in a neighboring journal, under the title of "Leonainie." plan was to criticise the poem in his own paper and induce his confrère to believe it a posthumous effort of Poe. This was a false step, for the press of the whole country took the matter up and censured him severely for "duplicity and dishonest efforts to gain notoriety," a charge far from Riley's real motive. The furore raised by this venture was so great that it cost Riley his position on the Anderson paper. Just when his literary horizon was most beclouded, Judge E. B. Martindale, of the Indianapolis Journal, to which Riley had occasionally contributed, offered him an editorial position. About the same time he received a most encouraging letter from Henry W. Longfellow, to whom he had ventured to send some of his verses. These two events, coming at what Mr. Riley considers the darkest period of his life, gave him new courage and enthusiasm. In the Journal he published that series known as the "Benjamin F. Johnson" poems, supposedly written by an old fariner from Boone County. These proved so popular that Riley determined to issue them collectively; so, in 1875, the first edition of his first book-"The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems," made its appearance. Riley was his own publisher and mailingclerk, until the demand for his book occupied so much of his time that he arranged with The Bowen-Merrill Co. to take charge of it and of all future books. As a writer Riley has been prolific, his published works comprising ten volumes of verse and one of prose sketches. They are "Neighborly Poems" (1883), thirty-six poems in Hoosier dialect, including "The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems;" "Poems Here at Home" (1883), about fifty poems, dialect, humorous and serious; "Afterwhiles" (1887), sixty-two poems. and sonnets, of a serious, humorous, and dialect nature; "Pipes o' Pan" (1888), fifty poems and five prose sketches; "Old-Fashioned Roses" (1889), an English publication of sixty-one selected poems; "Rhymes of Childhood" (1890), probably his best, containing 102 dialect and serious poems of child-life; "The Flying Islands of the Night" (1891), a fantastic drama in verse; "Sketches in Prose" (1891), twelve stories, each prefaced by a poem; "Green Fields and Running Brooks" (1892), 102 poems and sonnets of a general nature; “Armazindy" (1894), general in character; and "A Child-World " (1896), a continuous narrative in verse, of child-lore, old-home delights, and happenings in the early life of the author. In the narrative proper Riley has ingeniously introduced several lyrics varied in character and in versification. One thoroughly characteristic and throbbing with human sentiment is the following: "The Child-heart is so strange a little thing So mild-so timorously shy and small,When grown-up hearts throb, it goes scampering Behind the wall, nor dares peer out at all! So wild a little thing is any Child-heart! "So lorn at times the Child-heart needs must be, With never one maturer heart for friend And comrade, whose tear-ripened sympathy And love might lend it comfort to the end, Whose yearnings, aches, and stings, Were pitiful as ever any Child-heart. 'Come up here to me out o' the dark, Or let me come to you! "Times, too, the little Child-heart must be glad Being so young, nor knowing, as we know, The fact from fantasy, the good from bad, The joy from woe, the-all that hurts us so! What wonder, then, that thus So weak a little thing is any Child-heart! "Child-heart! mild heart! Nay, little Child-heart, you have never need To fear us; we are weaker far than you. 'Tis we who should be fearful; we, indeed, Should hide us, too, as darkly as you do, Safe, as yourself, withdrawn, Hearing the world roar on, Too wilful, woful, awful for the Childheart! "Child-heart! mild heart! Another exquisite lyric is: "While the heart beats young! O the splendor of the spring, With all her dewy jewels on, is not so fair a thing! The fairest, rarest morning of the blossomtime of May Is not so sweet a season as the season of today While youth's diviner climate folds and holds us, close caressed, As we feel our mothers with us by the touch of face and breast; Our bare feet in the meadows, and our fancies up among The airy clouds of morning--while the heart beats young. "While the heart beats young and our pulses leap and dance, With every day a holiday and life a glad By fervor of the poem, all unwritten and unsung, Thou givest us in answer, while the heart beats young." As already remarked, Riley's poems and prose sketches, almost without exception, make excellent recitations. Prior to 1888 they were not much drawn upon by reciters, but were it possible to compile statistics since that date, we would warrant that one-half of Riley's fame is due to his pieces having been read in public. The following list of selections are named in the order of their popularity according to statistics compiled by us: First and way in advance is "The Elf-Child," "Little Orphant Annie" or "The Goblins," as it has variously been called. Then comes "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," one of the daintiest, tenderest poems ever written, even though its author is a bachelor. Then follow "The Raggedy Man," "Prior to Miss Belle's Appearance,' "KneeDeep in June," "The Old Man and Jim," "Our Hired Girl" (some reciters combine this and "The Raggedy Man," making one selection of the whole), "The Runaway," "A Life Lesson" (also set to music), (also set to music), "Waitin' fer the Cat to Die," "The Happy Little Cripple" (sometimes called "Curv'ture of the Spine"), and "Out to Old Aunt Mary's." The original of "The Happy Little Cripple" was a little girl named Mary, whom Riley saw at an out-ofthe way town where he once gave a reading. Her bright eyes, rapt attention, and the story of her life made a profound impression on the poet. In writing out the piece, however, he changed the sex and a few other particulars. Riley himself never reads this poem in public now because on one occasion it gave such offence to some of his auditors that many left the hall. Difficult indeed is discrimination between the pieces of such an author as Riley; but the following may be mentioned as a few of the many selections that make capital, popular recitations: "A Canary at the Farm," "Decoration Day on the Place," "Granny," "When Old Jack Died," "The Chant of the CrossBearing Child," "My Fiddle," "At Aunty's House," "She Displains It, "The Fishing Party," "So I Got to Thinkin' on Her, "Old-Fashioned Roses," "Lost," "The Boss Girl," "That Air Young-un," "When the World Busts Through," "At Griggsby's Station," by's Station," "When the Frost is on the Punkin," "What Christmas Brought the Wiggenses." For some years Riley gave readings from his own works, but he retired from the platform a short time ago and has refused the most flattering offers to return-even one from New York for four recitals at $250 each. His last appearance in New York was about two years ago when he read at Chickering Hall, conjunctively with Mark Twain and Douglas Shirley, the Southern poet. Mr. Riley's lecture-recitals with the late Bill Nye were very successful. James Whitcomb Riley occupies a unique and undisputed niche in the world of letters. As a poet of nature and of man he stands preeminent. His message is from the heart to the heart, and his verse will always engender new sympathy and closer fraternal relations among men. As we read or listen to his sentiments, we forget our vexations and our griefs, the wrinkles in our pathway are smoothed out, and for the time being, at least, life approaches its ideal of "one grand, sweet song." 2 AND DECLAMATION [In entering upon this department for the new year, it may not be amiss to glance at some of its benefits to subscribers during the one just closed. In 1896 we published 179 selections-in other words, material enough for four recitation books. We strove to meet the requirements of all classes of reciters and teachers, and we are gratified to see that our efforts are meeting with such wide and immediate recognition,-over ninety pieces being now included in reciters' repertoires. Subscribers are constantly availing themselves of our offer to publish recitations for them, but it would help out immeasurably if they would make their descriptions as full as possible, giving the name of the selection, author, what it deals with, etc. In these days when it is a trick of the elocutionary trade to change the names of recitations, and where there are so many pieces of the same name and character, it is rather difficult to know just which one the subscriber means. Those who admired Walt Whitman's "O Captain, My Captain," which appeared last May, will be glad to see an equally heartfelt poem from the same pen--" A Letter from Camp." "Martin Relph" is one of the less obscure Browning selections. The holiday pieces are "A Legend of St. Valentine's," a charming society monologue for a man; "How Cupid Got His Bow;" "When Washington was President," humorous, for a small boy; "The Martyr Spy." Humor is represented by "Mr. Brown Has His Hair Cut," " Mickey Finn's Spartacus," "The Correction Box." If any subscriber will inform us what piece (not already in any of our publications) he would like published, we will comply, or else inform him why we can not do so. We intend to have this Department thoroughly up to date, and adequate to the wants of our subscribers. EDITOR.] IF F I last as long as Methuselah I shall But-God forgive me, that I pray, unhappy As coward, coward I call him-him, yes, Get you behind the man I am now, you What can have sewed my mouth up, set me there is the cap which fits! So, cap me, the coward, -thus! No fear! See now, there certainly seems excuse: For For, every day that is first of May, on the fool. No fool, friends, since the bite Of a worm inside is worse to bear. Pray God I have balked him quite! I'll tell you. Certainly much excuse! It Here's a quarrel that sets the land on What call has a man of your kind-much verse. "Is the counsel hard to follow? I gave it you plainly a month ago, And where was the good? The rebels have Not a month since in we quietly marched. Only, I catch a letter by luck, and capture Some of you men look black enough, but "Is it 'Dearie, how much I miss your pens? Some sprinkle of that, for a blind, of course: with talk about cocks and hens, How robin has built on the apple-tree, and our creeper which came to grief Through the frost, we feared, is twining afresh round casement in famous leaf.' "But all for a blind! She soon glides frank into Horrid the place is grown With officers here and privates there, no nook we may call our own. And Farmer Giles has a tribe to house, and lodging will be to seek For the second company sure to come ('tis whispered) on Monday week.' "And so to the end of the chapter! There! The murder, you see, was out. Easy to guess how the change of mind in the rebels was brought about! Safe in the trap would they now lie snug, had treachery made no sign; But treachery meets a just reward, no matter if fools malign! That traitors had played us false was proved-sent news which fell so pat; And the murder was out-this letter of love, the sender of this sent that! 'Tis an ugly job, though, all the same-a hateful, to have to deal With a case of the kind; when a woman's in fault, we soldiers need nerves of steel! "So, I gave her a chance, despatched posthaste a message to Vincent Parkes, Whom she wrote to. Easy to find he was, since one of the King's own clerks, Ay, kept by the King's own gold in the town close by the rebels' camp A sort of a lawyer, just the man to betray our sort the scamp! "If her writing is simple and honest and only the lover-like stuff it looks, And if you yourself are a loyalist, nor down in the rebels' books, Come quick,' said I, and in person prove you are each of you clear of crime, Or martial law must take its course. This day next week's the time!' "Next week is now. Does he come? Not he! Clean gone, our clerk, in a trice! He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch. No need of a warning twice! His own neck free, but his partner's fast in the noose still, here she stands To pay for her fault. 'Tis an ugly job, but soldiers obey commands. "And hearken wherefore I make a speech! Should any acquaintance share The folly that led to the fault that is now to be punished, let fools beware! Look black, if you please, but keep hands white, and, above all else, keep wivesOr sweethearts or what they may be-from ink! Not a word now, on your l r lives!" Black? But the Pit's own pitch was white to the captain's face-the brute With the bloated cheeks and the bulgy nose and the bloodshot eyes to suit! He was muddled with wine, they say; more like, he was out of his wits with fear. He had but a handful of men, that's true,a riot might cost him dear. And all that time stood Rosamund Page, with pinioned arms and face Bandaged about, on the turf marked out for the party's firing-place. I hope she was wholly with God. I hope 'twas His angel stretched a hand To steady her so, like the shape of stone you see in our church-aisle stand. I hope there was no vain fancy pierced the bandage to vex her eyes, No face within which she missed without, no questions and no replies"Why did you leave me to die?"Oh, fiends, too soon you cause grin Be At merely a moment of hell, like that— such heaven as hell ended in! Let mine end, too. He gave the word, up went the guns in a line. Those heaped on the hill were blind as dumb,-for, of all eyes, only mine Looked over the heads of the foremost rank. Some fell on their knees in prayer, Some sank to the earth, but all shut eyes, with a sole exception there. That was myself, who had stolen up last, had sidled behind the group. I am highest of all on the hill-top, there stand fixed while the others stoop; From head to foot in a serpent's twine am I tightened. I touch ground? No more than a gibbet's rigid corpse which the fetters rust around! |