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JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY , THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT HOME

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

Part 21

BOOKMARK FOR RILEY BECOMES AMERICA'S BELOVED NATIONAL POET
 

Riley is trying to sleep off a drunk here. But the moment is not merely inci­dental. Riley was far too often intoxicated in his wanderings during his years following the death of his mother, the years of painting signs and assisting at traveling medicine shows after the escape from the Greenfield where Kemmer was lynched, and following the death of Nellie Cooley, the only woman Riley ever fully loved.

How highly did Riley regard himself in these years? Perhaps not very highly. This impression derives from "A Ballad," also published in the The Saturday MIRROR just prior to Riley's departure from his home in Greenfield with Doc McCrillus's patent medicine show. The father in this poem is absent in war service as was Riley's father absent in the Civil War although Reuben Riley military career was brief and his record lackluster at best and the mother of the narrator, a boy, hears the mother say,

"Thus I went playing thoughtfully‑

KRUNG • 577

For what my mother said -

`You look so like your father!'

Kept ringing in my head..."

One might wonder if Riley's mother compared Riley to his father in such a way. Likely, Elizabeth Marine Riley doted on her children with all of the passion she would have otherwise devoted to a relationship with the chil­dren's father while Reuben Riley was away in the Civil War. The thematic conclusion to "The Ballad" comes when the father does eventually gruffly return unrecognized to the boy who says:

"I don't look like my father,

As you told me yesterday ‑

I know I don't - or father

Would have run the other way."

Here is the sound of a young man who does not feel he can measure up to his father and who does not even deserve to look like him. Such a boy will never become a Krung. One would risk calling this a feeling of very sub­stantial comparative inferiority but not necessarily an immoderate view of his own capabilities.

Although Riley feigned no interest in politics as Krung, he was often not only aware but also involved in politics as a young man. The band he played in serenaded political meetings and many other connections existed not the least of which was his father's ongoing political ambitions and interests.

Living in a Democrat county as Hancock County was in the 1870's, Riley knew the problems of being a Republican as his family was.

In the 1870's few Republicans were elected to office in Hancock County but one time a man named Columbus Jackson, a Greenfield retailer, was elected as township trustee as a Republican and by a definite margin. To celebrate the victory, Riley wrote a song and rounded up members of his band, the Davis Brothers Band, and marched to Mr. Jackson's store on West Main Street. The song is sung to the tune, "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." Mr. Jackson came out of his store to timidly acknowledge the singing and, when convinced he was not being "pranked" by Riley as many feared in Greenfield, he passed out a box of cigars to the band.

The song went:

Columbus, the gem of the Jacksons! The pride of

the rich and the poor;

The popular choice of all factions,

By twenty five ballots or more.

578 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Riley grew up a "Child of Co. G." Pictured are Civil War veterans and members of the Grand Army of the Republic some of whose members were in Riley's father's Civil War company.

Behold the reward of your labors,

Where order and law stand in view, And harken to your_, jubilant neighbors, Who sing you the red, white and blue!

CHORUS

Who sing you the red, white and blue,

Who sing you the red, white and blue -Then harken to your_, jubilant neighbors,

Who sing the red, white and blue!

Riley tried to learn the law with his father. Riley commented to his nephew Edmund Eitel about this period "At this time it is easy to picture my father, a lawyer of ability, regarding me, nonplussed, as the worst case he had ever had. He wanted me to do something practical, besides being ambi­tious for me to follow in his footsteps and at last persuaded me to settle down and read law in his office. This I really tried to do conscientiously, but finding that study of law was unbearable, I slipped out of the office one summer afternoon, when all out-doors called imperiously, shook the last dusty premise from my head and was away.

Riley's first hint of the possibility of fame arose from recitals at Dedication Day Ceremonies. On these occasions Riley recited original poet‑

KRUNG • 579

ry which he had composed out of memory of the experiences he had wit­nessed or heard about in Civil War times. My strong suspicion is that the Civil War greatly influenced Riley as a boy. The following is a poem writ­ten by Riley which he read at Decoration Days beginning with one at New Castle, Indiana.

THE SILENT VICTORS (1876)

Deep, tender, firm and true, the Nation's heart Throbs for her gallant heroes passed away, Who in grim Battle's drama played their part, And slumber here to-day -

Warm hearts that beat their lives out at the shrine Of Freedom, while our country held its breath As brave battalions wheeled themselves in line And marched upon their death:

When Freedom's Flag, its natal wounds Scarce healed, Was torn from peaceful winds and flung again To shudder in the storm of battlefield ‑

The elements of men, -

When every star that glittered was a mark For Treason's ball, and every rippling bar Of red and white was sullied with the dark And purple stain of war;

When angry guns, like famished beasts of prey, Were bowling o'er their gory feast of lives, And sending dismal echoes far away

To mothers, maids and wives: -

The mother, kneeling in the empty night, With pleading hands uplifted for the son Who, even as she prayed, had fought the fight -The victory had won:

I.N. Fred, Hoosier soldier in his Civil War uniform. Fron tintype.

580 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

The wife, with trembling hand that wrote to say The babe was waiting for the sire's caress -The letter meeting that upon the way, ‑

The babe was fatherless:

The maiden, with her lips, in fancy, pressed Against the brow once dewy with her breath, Now lying numb, unknown, and uncaressed Save by the dews of death.

Civil War dead on Maryland battlefield. Alexander Gardner photograph.

Or wreathe with laurel-words the icy brows That ache no longer with a dream of fame, But, pillowed lowly in the narrow house, Renowned beyond the name.

The dewy tear-drops of the night may fall. And tender morning with her shining hand May brush them from the grasses green and tall That undulate the land. -

Yet song of Peace nor din of toil and thirst,

Nor chanted honors, with the flowers we heap, Can yield us hope the Hero's head to lift Out of its dreamless sleep:

The dear old Flag, whose faintest flutter flies A stirring echo through each patriot breast, Can never coax to life the folded eyes That saw its wrongs redressed -

That watched it waver when the fight was hot,
And blazed with newer courage to its aid,

11

What meed of tribute can the poet pay The Soldier, but to trail the ivy-vine Of idle rhyme above his grave to-day In epitaph design? -

KRUNG • 581

Regardless of the shower of shell and shot
Through which the charge was made; -

And when, at last, they saw it plume its wings, Like some proud bird in stormy element, And soar untrammeled on its wanderings, They closed in death, content.

0 Mother, you who

III

 miss the smiling face

Of that dear boy who vanished from your sight, And left you weeping o'er the vacant place He used to fill at night, -

Who left you dazed, bewildered, on a day That echoed wild huzzas, and roar of guns

That drowned the farewell words you tried to say To incoherent ones; -

Be glad and proud you had the life to give -Be comforted through all the years to conic. -Your country has a longer life to live,

Your son a better home.

O Widow, weeping o'er the orphaned child, Who only lifts his questioning eyes to send A keener pang to grief unreconciled, -Teach him to comprehend

He had a father brave enough to stand Before the fire of Treason's blazing gun, That, dying, he might will the rich old land Of Freedom to his son.

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

And, Maiden, living on through lonely years In fealty to love's enduring ties, ‑

With strong faith gleaming through the tender tears That gather in your eyes,

582 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Look up! and own, in gratefulness of prayer, Submission to the will of Heaven's High Host: -I see your Angel-soldier pacing there,

Expectant at his post. -

I see the rank and file of armies vast,

That muster under one supreme control; I hear the trumpet sound the signal-blast ‑

The calling of the roll -

The grand divisions falling into line

And forming, under voice of One alone

Who gives command, and joins with tongue divine The hymn that shades the Throne.

IV

And thus, in tribute to the forms that rest

In their last camping-ground, we strew the bloom And fragrance of the flowers they loved the best, In silence o'er the tomb.

With reverent hands we twine the Hero's wreath And clasp it tenderly on stake or stone

That stands the sentinel for each beneath Whose glory is our own.

While in the violet that greets the sun,

We see the azure eye of some lost boy; And in the rose the ruddy cheek of one

We kissed in childish joy, -

Union Civl War soldier.

Recalling, haply, when he marched away,

He laughed his loudest though his eyes were wet, -The kiss he gave his mother's brow that day Is there and burning yet:

And through the storm of grief around her tossed,

KRUNG • 583

One ray of saddest comfort she may see, -Four hundred thousand dons like hers were lost To weeping Liberty.

But draw aside the drapery of gloom,

And let the sunshine chase the clouds away And gild with brighter glory every tomb We decorate to-day;

And in the holy silence reigning round,

While prayers of perfume bless the atmosphere, Where loyal souls of love and faith are found, Thank God that Peace is here!

And let each angry impulse that may start, Be smothered out of every loyal breast; And, rocked within the cradle of the heart, Let every sorrow rest.

Riley was sufficiently known as a public reciter to be asked by the Hancock County Bar Association to compose and read a piece at a lawyer's funeral. This event was a critical moment in Riley's life since one of those present at the reading was Judge Elijah Martindale who was the owner of The Indianapolis JOURNAL. The poem evokes the tragedy of a rising young lawyer who is young and dead leaving behind a family:

DEAD IN SIGHT OF FAME (1876)

DIED - Early morning of September 5, 1876, and in the gleaming dawn of "name and fame," Hamilton J. Dunbar.

Dead! Dead ! Dead!

We thought him ours alone:

And were so proud to see him tread The rounds of fame, and lift his head Where sunlight ever shone;

But now our aching eyes are dim,

And look through tears in vain for him.

584 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Name! Name! Name!

It was his diadem;

Nor ever tarnish-taint of shame Could dim its luster - like a flame Reflected in a gem,

He wears it blazing on his brow Within the courts of Heaven now.

Tears! Tears! Tears!

Like dews upon the leaf

That bursts at last - from out the years The blossom of a trust appears

That blooms above the grief;

And mother, brother, wife and child Will see it and be reconciled.

After hearing Riley, Judge Martindale believed Riley had prospects as a poet. This memorial poem and reading resulted in the letter which the Judge wrote Riley to come to Indianapolis to talk with him at the Indianapolis JOURNAL office. This eventually became Riley's newspaper and Riley was often known as "The JOURNAL's Poet."

To many, the Riley of this period of his life was a "no-good." He could­n't hold a job. In 1876, at age 26, James Whitcomb Riley was totally unlucky in love and had never settled down. He was an alcoholic without means to support himself except through occasional painting jobs. All of his attempts to court a woman were unsuccessful. Most of the women he dated took one look at Riley's prospects and his track record and quickly married someone else. Nellie was married to another man. Life was really very hard on Riley.

And yet when Judge Martindale heard Riley recite a memorial poem at the funeral of Hamilton Dunbar, in Greenfield and pondered its words, something "clicked" in the judge's mind.

Indiana needed a culture as well as material growth and progress. Here was a true poet with obvious literary genius. The Judge would make it his "project" to bring Riley to Indianapolis to write for the JOURNAL, Indiana's leading newspaper. Perhaps no person in his right mind would have done so, but the Judge was no ordinary person. The frontier needed cul­ture. Here was a frontier boy who wrote poetry.

KRUNG • 585

As James Whitcomb Riley's star rose, his father's set ever more quick­ly. Reuben Riley attempted to run a Congressional District race as a candi­date of the Greenback Party in 1878. The results were disastrous. The results show William Myers, the Democrat, winning with 16,167 votes, William Grose, the Republican, losing with 15,548, and the poet's father, Reuben Riley, coming in a distant third but with 2,043 votes, enough votes to have made the difference in the election. The Greenback Party was his­torically speaking a splinter party formed from Republican Party. Reuben Riley's candidacy seems to have swung the 6th District to the Democrats. But how well did Reuben Riley run in Hancock County? That is not quite so clear a victory for Reuben Riley. In his home county, Reuben Riley garnered only 225 votes, compared to 2,125 for his Democrat opposition and 1,370 for the Republican. The home folks did not back their local candidate.

As with the other "selves" of Riley's life as depicted in "The Flying Islands of the Night," Riley as Krung was a major beneficiary of Riley's accommodation and resolve to live in dialogue to those who loved him who were now dead - Nellie Cooley in particular.

Riley describes his life preceding the writing of his autobiographical poem as one of separation from his mother and his married lover in "The Flying Islands of the Night." These facts-together with life in a small town which lynches black folk-produce his alcoholism and period of delirious poetical writings. The period preceding "Flying Islands" is one of despair and alcoholism, after which he repented of his life, referring to this period to Marcus Dickey, his secretary, "My steps are turning gladly toward the 1 ight, and it seems to me sometimes I almost see God's face. I have been sick - sick of the soul, for had so fierce a malady (alcoholism) attacked the body, I would have died with all hell hugged in my arms. I can speak of this now because I can tell you I am saved."

The reappearance as Krung in Riley's Autobiographical poem, "The Flying Islands of the Night," in Act III, the final stanzas. describes Riley's salvation from alcohol.

THE RESTORATION OF KRUNG

Through AEo's' own great providence, and through The intervention of an angel whom

I long had deemed forever lost to me,'

Once more your favored Sovereign, do I greet

586 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

1.   As originally published in the "Buzz Club" series of 1878, the word "AEo's" was "God's." Riley changes the later attribution for his providential change in luck first to his mother, AEo, Elizabeth, the poet's mother.

2.   The "angel," the dead Nellie Cooley, Riley's inspirational married friend.

(Turning with pained features to the strangely stricken Queen) There have been, as ye needs must know. strange spells

And wicked sorceries at work within The very dais boundaries of the Throne.

Lo! then, behold your harrier and mine,

And with me grieve for the self-ruined Queen

Who grovels at my feet, blind, speechless and So stricken with a curse herself designed

Should light upon Hope's fairest minister.'

1. Differing from the originally published "Buzz Club" papers in 1878, there is inserted in a bold hand here the line of Krung's "Remove her from my sight" on the manuscript at the Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

(Motions attendants, who lead away Crestillomeem - the King gazing after her, overmastered with stress of his emotions.

James Whitcomb Riley's salvation in kenotic ideas produced great suc‑

cess.

Krung was primarily the Riley of Indianapolis rather than his hometown

of Greenfield, Indiana. Riley had far too bad a reputation in Greenfield for him to be much of a Krung there. As close to "fame" as Riley could get in

this period of "The Flying Islands of the Night" was to have a poem of his

KRUNG • 587

read at the Decoration Day at the New (now Park) Cemetery in 1879. For Riley to really be Krung he had to make a more permanent arrangement in a fresh field, not simply transient escapes, from Greenfield, the hometown of his boyhood.

Living in Greenfield, it was simply not possible for Riley to become Krung, the official poet, the poet laureate of the Hoosier people. His exploits, alcoholism, occasional arrests, playful or serious, were so well known that they could not be overcome. The days when Riley's friend, Benjamin Harrison as President, was seriously considering naming him the country's official Poet Laureate were far in the future.

We can date the serious emergence of Krung to the year 1879, late in that year, when Riley moved to Indianapolis.

In November, 1879 he wrote one of his friends from Indianapolis where he had gone to live while working for the JOURNAL, "I have been coming to anchor here...I am bothered about getting settled in this infernal city. I am not used to it, and I don't believe I ever will be.. Lots of features about it that are lovely, but the racket and rattle of it all is positively awful - no monotony on God's earth like it."

Almost immediately, Riley assumed the play character of Krung once he was in Indianapolis. His poetry could take on an official aspect when Riley was Krung. A Riley poem, "Grant," published on the front page of the Indianapolis JOURNAL, welcomed U. S. Grant to Indianapolis on Dec. 9, 1879. ("What words of greeting will be best\To frame a welcome for the guest\Whose hero heart and friendly hand\Have found a home in every land!...)

Not until the close of 1879, long after the early narratives such as "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" (written while Nellie was still alive), the autobio­graphical "The Flying Islands of the Night," and the columns of John C. Walker and "Poetical Gymnastics" had Riley moved to Indianapolis.

To a Greenfield resident of Riley's day, Indianapolis was a "big neigh­bor city" but nothing like a megalopolis.

When the Civil War began, Indiana's chief city was not Indianapolis, but Madison, far to the South and on the Ohio River. Yes, Indianapolis was made the state capital in 1823, but that did not turn the wilderness where the capital was designated into a city. Indianapolis was simply another stop on the same stagecoach line that went through Greenfield on the National Road. Nor did the waves of settlers traveling on the dusty wagon trains pause at Indianapolis more than any other place on the National Road. In fact the lure

588 ¨ THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

of gold kept many of them heading on West to California.

It was the railroad which caused Indianapolis to grow in population. The first train pulled into Indianapolis in 1847. The first Union Depot was built on South Illinois Street in 1853. The Hoosier capital was the first city in the country to plan for a railroad station where all railroads converged. Madison, nestled along the curvy Ohio River at the base of 400 foot steep cliffs, could not compete with Indianapolis as a railroad center. Indianapolis was on a level plain making railroad traffic easy.

It was the Civil War that caused Indianapolis to become Indiana's first city in fact. Indianapolis became the main recruiting station for the mobi­lization of thousands of Hoosier troops to enter that conflict. It was in Indianapolis that the Hoosier governor, Oliver Morton, set up an Arsenal that was the start of Hoosier industrialization, producing huge supplies of ammunition for the north. Industries and factories sprang up everywhere around the railroad hub of Indianapolis. Businessmen, tradesmen and large groups of immigrants turned Indianapolis into a whirlpool of activity.

It was about this time that Judge Martindale left his bench in the judicial district including Greenfield to go to Indianapolis. His training as a lawyer and judge enabled him to participate in Indianapolis's huge growth spurt around the time the Civil War ended when Indianapolis began its bloom with industries such as meat packing plants such as the huge Kingan Packing House, mills, buggy and wagon shops and saw works, and a huge building spree. The Martindale Block in Indianapolis was built by him. This was only one of the two and three

n i

up went that " blocks -

business b                                              ‘.nrca"e1s8c7ritt)o8iroe"Thor partable writing rdoeldsk

storywr Indianapolis around this time. It is said 1,600 into a box. Riley wrote on^gsu^.ch an instrul homes were constructed in the Spring of 1865 'Went even while traveling. Courtesy.

Riley Museum. Greenfield. Indiana.

in Indianapolis, 9 miles of streets and 18 miles

of sidewalks for the old lamplighters to traverse lighting up their gas street lights. The German language was spoken almost as the English in the Indianapolis of those days with newspapers flourishing in each.

In the years following the Civil War, Judge Martindale, born on a farm from around Shirley, grew in prominence in the tumultuous Hoosier capita] city and eventually bought the chief newspaper in Indiana, the Indianapoli$

KRUNG • 589

JOURNAL.

Riley attributed his move to Indianapolis to Myron Reed in a conversa­tion with his secretary, Marcus Dickey. He changed his residence, he claimed, after reading a letter from Reed saying, "There is a certain disad­vantage in living in the town where you were born and raised - they will call you by your given name. Whatever you may become, people will grade you down to where you were; they will remember you as a boy. Their applause will not be generous or unanimous. If you have every done anything ridicu­lous - and you have -it is remembered. Come West, young man, come to Indianapolis. Leave your mistakes behind."

James Whitcomb Riley began using his middle name, Whitcomb, in the 1880's. This not only lent his name dignity but signals that Riley envisioned Krung and fame was someone and something within reach. The Whitcomb had always been a part of his name but it was not a name that "fit" the itin­erant alcoholic sign-painter, Riley. Riley moved into his "name" after figur­ing out his life while writing "The Flying Islands of the Night."

Who was Riley named for? James Whitcomb had been Hancock County's first prosecutor in 1828. He was also governor when Reuben was in the state legislature in 1844 and 1846. By 1849. Reuben's friend, James Whitcomb, had been elected a Senator by the legislature and Reuben named his son after him, James Whitcomb Riley.

Especially after Riley's move to Indianapolis and employment with the JOURNAL, Riley's poetry took on an official aspect. The poet came to rep­resent the national recovery mood of America following the American Civil War and become associated with its memorable occasions. The presence of James Whitcomb Riley invoked his kenotic poetry. I believe this was the reason for his being the choice to recite poetry at every important public occasion within the State of Indiana and at the important ones, those partic­ularly in which a President was involved, during his last years. One finds poetry dedicated to Lincoln, Grant, Harrison, McKinley and Roosevelt in his works and particularly at the times of their deaths when national eulo­gistic poetry was required. Riley assumed the task of Poet Laureate of the American people during these last years and did it as inspired to do so by his prayer to AEo.

As the 1880's progressed, great honor began to be paid to Riley follow­ing his successful national platform touring.

Krung began a modest rise to success after Riley's official move to Indianapolis. He did not leave Greenfield entirely behind but returned as fre‑

590 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

quently as his constantly embarrassed financial situation allowed. Krung's first great date of triumph occurred after his successful lecturing engage­ment in Boston. His hometown newspaper, the Hancock Democrat stated, "He has made a special study of the Hoosier dialect for years, and as a result, produced in it some very fine effects. His "Tom Johnson's Quit," which appeared in June, 1878, has been copied from ocean to ocean. He is a mas­ter of pathos, the equal of Carlton and Hay, and equally happy in his choice of subject. As a sketch writer some of his character studies, notably "The Boss Girl," "The Tale of a Spider," and "An Adjustable Lunatic," are wor­thy of a Dickens, a Hawthorne or a Poe...-

Krung is the Riley of the extremely precise and scripted handwriting. Only when Riley was at the point of "fame," the goal of Krung, did Riley's handwriting assume the extremely precise and engraving-like script so rec­ognizable in the handwriting of the 1880's on. The earlier handwriting, mostly in letters to friends in the years of larking, is barely readable. One commentator ascribes the extremely crafted handwriting of Riley's later years to Riley's desire to be clear. He hated typographical errors made in printing of his work. Thus, he evolved a handwriting that was meticulous and cognizable in every detail. Nevertheless, Riley's writing is painstaking and artistic only in his year's of fame.

One of Riley's goals clearly had public action in mind. Riley was a source of inspiration for the building of a monument to Civil War veterans. His poem, "A Monument for Soldiers" was written to help create public interest in the project and was published in the Indianapolis JOURNAL.

A MONUMENT FOR THE SOLDIERS (1884)

A MONUMENT for the Soldiers!

And what will ye build it of?

Can ye build it of marble, or brass, or bronze, Outlasting the Soldiers' love?

Can ye glorify it with legends

As grand as their blood hath writ

From the inmost shrine of this land of thine To the outermost verge of it?

And the answer came: We would build it Out of our hopes made sure.

KRUNG • 591

And out of our purest prayers and tears,

And out of our faith secure:

We would build it out of the great white truths

Their death hath sanctified,

And the sculptured forms of the men in arms,

And their faces ere they died.

And what heroic figures

And the sculptor carve in stone?

Can the marble breast be made to bleed, And the marble lips to moan?

Can the marble brow be fevered? And the marble eyes be graved

To look their last, as the flag floats past, On the country they have saved?

And the answer came: The figures Shall all be fair and brave,

And, as befitting, as pure and white
As the stars above their grave!

The marble lips, and breast and brow Whereon the laurel lies,

Bequeath Os right to guard the flight Of the old flag in the skies!

A monument for the Soldiers! Built of a people's love,

And blazoned and decked and panoplied With the hearts ye build it of! And see that ye build it stately, In pillar and niche and gate, And high in pose as the souls of those It would commemorate!

Eventually, on Dec. 31, 1900, Riley read this poem when the new Indianapolis Columbia Club was dedicated on the Indianapolis Circle at a New Year's Day Eve banquet. The poem had done well for the fund raisers for the Civil War monument which was built and dedicated on the Indianapolis Circle two years later.

CArt..ve.,

The American Civil War and the experience of its aftermath in the lives of humble Americans was a major theme of Riley's poetry. Illustration of Howard Chandler Christy of a Riley Civil War poem.

592 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Krung achieved the second of his
most notable successes on a second
particular occasion after his Boston
triumph in 1882 at New York in 1887.
In 1887, Riley gained greatly in
reputation by appearing with James
Russell Lowell, Mark Twain, Edward
Eggleston, Richard Henry Stoddard,
Henry Cuyler Bunner, and George W.
Cable at benefit readings in New York
City. Lowell was the presiding author
and one of the most distinguished
American men of letters as well as
diplomat. The occasion was intended
to arouse support for the passage of
international copyright laws and the

event was sponsored by the American The Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Indianapolis-the

Authors'       Copyright         League.

result of Riley's call for "A Monument to the Soldiers."

Although there were "readings" elsewhere the most important were sched­uled for New York at Chickering Hall on November 28 and 29, 1887.

The event organizer, Robert Underwood Johnson, detailed his participa­tion in a book, REMEMBERED YESTERDAYS, published in Boston in 1923. Riley was added to the program during the workup on the suggestion of one of the "readers," Bunner, who said "Don't fail to get Riley." When the program was arranged, Riley was placed last on the list for November

28th. This was considered a less than desirable spot. People might be expected to want to leave early to catch the commuter trains.

As the program worked out, Riley's readings of "When the Frost Is on the Punkin'" and "The Educator," turned out to raise the greatest apprecia­tion of all the readings. In fact, after Riley closed he was given a standing ovation and asked to do an encore. His encore was "Goodbye, Jim." Not only the audience but the rest of the authors joined in the applause. Riley was deluged with established figures such as Lowell, Parke Godwin, George William Curtis and others waiting to shake his hand. As a final gesture. Lowell announced to the audience that Riley had agreed to speak at the next evening's readings to further great applause.

On the second evening, Lowell again presided and read his own poetry Then Richard Malcolm Johnson, Charles Dudley Warner, Thomas Nelsor

KRUNG • 593

Page, William Dean Howells, Frank R. Stockton, and George William Curtis read from their work before Riley was introduced to close the pro­gram. Once again, after Riley read, the audience was aroused to repeated applause. More than $4,000 was raised for the American Authors' Copyright League which subsidized lobbying in Washington.

One of the authors at the readings, Thomas Nelson Page, summed up his impression of the occasion in a letter. Page was a well established writer of short stories and essays and, a Virginian, the author of an important chil­dren's book of the South, TWO LITTLE CONFEDERATES. The letter was written to event organizers of a reception for Riley including Elijah Walker Halford that Page missed since he got the invitation after the reception had been held, and reads:

"Riley is one of the few geniuses it has ever been my fortune to know. On the two occasions when I have met him in public, he has easily won the palm against such men as Lowell. Clemens, Eggelston, and many others, who were the picked champions in the Literary field. But far better than this, I rank the qualities which through his native modesty have kept him sweet and unaffected while they dazzled and entranced all others. He has the very soul of a poet, and we are all proud of him. His books lie before me now, and are my constant friends, as in them I find the very flavor of the apple-blossoms, and find my youth embalmed.

I beg to testify that we love him down in this old State (referring to Virginia) and I bespeak for him a glorious future."

In 1888, Riley delved into one of his few public political efforts for his friend Benjamin Harrison who was then running for President. At the time of the Harrison campaign of 1888, Riley recited his "The Frost is on the Punkin^— which was loudly applauded and on the spur of the moment he recited as an encore the following lines, composed while sitting to wait for the applause to subside. He arose to his feet, adjusted his black-bowed -nip­pers" (glasses) to his nose, rubbed the palms of his hands together till the cheering had subsided and then recited the following:

'And there's still another idy I orto here append In a sort o' Nota Bena for to taper off the end

In a manner more befittin' to a subjec' jes in view, Regardin' things in politics an' what we're goin' to do Along a little later when affairs at Washington, 'At's been harassin' us so long, has to Harrison:

594 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

We're goin' to give the man a seat and set him there kisock

When the frost is on the punkin and th' fodder's in the shock.

His home state began to recognize in Riley a notable son of national fame. A dinner was given to his honor at Indianapolis's Denison Hotel sponsored by the Western Association of Writers on October 19, 1888. The toastmas­ter of the occasion, W. Dudley Foulke, reviewed not just Riley's success in the decade just prior but also the literary advances in the West, stating " No man had done more to promote this progress than the gentleman in whose honor the entertainment was given..." and proposed a toast to James Whitcomb Riley.

Riley closed brief remarks with his Dickensonian, "God bless us every one."

KRUNG CONTEMPLATES HIS ALCOHOLIC

SELF AS CRESTILLOMEEM

It was Krung who most benefited from Riley's accommodation to life on the basis of his "spiritual" married life with Nellie Cooley. In the "Flying Islands of the Night," Krung overcomes his alcoholism. He leans heavily on the throne, as though oblivious to all surroundings, and, shaping into speech his varying thought, as in a trance, speaks as though witless of both utter­ance and auditor.

ON THE LOVE OF AN INTOXICATING QUEEN

(Speaking of his alcoholism as Crestillomeem,)

KRUNG • 595

Afloat. Perhaps because of that wild way Her sudden laughter overleapt propriety;

Or - who will say? - perhaps the way she wept.

Ho! ^Z have ye seen the swollen heart of summer

Tempest, o'er the plain, with throbs of thunder Burst apart and drench the earth with rain? She

Wept life that. - And to recall, with one wild' glance

Of memory, our last love -parting' - tears And all...It thrills and maddens me! And yet

My dreams will hold her^s, flushed from lifted brow

To finger-tips, with passion's ripest kisses

Crushed and mangled on her lips...0 woman! while Your face was fair, and heart was pure. and lips Were true, and hope as golden as your hair,

I should have strangled you!

1.   The "her" is Crestillomeem as his alcoholic possessor. This is a poem of the hold of alco­holism. This poem was not in the original Buzz Club papers series of 1878. As this poem, called "Delilah," originally was published in the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD of September 6, 1979 in Riley's front page column entitled "Poetical Gymnastics," the treach­erous deceiver was referential to the Delilah who trimmed Samson's head of hair and thus deprived him of his strength to perform acts of righteousness.

This work was originally in quatrain form with alternate rhyme and line indentation. The poem was included in the first edition of the published whole of "The Flying Islands of the Night" in its inexplicable "blank verse" in stylistic conformity with the inexplicable subject, alcohol addiction.

2.   The "Ho," Riley's catchword for intoxication, is substituted here for "0" in the original poem "Delilah."

3.   The poem "Delilah" uses the word "swift" instead of "wild."

4.   "our last love-parting" was "Our time of parting," in the original poem, "Delilah."

5.   "And yet my dreams will hold her," was "For yet in dreams I hold her," in the original poem, "Delilah."

(As Krung, ceasing to speak, piteously lifts his face, Spraivoll¹ all sudden­ly appears, in space left vacant by the Queen, and kneeling, kisses the King's hand. - He bends in tenderness, kissing her brow -then lifts and seats her at his side. Speaks then to throng.)

1. Having conquered alcohol, Riley can now assume the role of poet.

Riley did go on to win his fame. In 1889, selections of the Riley's poetry

596 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

were published in England under the title "Old Fashioned Roses." Riley's international reputation is dated from this event. Academic recognition of Riley came as early as 1891 when Henry Augustin Beers wrote in his INI­TIAL STUDIES IN AMERICAN LETTERS that Riley was a national poet.

The Riley who was Krung was a great letter writer. He sat down at his little desk in Lockerbie Street and wrote letter after letter in his older years. Most of these letters were I suppose written out of loneliness and harken toward impossible friendships with other notable people of his time.

A KRUNG POEM OF THE CIVIL WAR

In Riley's time one of his poems, "Armazindy," became known as a Civil War Epic.

There is a ford across Sugar Creek in Riley's home county of Hancock County, Indiana - I have seen photographs of it- which was said by Riley to be a place near where a real "Armazindy Ballenger" lived. I cannot locate the spot. I suspect it is on one of the county roads which cross Sugar Creek.

"Armazindy" was, of course, a genuine heroine to most Americans of the 1890's. The Riley poem "Armazindy" was originally composed for a Grand Army of Republic (Civil War veteran's group) meeting or "encampment" in 1893, but became the title poem of a book of poetry Riley published in 1894.

It is a story of a small Indiana girl, 14, who struggles to fill the place of her soldier father killed by an accident in coming home from the Civil War. The poem is in Hoosier dialect.

The story line is simple. Armazindy takes over the operation of the Ballenger family farm after her father dies and her mother, a consumptive, dies soon after. She is left with the care of twins and a palsied aunt who can­not feed herself.

Jes' a child, I tell ye! Yit

She made things git up and git

Round that little farm o' hem! ‑

Shouldered all the whole concern; ‑

Feed the stock, and milk the cows ‑

Run the farm and run house! -

This little girl grows up fast. She learns to cope. She deals with "hands.' She takes no charity. She becomes a respected neighbor while raising hei siblings, running the farm, and generally dealing with life.

KRUNG • 597

When in a few years she meets a thrasher, Sol Stephens, she falls in love except that another girl of a more conventional fam­ily, Jule Reddinhouse, takes him away from her by writing Sol's family that Armazindy was merely getting Sol to marry her so Sol would

take care of Armazindy's An 1890's thrashing scene used to illustrate the poem "Armazindy.- obligatory family,   the (From the Barton Rees Pogue glass positive collection.)

twins and aunt. Jule ends up eloping with Sol and she and Sol leave Armazindy behind.

Armazindy merely resumes her life and "shet her jaws square" to resume her laborious duties as before the tragic hope of life with Sol began.

As the story continues, Jule and Sol have two children but being the wife of a thrasher is not really what Jule was very thrilled about so Jule ran off leaving Sol with the children. Then Sol takes to alcohol and soon dies in an accident, falling into a belt on his thresher.

Before Sol dies, he asks that Armazindy be fetched. She comes. The next thing you know, guess who is left to take care of and rear Sol's children with Jule? If you guessed Armazindy, you would be right on.

Riley describes her:

"Clear and stiddy, 'peared to me

as her old Pap's ust to be."

So what are we to make of this poem?

First of all it was a popular success but subject to criticism. I suspect the poem suffers from problems of reference to us. Today, many people would dismiss "Armazindy" and such poems as overly sentimental, possibly because the subject matter seems irrelevant. In our current American scene there could literally never be an Armazindy Ballenger. Social legislation does much more to provide for desperate situations. We should remember though that Riley's fight was with the social Darwinists of Riley's day who controlled the country's political agenda with their demand that government not interfere with the natural evolutionary order on behalf of the poor and homeless. This poem was on Riley's kenotic agenda. We can hardly imag‑

598 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

ine today a girl such as Armazindy.

Armazindy was a call for government action. In many respects Riley hated the status quo as when it neglected the needs of the Civil War veter­ans and their families. It was part of Riley's natural reaction against a legal system which so often failed to carry out Lincolnesque justice. Both Lincoln and Riley read the law although Lincoln was much the more committed learner. The law had no "hold" on a Riley who saw his county jail broken into and a black man removed for lynching just at the time he was making a final choice of profession.

RILEY BECOMES AMERICA'S BELOVED NATIONAL POET
THE DEATH OF KRUNG'S MENTOR, REUBEN RILEY
PERMITTED RILEY TO BECOME A BELOVED FAMOUS PERSON

A critical event in the life of James Whitcomb Riley was December 6, 1893 when Reuben Riley died, age 74. The cause of death according to his death certificate on tile in the Hancock County, Indiana, Health Department is listed as "La Grippe" ill for 10 days complicated by typhoid pneumonia for 5 days. Riley's great example as Krung had always been his father. Riley had reacted to his father's life at almost every point sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. Now Riley was on his own to visualize how to live as Krung.

What mark should he make as the famous Krung?

The choice was his.

Krung became the King-Poet described by Meredith Nicholson as "The Poet Who All the People Loved.^- Riley could not have followed his father's style of fame and done such a thing. Reuben was a Riley. The poet once said of his family that the Rileys had composite characteristics. Physically they were unusually zestful. When afflicted they were strengthened. Despite their natively tender and compassionate natures, they were grim and piteous. But most of all: "God is not as intolerant nor as impetuous as some of us Rileys" as Riley said of the family in a letter to a cousin.

That was not to be Riley as Krung would have it.

Riley was to act toward his state and nation in such a way as to promote the kenotic points which had saved him from his "weakness" so that all peo­ple he came across could share in that salvation.

A quote from a nationally distributed novel about Riley, The Poet, by Meredith Nicholson, will indicate how well he succeeded:

"Down the long aisle of trees the tall shaft of the soldier's monument rose

KRUNG • 599

before (Riley). He had watched its building, and the memories that had gone to its making had spoken to his imagination with singular poignancy. It expressed the high altitudes of aspiration and endeavor of his own people; for the gray shaft was not merely the center of his city, the teeming earnest capital of his State, but his name and fame were inseparably linked to it. He had found within an hour's journey of the monument the material for a thou­sand poems. As a boy he had ranged the nearby fields and followed, like a young Columbus, innumerable creeks and rivers; he had learned and stored away the country lore and the country faith, and fixed in his mind uncon­sciously the homely speech in which he was to express these things later as one having authority. So profitably had he occupied his childhood and youth that years spent on "pave ground" had not dimmed the freshness of those memories. It seemed that by some magic he was able to cause the springs he had known in youth (and springs are dear to youth!)- to bubble anew in the crowded haunts of men; and urban scenes never obscured for him the labors and incidents of the farm. He had played upon the theme of home with endless variations, and never were songs honester than these. The home round which he had flung his defenses of song domiciled folk of sim‑

Riley relaxing at the site of the "Old Swimmi n' Hole^- with Tom Randall and Hamlin Garland visiting Riley as a reporter for Harper's magazine. This scene became the subject of a mammoth art copying project by William . Bixler of Anderson. IN. Bixler painted the scene shortly after taking art classes then reproduced it a reputed 5,000 times between 1912 a1918. Most of the paintings were gifts to American schoolrooms which contributed pennies to pay for the statue of James Whitcomb Riley his hometown. In this way, an original oil painting illustrating a Riley poem "The Old Swimmin' Hole" found its way into rally thousands of American classrooms in the Twentieth Century. (From the Barton Rees Pogue glass positive collection.)