16 Riley Bio

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT
by Thomas Earl Williams with primary illustrations by Katherine Kuonen and the great assistance of Robert Tinsley with Riley artifacts, Copyright, 1997, Thomas Earl Williams

Some says the crops is ruined, and the corn's drownded out, And propha-sy the wheat will be a failure, without doubt; But the kind Providence that has never failed us yet, Will be on hands onc't more at the Veventh hour, I bet! Does the medder-lark complane, as he swims high and dry Through the waves of the wind and the blue of the sky? Does the quail set up and whissel in a disappinted way, Er hang his head in silunce, and sorrow all the day?

Is they anything the matter with the rooster's' lungs er voice? Ort a mortal be complanin' when dumb animals rejoice?

The June is here this morning, and the sun is shining hot. Oh! let us fill our harts up with the glory of the day, And banish ev'ry doubt and care and sorrow fur away! Whatever be our station, with Providence fer guide, Sich fine circumstances ort to make us satisfied; Fer the world is full of roses, and the roses full of dew,

1. Nothing was so sure to a Hoosier, as the rooster's cry as the sun arose in the morning. Brahma chickens were the popular breed of the Nineteenth Century because they were meaty and survived long Hoosier winters with minimal attention.

This poem centers on a special mind which acknowledges God's descent from ultimate being into flesh. This mind bears the peace of God and withstands discouragement and depression. Riley cultivated this mind not only to overcome his own discouragement and depression but also to write a poetry of that "mind." It is a state of content at being in the form of humanity subject to degradation. Crestillomeem had drug him down into this degradation and the mind of Christ set him free. To the kenotic, Christ halted the influx of His own life with God, not to dissolve the mutual indwelling of God with God's child, but rather to participate in life as a human. The state of mind further acknowledges that Christ changed equality with God into a state of dependence and need. God would know that this farmer of Riley's poem needed his crops so everything would turn out just fine. "With

Providence fer guide, Sich fine circumstances ort to make us satisfied," the farmer thinks. The Incarnation was God becoming flesh to know what was necessary.

"Thoughts for a Discouraged Farmer," was a favorite poem of James Whitcomb Riley through the coming years. In 1909, the same year Riley suffered a stroke that left his right hand "cold," he was asked to be the guest of honor at a reunion group's meeting in Indianapolis. It was the first meeting of the "Hancock County Society" and Riley was asked to recite one of his poems. The one he chose to recite was "Thoughts for a Discouraged Farmer." Audiences had loved this poem for over a quarter of a century.

That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled mumblingly, Because he wet the film

A Hoosier meadow. Oliver Wendell Holmes. the great jurist, and lover of Riley poetry once lauded Riley's great enthusiasm about "Indiana soil," and called him the "delineator of lowly humanity who sings with so much fervor, pathos. humor and grace.-

The poet Riley proposed a kenotic view of nature which differed markedly from the "tooth and claw" picture of it posed by the social Darwinists of his time. Nature was not an environmental selector of those who might survive to reproduce and increase a species differentiating genetic pool. Nature was simply the situation as was humanity itself- situs of humanity's habitation. From the beginning of history, humanity has long to understand the dim cave in which the human shadow is cast and have searched for signs of it in nature. The kenotics proposed that nature was a place, however temporary, for rest rather than struggle for survival. Natural setting, the environment, was intended to nurture, feed and house a humanity in the quest of a life of service. It is intentional human nature, as happened with Christ, that one hunger, thirst, sleep, and feel weariness, and the function of nature out of the bounty of God's love to provide relief. Just as heaven is a place of rest, so is the earth. As the kenotic Lutheran theologian Chemnitz proposed, the natural situation of humanity in nature is merely a mix of "visibility, tangibility, and existence in loco" and in a natural setting with the same essential chemistry which through accidence became the body of Christ. The substance of nature was the same matter which became the natural humanity which Christ received from the Virgin Mary, having hands, feet, sides, flesh, bones in which body Christ chose to ascend into heaven and will return in jugment as he was seen to ascend in the kenotic view.

Another poem, almost as illustrative of Riley's kenoticism of this period, is Riley's "A Hymn of Faith."

From the author's Ora Myers glass negative collection of Hancock County. Indiana subjects

Poured out its floods on them
That watched and waited fer the One
Then borned in Bethlyham.

Made noonday of the night, Whilse other stars that looked at it Was envious with delight.

From the author's Ora Myers glass negati\ c collection of Hancock County, Indiana subjects

From ev'ry clime so fare;

0, sinner, think of that glad crowd That congergated thare!

They was content to fall in ranks

With One that knowed the way
From good old Jurden's stormy banks

Clean up to Jedgmunt Day.

No matter, then, how all is mixed
In our near-sighted eyes,

All things is fer the best, and fixed Out straight in Paradise.

From the author's Ora Myers glass negative collection 01 Hancock County. Indiana subjects

Nineteenth Century kenotic ideas saw the possibility of personal participation in Godly life no matter what he or she faced. The example was the life image of Christ, a genuinely human personality. This Christ was Jesus, the man, born in "Bethlyham." Nevertheless though Jesus was a human being, God was also ill Him so there was relief for the kenotic "Ef storms and tempusts dred to see\Makes black the heavens ore." Conditions faced by humanity were within a scheme of salvation of a Christ in a peculiar loving relation to God. There was no need to fear a life for love was the motive of the Incarnation and love was the sole measure of its depth. Riley's point in

HYMB OF FAITH" is to adopt God's free relation to the world and accept the world's situation because God did and yet see through the world to adopt its essential attributes centering on a love perspective. The vulnerable human relates to the human incarnate God spiritually but confidently through instinctive faith. Belief comes because it is impelled by the human

condition to seek clear fulfillment withheld from mortal life. We have no confident assurance through ourselves but we have it through the relationship of God when on earth to God. We have no authority by ourselves to evaluate as among ourselves, except as we have the capacity from God, who qualifies us in a new agreement, not written down, but instinctively. From Riley's "We Must Believe,"

It was the "foolishness" done of God in becoming Incarnate that gives the ultimate knowing about God from a Nineteenth Century kenotic point of view. This "foolishness" avoided a robbery by Christ of God's love but made it available to a degraded humanity.

MY PHILOSOFY (1882)

I ain't, ner don't p'tend to be, Much posted on philosofy;

But thare is times, when all alone, I work out idees of my own. And of these same there is a few I'd like to jest refer to you - Pervidin' that you don't object To listen clos't and rickollect.

I allus argy that a man

Who does about the best he can Is plenty good enugh to suit This lower mundane institute -No matter of his daily walk

Is subject fer his neghbor's talk, And critic-minds of ev'ry whim Jest all git up and go fer him!

I knowed a feller onc't that had The yeller-janders mighty bad, -And each and ev'ry friend he'd meet Would stop and give him some receet Fer cuorin' of 'em. But he'd say He kindo' thought they'd go away

From the author's Ora Myers glass negative collection of Hancock County. Indiana subjects

He kep' a-yellerin' on - and they Perdictin' that he'd die some day Before he knowed it! Tuck his bed The feller did, and lost his head, and wundered in his mind a spell -Then rallied, and, at last, got well, But ev'ry friend that said he'd die Went back on him eternally!

When some gits more and some gits less, Fer them-uns on the slimmest side To claim it ain't fare divide;

And balkin"cause the earth don't shake At ev'ry prancin' step they take. No man is grate tel lie can see How less than little he would be Ef stripped to self, and stark and bare He hung his sign out anywhare.

Jest do your best, and praise er blame That [oilers that, counts jest the same. I've allus noticed grate success

Is mixed with troubles, more er less, And it's the man who does the best That gits more kicks than all the rest.

From the author's Ora Myers glass negative collection of Hancock County, Indiana subjects

Doing "one's best" as Riley terms is taking of the infinite into the finite realm as the Incarnate Christ did and a person can. A kenotic view upon how humanity can manifest as God in the flesh uttered from the mouth of a humble farmer. The kenotic assumed that human nature could spiritually correspond to the human nature of the Incarnate Son of God. As the kenotic late Nineteenth Century Methodist theologian R.J. Cooke stated, There could be "essential likeness and kinship between God and man. Whatever physical science may have to say as to the lowly origin of man, here is what he is. God does not have to force himself into human nature, and when in it find himself unable to manifest himself in it through lack of revealing capacity in the human, nor is the human unable to bear the weight, the presence, of deity. But because man is spirit, because he has intelligence, and reason, and will, and affection, because he is a moral being, Infinite spirit, Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Love can adjust himself to the spirit of man - laying every power and quality of God alongside of every corresponding faculty in the human soul without violence to the soul - and thus manifest himself as God in the flesh. The astounding revelation dawns on us for the first time that the human may embody the eternal." (From THE INCARNATION AND RECENT CRITICISM. Peripherally it should be noted how reactive to Darwinism kenotic thought and movement really was, that is the idea that even a lowly and humble person was exalted because God chose humble humanity form. Riley's poetry was, of course, its chief literary expression and his Benjamin Johnson poetry, the best of his kenotic poetry.)

As a further idea, kenotics hoped for Christian unity. The Nineteenth Century kenotic movement was intended as a union movement between Lutheran and Reformed elements in Germany. It eschewed contention. The idea swept into America and found fertile ground for Protestant churches of every denomination combating the pessimism, scepticism, and doubt about a united Christianity and its benefit as characterized by the immensely popular oratory of such as Robert Ingersoll, a popular orator.

My fiddle? - Well, I kindo' keep her handy, don't you know! Though I ain't so much inclined to tromp the strings and switch the bow

And tune her up and play, And jest lean back and laugh and wink At ev'ry rainy day!

My playin"s only middlin' - tunes I picked up when a boy -The kindo'-sorto fiddlin' that the folks call "cordaroy"';

"The Old Fat Gal," and "Rye-straw," and "My Sailyor's On the Sea," Is the old cowtillions I "saw" when the ch'ice is left to me;

And rosum-up my bow And play the tunes that makes you think The devil's in your toe! I was allus aromancin', do-less boy, to tell the truth,

A-fiddlin' and a-dancin', and a-wastin' of my youth, And a-actin' and a-cuttin'-up all sorts o' silly pranks That wasn't worth a button of anybody's thanks!

But they tell me, when I used to plink And plonk and plunk and play, My music seemed to have the kink 0' drivin' cares away!

That's how this here old fiddle's won my hart's indurin' love! From the strings acrost her middle, to the schreechin' keys above -From her "apern," over "bridge," and to the ribbon round her throat, She's a wooin', cooin' pigeon, singin' "Love me" ev'ry note!

I "Cordaroy" means "makeshift" or "stopgap" in Hoosier idiom. As best I can trace it, the term visualizes Hoosier country roads which in summer were covered with dust so thick that James Whitcomb Riley once described them "as thick as butter on country bread" and passable, but which in the Fall and Winter time might be half way up to the horse-drawn wagon axles in mud. A Hoosier pioneer-style improvement was to "firm up" these roads at their worst spots with "corduroy" logs.

A kenotic poem of satisfaction in dependence upon the assumption of the servile state of humanity. Hey. you can even enjoy fiddling because you can accept the human state because Christ did. Christ took on the form of a human and accepted its life in humiliation. His end in becoming a person

was so that He might wear that form of existence which is at the greatest possible distance from and the greatest contrast to the life of God. There is the possibility of joy in this fact coming from its participation with the life of the earthly God. The theme is particularly and generally a Nineteenth century one as well. We note that James Russell Lowell asserts that reverence for life is the very primal essence and life of poetry. "From reverence the spirit climbs on to love, and thence beholds all things." Nevertheless the source of the satisfaction is that it is sanctified because it is human to enjoy pickin' and grinnin' which is otherwise an irrelevant activity than as a human being does it.

And the pansies and pinks that the Summer-time throws In the green grassy lap of the medder that lays

Blinkin' up at the skyes through the sunshiny days; But what is the lilly and all of the rest

That was dipped brimmin' full of the honey and dew Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew?

But my childhood comes back jest as clear and as plane As the smell of the clover I'm sniffin' again;

Whare I tangle my toes in the blossoms that gleam With the dew of the dawn of the morning of love Ere it wept ore the graves that I'm weepin' above.

Of the sacerdest sorrows and joys of my hart; And wharever it blossoms, oh, thare let me bow And thank the good God as I'm thankin' Him now; And I pray to Him still fer the stren'th when 1 die, To go out in the clover and tell it good-by.

Another poem extolling something common and humble. In a kenotic frame of reference, the clover symbolizes humble life such as Jesus gave up His nature as God to manifest. Freedom is a sub-theme of the poem. Being humble and thus acceptable to Godly reckoning brings freedom to enjoy life. Benjamin Johnson, an old Hoosier farmer, tends to deal with this world as a place of blessing. He is finding his life laden with the happiness from simple things. He can accept poverty because he can smell his clover. To a social Darwinist of Riley's epoch Benjamin Johnson is thus inexplicable. That he is in poverty is understandable because his values are not oriented within the struggle for existence. Poverty would cease if persons acted prudently, industriously and wisely and brought their children up to exercise those same virtues. Morals and social values are the result of historical and institutional foundations rather than either intuitive or Christian in character. Much of morality is simply restatement of property rights. The social Darwinist, Yale's William Graham Sumner in his FOLKWAYS espouses these views. Riley is not picturing a person who seems to be struggling with existence very much as long as he can smell the clover and he finds life virtuous and redeeming among the clover blossoms which are a gift from a God who sets the bounds of Benjamin Johnson's morality on the basis of service to others.

Gyrls that's in love, I've noticed, giner'ly has their way! Yer mother did, afore you, when her folks objected to me -

You look lots like yer mother: puny much same in size; And about the same complected; and favor about the eyes: Like her, too, about livin' here, because she couldn't stay; It'll 'most seem like you was dead like her! - but 1 haint' got nothin' to say!

She left you her little Bible - writ yer name acrost the page-And left her ear-bobs fer you, of ever you come of age;

I've alluz kep"em and gyuarded 'em, but of yer goin' away -Nothin' to say, my daughter! Nothin' at all to say!

Twenty year! and as good a gyrl as parent ever found! There's a straw ketched on to yer dress

(Her mother was jes' twenty when us two run away.) Nothin' to say, my daughter! Nothin' at all to say!

This is not a theological exposition of the Incarnation but rather a poem of affirmation of life itself. The ongoing evolutionary drift of the generations is not something to be regreted. It is acceptable without objection and there is "nothin'" more to say about it. The drama of life is lived within the context of the total world submissiveness to God in which God's own child is the absolute agent for total submission. God's life with people continues on through time.

This poem was the most prominent American poem of the year 1887. It was first published in the Indianapolis JOURNAL on July 31, 1887 and then printed to a more national audience in the CENTURY MAGAZINE issue of August, 1887. Riley recited it at a Chickering Hall poetry reading in New York City on November 29, 1887 before other poets and a great audience when his fellow poet James Russell Lowell called upon Riley to give further

readings of his poetry. It introduced dialect as an appropriate speech to express the humble kenotic message. This poem and many others were published in Riley's book AFTERWHILES, one of his most enduring volumes of poetry with great holiday sales at Christmas time throughout the country.

We fain would behold it- but never A glimpse of its glory is found: We slacken our lips at the tender

White breasts of our mothers to hear Of its marvelous beauty and splendor; -We see - but the gleam of a tear!

Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled Down the rack of a hundred translations, From the earliest lisp of the world.

From the author's Ora Myers glass negative collection of Hancock County. Indiana subjects

The dust of the one blurs our vision, The glare of the other our brain, Nor city nor island Elysian

And the eyes look aloft from the soul: But the chanson grows fainter and fainter,

A poem of Nineteenth Century kenotic hope. The Beautiful City is the dialoguing Neo-Platonic Jerusalem to "come down" referenced in the book of Revelation. Regarding this along with other poems, Riley once told a reporter that he "did not make them. God made them," adding, "all that I do is to fit the words to them. I am a sort of a mental camera, that catches the stories. I develop the plate - and there you are. And just here I must protest against the opinion of our dear Longfellow who claims that it is sheer laziness in a poet to refrain from writing because he is not in the mood. As I see it, he who attempts to write when not in the mood prostitutes his powers."

The kenotic content of the poem is its reminder of the promise of a second coming in a world ruling time by the incarnate Christ. The event will render all the world's ruling principles and authority and power null and void. The poem prescribes a regimen of hope, never to give up that the world will continue until contrariness to God is eventually and inevitably stepped underfoot by the appearance of the incarnate Christ who will

The poem became one of the most popular of Riley's epoch. I think it must be seen in relationship to the dominant vision of the age.

With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand, He has wandered into an unknown land,

And you - 0 you, who the wildest yearn For the old-time step and the glad return, -

To simple things: - Where the violets grew Blue as the eyes they were likened to,

When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred Was dear to him as the mocking-bird;

The kenotic content of this poem is very similar to the thought of "On the Death of Little Mahala Ashcraft." I cannot help but include it in this series however since it was so important from a popular standpoint in the Nineteenth Century. Probably every Protestant minister in America used it at one point or another in counseling, sermon or burial service. About the writing of this poem, Riley said, "I was confined to my bed. I was ill and weak and all alone. My eyes were inflamed, and so I just rolled over and wept with the weather." The occasion of the poem was the death of General Wm. H. H. Terrell, who was an aide to Indiana's embattled Civil War Governor Oliver Morton. Riley remembered the General gave "the sweetest love of his life to simple things." While walking in a garden after a shower, Riley once saw the General stoop to pity "a honey-bee wet with rain." The kenotic content of the poem is its center in the promise of life after death from the incarnate Christ. The poem recalls the teaching of Paul who argued, "If God when on earth preached that there was a rebirth after death, how can any among you be saying that the dead aren't reborn into new life after death? If there's no life after death, then God when on earth could not now exist as he once did as an earth dweller, arose and arisen."

BEREAVED (1890)

Let me come in where you sit weeping, - ay, Let me, who have not any child to die, Weep with you for the little one whose love

I have known nothing of:

The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed

Their pressure round your neck. the hands you used To kiss, - Such arms - such hands I never knew. May I not weep with you?

Fain would I be of service - say some thing, Between the tears, that would be comforting, -But ah! so sadder than yourselves am I,

From the author's Ora Myers glass negative collection of Hancock County. Indiana sub. jects

The writing of "Bereaved" began with a strange premonition which so vividly impressed Riley one night that he was unable to sleep. He arose and wrote the poem rapidly in about twenty minutes. Usually, Riley's compositions were labored, taking days or even months to rewrite and polish. On this occasion, he stated his heart was heavy with a sadness he could not relate to any known cause as he addressed his lines to the unknown parents in the poem. Later he received word of the death of the child of his lecturing partner, Bill Nye and Riley at once dedicated this poem to Mr. and Mrs. Nye. Had they been the subject of his strange foreboding?

The poem is kenotic in its presentation of the mind of the Incarnate Christ in grief over the human condition. This poem is demonstrative of such grief as is found in childlessness. The poet had no children. About the genesis of this poem, Riley wrote, "I was awakened far in the night as by a summons, and in seeming answer I arose and the poem came trickling through my tears. What was it that woke me I can not tell. Was it the pitying gaze of fathers and mothers keeping their lonely vigil through the night? Was it the cry of empty arms for the touch of vanished fingers? Was it an angel ray of light, a celestial petition from the land of dreams and sleep? I do not know."

A famous body of Riley poetry was written in an epoch in which Riley escaped from not just the lyceum circuit, but also Indianapolis and Greenfield by frequent visits to Delphi, Indiana, where his friend, Dr. Wycliffe Smith lived. This was in the mid-1880's. The "Deer Creek" poems reflect Riley's opportunity to wander "Deer Crick" country of Carroll County which bordered orchards, clover fields and forested areas.

The poem "On the Banks of Deer Crick" was written for the Delphi TIMES at a time when Riley was not feeling well. Riley went to the banks of Deer Crick (Creek in Hoosier dialect) across from Jackson's hole or Wilson's cave where he could rest before reading poems at the old Delphi Opera House that evening. While taking in the scenic wonder of the place, he scribbled the poem "On the banks o' Deer Crick..."

On the banks o' Deer Crick! There's the place fer me! - Worter slidin' past ye jes' as clair as it kin be: -See yer shadder in it, and the shadder o' the sky, And the shadder o' the buzzard as he goes a-lazin' by; Shadder o' the pizen-vines, and shadder o' the trees ‑

And I purl' nigh said the shadder o' the sunshine and the breeze! Well! - I never seen the ocean ner I never seen the sea. -On the banks o' Deer Crick's grand enough fer me!

On the banks o' Deer Crick - mil' er two from town -`Long up where the mill-race comes a-loafin down, -Like to git up in there - `mongst the sycamores ‑

And watch the worter at the dam, a-frothin' as she pours: Crawl out on some old log, with my hook and line, Where the fish is jes' so thick you kin see 'em shine As they flicker round her bait, coaxin' you to jerk, Tel yer tired ketchin' of 'ern, might nigh, as work!

On the banks o' Deer Crick! - Allus my delight Jes' to be around there - take it day er night! -Watch the snipes and killdees foolin' half the day -Er- these-'ere little worter-bugs shootin' ever' way! -Snake-feeders glancin' round, er dartin' out o' sight; And dewfall, bullfrogs, and lightnin-bugs at night -Stars up through the tree-tops - er in the crick below, ‑

Er take a tromp, some Sund'y, say, 'way up to -Johnson's Hole," And find where he's had a fire, and hide his fishin'-pole: Have yer "dog-leg" with ye, and yer pipe and "cut-and-thy" -Pocketful' o' corn-bread, and slug er two o' rye... Soak yer hide in sunshine and wailer in the shade ‑

Like the Good Book tells us - "where there're none to make afraid!" Well! - I never seen the ocean ner I never seen the sea. -On the banks o' Deer Crick's grand enough fer me!

The "Deer Creek" poetry was the hallmark of one of Riley's favorite platform lectures entitled, "Characteristics of the Hoosier Dialect," and it was fantastically popular all around the country beginning in 1884.

One of the poems he wrote for this "lecture" as it was billed was "Knee Deep in June." Although the poem was tailored for his platform entertainment, he later had it first published in the Indianapolis JOURNAL of June 14, 1885 under the title "Long About Knee Deep in June." Then, it was included in the immensely popular book AFTERWHILES in 1887. It was made available for sale at the Indianapolis NEWS office in Indianapolis in that year and the first edition of 1,000 did not last a month. It sold for $1.25. "Knee Deep in June" probably received more critical acclaim than most of Riley's poems. Among those who have commented on "Knee Deep in June" was James Russell Lowell, one of the Cambridge group of poets, who remarked that, "Nothing that the poets have written in this country for years has touched me so deeply as 'Knee Deep in June.'"

Tell you what I like

the best -

`Long about knee-deep in June,

`Bout the time strawberries melts On the vine, - some afternoon Like to jes' git out and rest,

And not work at nothin' else!

Orchard's where I'd ruther be -Needn't fence it in fer me! - Jes' the whole sky overhead, And the whole ^girth underneath ‑

Sort o' so's a man kin breathe Like he ort, and kind o' has Elbow-room to keerlessly

Sprawl out len'thways on the grass Where the shadders thick and soft As the kivvers on the bed Mother fixes in the loft

Deer Creek looking toward the slate bluffs east of Delphi. Courtesy of Carrol County Museum.

S'lazy, 'at you peek and peer Through the wavin' leaves above, Like a feller 'ats in love

Got some sort o' interest -Maybe find a bluebird's nest Tucked up there conveenently Fer the boy 'at's ap' to be

And look up to find the crow -Er a hawk, - away up there, `Pearantly froze in the air! ‑

Hear the old hen squawk, and squat Over ever' chick she's got, Sudden-like! - and she knows where That-air hawk is, well as you! -You jes' bet yer life she do! -Eyes a-glitterin' like glass,

Pee-wees' singin', to express My opinion, 's second-class, Yit you'll hear 'ern more er less;

"Boardwalk" along the Riley Park, Delphi. Indiana. Courtesy of Carrol County Museum.

Sapsucks gittin' down to biz, Weedin' out the lonesomeness; Mr. Blue jay, full o' sass,

In them baseball clothes o' his, Sportin' round the orchard jes' Like he owned the premises!

Sun out in the fields kin sizz, But fiat on yer back, I guess,

In the shade's where glory is! That's jes' what I'd like to do Stiddy fer a year er two!

Plague! of they ain't somepin' in Work 'at kind o' goes ag'in' My convictions! - 'long about

Here in June especially! ‑

Under some old apple tree,

Jes' a-restin' through and through, I could git along without

Nothin' else at all to do

Only jes' a-wishin' you Wuz a-gittin' there like me, And June wuz eternity!

VII

Road out of town, Delphi, Indiana courtesy of Carroll County Historical Society.

But when June comes - Clear my th 'oat With wild honey! - Reach my hair In the dew! and hold my coat!

Whoop out loud! and th 'ow my hat! -June wants me, and I'm to spare! Spread them shadders anywhere, I'll get down and wailer there,

After accompanying Dr. Wycliffe Smith on a horseback ride, Riley penned: FROM DELPHI TO CAMDEN (1884)

But here were classic meadows, blooming dales and downs; And here were grassy pastures, dewy as the leas Trampled over by the trains of royal pageantries!

And here the winding highway loitered through the shade Of the hazel covert, where, in ambuscade,

Loomed the larch and linden, and the greenwood-tree Under which bold Robin Hood loud hallooed to me!

Riley's first poem published in an Indianapolis newspaper was on its front page. "Man's Devotion" by "Jay Whit," a Riley pseudonym.

Here the stir and riot of the busy day Dwindled to the quiet of the breath of May;

Gurgling brooks, and ridges lily-marged and spanned By the rustic bridges found in Wonderland!

And now the night was on us, and the lightning and the rain; And still the way was wondrous with the flash of hill and plain, ‑

And I thought of tragic idyll, and of flight and hot pursuit. And the jingle of the bridle and the cuirass and spur on boot,

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And we passed beleaguered castles, with their battlements a-frown: Where a tree fell in the forest was a turret toppled down;

While my master and commander - the brave knight I galloped with On this reckless road to ruin or to fame was - Dr. Smith!

Any artist lies imprisoned within his media of expression. These bounds are as iron bars to genius. The best an artist accomplishes is to ecstatically raise the language of his or her media to its highest pitch and intensity.

James Whitcomb Riley's media was the Nineteenth Century "local sheet" the predecessor to today's newspaper. We have seen the mundane operation of these organs as we traced how the hoax poem "Leonainie" came to be published. Through most of his life, Riley was a "newspaper poet." The one newspaper he came to be most associated with was the Indianapolis JOURNAL, now the Indianapolis STAR. Riley wrote, however, for many newspapers in many capacities. He wrote advertising and editorial copy as well as his more famous poetry. He also covered news events and was assigned to special projects such as his five-part serial on "What Our Bright College Boys Are Doing" published during the last 1891 to January 1892. There is not a major Riley poem which was not first published in a newspaper before printing in a book.

There simply is no current reference to the poetry published in the newspapers of the American Nineteenth Century. The practice of placing poetry on the newspaper front pages - of anywhere - in newspapers has long ago vanished. Riley's media has, in short, passed into history. Without experience with the media, it is hard to understand its message. Nevertheless we must try if we are to have any chance at all of understanding the Post Civil War American scene and particularly its mood and dynamic.

Riley was apprenticed into newspaper journalism at a time when country journalism was intensely personal in cast and flavor. Editors of local newspapers were vehement in their beliefs, many of them of a political nature. Politics caused great candid and savage debate - a product of the great divisions in the country caused by the American Civil War just a decade earlier in history. Elections were especially bitter in the Hayes-Tilden election of 1876. Many Hoosiers refused to accept that Hayes won

and called him a "de jure" President. No doubt some of Riley's journalistic work was of a political nature. The newspapers of his day were highly partisan and Riley wrote for many of them to include their editorials.

Riley had trouble with this. Throughout his life, Riley had great suspicion about the political process. Remembering the lynching incident from his young manhood, Riley was suspicious of aroused people. Politics was also tied to racism in Indiana in Riley's memory especially during election times. Greenfield's black community were Republican and at the time the county voted basically Democrat. It was a rare election in which Greenfield's blacks were not harassed in some way. In the 1872 campaign, a political speaker of the Democrat parties, Thomas A. Hendricks, came to Greenfield to speak for Greeley and evoked racism according to George Knox, Greenfield's black barber as stated in his memoirs, saying "he could stand everything but one thing and that was the "nigger." Shortly after the black lynching in Greenfield in 1875, in the 1876 presidential campaign, clubs were organized, Grant and Lincoln clubs by the Republicans and Tilden and Hendricks clubs by the Democrats. On the Monday before the election in November, the Democrat Club held a county rally numbering by George Knox's estimate about 25,000 and the club members gathered in Greenfield shouting things like "Hurrah for Tilden and Hendricks!" and occasionally "God damn the Republicans and nigger lovers." Wagons were decorated with slogans like, "Clean the Radicals out," "Clean the black Republicans out," "White husbands or none." George Knox remembered a group coming into his barbershop and one jumping up on his stove and Knox asked him to get off and was told, "Don't give me any of your black sass.^- Some took razors and cut Knox's leather straps and another kicked his dye stand over. Knox stated, "I had gone through the army, passed through exciting times, had experienced the quick terror of the midnight whisper, "the enemy is upon us" (during the Civil War in Northern service), but even on the battle field of Mission Ridge, that bloody spot, where men were being killed in platoons all around me, heads and legs torn off, cannon and minie balls flying as thick as hail, at no time did I suffer in feelings, as on that awful day." George Knox was James Whitcomb Riley's great friend and first employer. Riley was on his side politically.

Riley was able to avoid the most heated of these political conflicts by seeking to live at the soul level where his play characters could breathe. Not until the Benjamin Harrison campaign for the Presidency do we find Riley personally speaking out for a candidate. Benjamin Harrison was his man in

If pressed, Riley would not say he was either a Democrat or Republican. To probe more deeply, Riley was asked about his father's politics since political affiliation was often a family matter. Reuben Riley of course had been both a Democrat and Republican and other "splinter" parties. Once when asked whether his father was a Democrat or Republican, Riley replied: "I don't know, I haven't seen him since breakfast."

Riley hated such politicizing. Riley mentioned that he was forced to do editorial work of this nature in a letter to Elizabeth Kahle of August 9, 1881. Riley actually felt politicians were a rather comical lot.