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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 4

Bookmark for Alcoholics Genre Hoosier Literature

ACT II

34 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

ACT II

Scene 2. - A garden of Krung's palace, screened _.from the moon and lighted with star flakes. An arbor, near which is a table spread with a repast. A fountain, near which Amphine sits thrumming a trentoraine.'

1. "Thrumming" is like strumming with his thumb. Trentoraine, is probably something like a "trembling instrument sounding like rain" or some such, most likely Riley's guitar with which he entertained Nellie on many evenings in his early twenties.

AMPHINE.

0 warbling strand of silver, where, oh where Hast thou unraveled that sweet voice of thine, And left its silken murmurs quavering In spasms of delight? 0 golden wire,

Where hast thou spilled thy precious twinkerings What thirsty ear ear has drained thy melody And left me but a wild, delirious drop To tincture all my soul with vain desire? 0, Trentoraine, how like an empty vase Thou art - whose clustering blooms of song have drooped

And faded, one by one, and fallen away And left to me but dry and tuneless stems, And crisp and withered tendrils of a voice Whose thrilling tone, now like a throttled sound Lies stifled, faint, and gasping all in vain For utterance. (Enter Dwainie', unperceived) 0 empty husk of song,

If deep within my heart the music thou Hast stored away might find an opening, A fount of^.         laughter would leap up And gurgle from my lips, and all the winds Would revel round me riotous with joy; And Dwainie in her beauty would lean o'er The battlements of night, and like the moon, The glory of her face would light the world, For I would sing of love,

1. Riley's beloved - and dead - Nellie appears in spirit. Riley elsewhere calls her his "truest friend on earth, or now in heaven" in a letter to Nellie's daughter, Mrs. Emma Cox, on April 10, 1885. He adds, "God bless us always with the sweetness of her memory!"

DWAINIE. (Concealed.) And she would hear,

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 35

And reaching overhead among the stars

Would scatter them like daisies at thy feet. AMPHINE.

m  voice, where art thou floating on the air?

0 angel-soul, where art thou hovering? DWAINIE. I hover in the zephyr of thy sighs,

And tremble lest thy love for me shall fail

To buoy me thus forever on the breath

Of such a dream as heaven envies.

AMPHINE Then

Thou lovest! 0 my angel, flutter down

And nestle to the warm home of my breast

So empty are my arms, so full my heart

The one must hold thee or the other burst. DWAINIE. (Throwing herself in his embrace.)

I think the hand of God has flung me here;

0 hold me that he may not pluck me back. AMPHINE. So closely will I hold thee that not e'en

The hand of death shall separate us.

DWAINIE. So,

May sweet death find us, then, that, woven thus

In the corolla of a ripe caress,

We may drop light, like twin plustre-buds',

On Heaven's star-strewn lawn.

1. Buds which are purely lustrous.

AMPHINE.

So do I pray,

But tell me, tender heart, as thou dost love, Where hast thou loitered for so long?

For 1 have ordered merl' and viands to be brought For our refreshment here, where all alone I might sip with thee words as well as wine. Why has! thou kept me so athirst, for I

36 • THE POET As FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Am jealous of the very solitude

In which thou walkest. (They sit at table.)

I. Merl is an alcoholic beverage, probably wine, and named after a fictional character of Riley poetry. SEE: Riley's poem of 1879, "To the Wine-God Merlus" (the "God" of "drink" who "blowest all my cares.")

DWAINIE Nay, I will not tell,

Since, if I did a thousand questions more Would vex our interview with idle tho't And speculation vain. Let this suffice -I talked with one who knew me long ago

In dreamy Wunkland,' talked of mellow nights And long, long hours of golden olden times When love lay like a baby in my arms. And life was like a tinkling toy. We talked Of all the past, ah, me, and all the friends That now await my coming and we talked Of many, many things, so many things That I forget them all in dreams of when, With thy warm hand clasped close in this of mine We walk the floating bridge that spans the gulf Between this isle of strife and gloom, and doubt, And my most glorious realm of joy and peace, Where summer-night reigns ever, and the moon Hangs ever ripe and lush with radiance Above a land were roses gloat on wings And fan their fragrance out so lavishly

The winds dive out of heaven to bathe in it.

1. Earthly life. In Hoosier folklore. Wunkland persons are those who have been "wunks" on earth, personalities or selves or souls within shapes and sizes of humanity for homes. AMPHINE

0 empress of my listening soul, talk on, And tell me all of that rare land of thine, For even tho' I reigned a peerless king Within mine own, I think I could fling down My scepter, signet, crown and royal robes, And so walk naked down the path of life, If at the dwindling end my feet might touch

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 37

Upon the shores of such a land as thou Dost paint _.for me. 0 tell me more of it, And tell me if thy sister-woman there

Is like to thee - but nay! for it thou didst

These foolish eyes would not believe - but thou Canst tell me of thy brothers. Are they great, And can they grapple with God's arguments, And cipher out the problems of the stars?

DWAINIE.

Aye, they have leaped all earthly barriers.

'Twas Wunkland's son' that voyaged round the moon, And talked with Mars, and buckled Saturn's belt; 'Twas Wunkland's son that bent the rainbow straight.

And walked it like a street, and so returned To tell us it was made of hammered shine, Inlaid with strips of selvedge' from the sun, And burnished with the rust of rotten stars. 'Twas Wunkland's son who comprehended first All grosser things, and took the world apart And oiled its joints with new philosophies; For now our goolores³ say, below these isles A million million miles are other worlds -Not like to ours, hut round, as bubbles are, And like them, ever reeling on thro' space, And anchorless thro' all eternity;

Not like to ours, for our isles,' as they say Are living things that fly about at night,

And soar above, and cling, throughout the day Like bats, beneath the rafters of the skies: and I myself have heard, at dawn of moon, A liquid music filtered thro' my dreams, As tho' a thousand trilling voices pent

In some o'erhanging realm, had spilled themselves In streams of melody that trickled thro' the chinks and crannies of a crystal pave Until the wasted juices of harmony,

slow-leaking o'er my senses, drowned my soul

38 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

With ecstacy divine. And afferhaikss

Who scour our coasts on missions for the King, Declare our island's shape is like the zhibb's6 When lolling in a trance upon the air, With open wings upslant and motionless. 0 such a land it is - so all complete In all wise habitants, and knowledge, lore, Arts, sciences, perfected government -In kingly wisdom, worth and majesty -So furnished forth in all things lovable, 0 Amphine, love of mine, it lacks but thy Sweet presence to make it a Paradise.

I. Riley seeks the soul within as rendering those in earthly bodies as "wunks" and the earth as we know it as "wunkland." Persons in the "beyond" will have activities including univer­sal explorations, musical enjoyments, ministerial functions for God, etc.

2.   Variant spelling of selvage, an edge of woven material which prevents ravelling out of the weft.

3.   Probably an ellipse of "good lores" or "best books."

4.   Riley confirms to us that "The Flying Islands" are lives that he lives at night. These are himself in fragmented souls or selves.

5.   A haik is worn by an Arab explorer into the deserts. It is an outer cloth. "Afferre" is Latin meaning "to conduct inward." Afferhaiks may refer to functionaries in the universal sphere.

6.   An inventive creature of Riley's vivid imagination possibly striped as a zebra and thus "ribbed" or some such.

(Takes up the Trentoraine.)

And shall I tell thee of the home' that waits For thy glad coming, Amphine? Listen, then -

I. After describing the people of the "beyond" and their activities, Dwainie now tells Riley of the land itself in song in an imaginative fanciful vision in which Riley and Nellie can live together. Dwainie gives Amphine to know that their "heaven" is a garden-party.

SONG

A palace veiled in a gleaming dusk;
Warm breaths of a tropic air,

Drugged with the odorous Marzhoo's' musk And the perfumed cynchottaire²; Where the

trembling hands of the lilwing's³ leaves The winds caress and fawn,

As the dreamy starlight idly weaves
Designs for a damask' lawn.

Densed in the depths of a dim eclipse

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 39

Of palms in a flowery space,

A fountain leaps from the marble lips Of a girl with a golden vase

Held atip on a curving wrist, Drinking the drops that glance

Laughingly in the gleaming mist
Of her crystal utterance.

Archways looped o'er blooming walks
That lead thro' gleaming halls;

And balconies where the tune-bird talks

To the tipsy waterfalls.

And easements gauzed with a filmy sheen

Of a lace that sifts the sight,

While a ghost of bloom on the haunted screen

Drips with the dews of light.

Weird, pale shapes of sculptured stone, And marble nymphs agate

Ever in fonts of amber sown

With seeds of gold, and sprays

Of emerald mosses ever drowned,

Where glimpses of shell and gem

Peer from the depths as round and round The nautilus nods at them.

Faces blurred in a mazy dance

And a music wild and sweet,

Spinning the threads of a mad romance
That tangles the waltzer's feet:

Twining arms, and warm swift thrills That pulse to the melody,

Till the soul of the dancer dips and fills In the wells of ecstacy.

Eyes that melt in the quivering ore Of love, and the molten kiss Bubbling out of the hearts that pour

40 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Their blood in the molds of bliss;

'Tis worn to a languor slumber-deep,
The soul of the dreamer lifts

A silken sail on the gulfs of sleep,
And into the darkness drifts.'

1.   Possibly an ellipse of "martyrs of the Hoosiers" or such.

2.   "Sin-choked air" or such.

3.   Possibly "Littlest winged cupid" kind of thing.

4.   A lawn of ornamental variegated pattern as is damask.

5.   What kind of place is Riley heading as Dwainie tells him his destination? Is this overblown, sensation-sated place described with bawdy house parlor accouterments a deliri­um-evoked description of where Riley is really heading due to his alcoholism, i.e. hell?

(The instrument falls from her hands; and Amphine in a gust of passionate delight, embraces her.)

AMPHINE

Thou art not all of earth, 0 angel one!

I do not wonder me those eyes of thine,

Have peeped above the very walls of Heaven!

What hast thou seen there? Hast thou looked on Goc And did he fling as bright a smile as thine

Back to thee as he beckoned thee within?

And tell me, didst thou meet an angel there

Alinger at the gates, nor entering

Till I, her brother, joined her?'

. Riley's sister, Martha Celestia, born February, 1847, died as a baby in 185 Riley was born.

1. two years after

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 4 1

Unseen of earthly eyes. DWAINIE Nay, do not grieve

Thee thus, 0 loving heart! Thy sister yet

May come to thee in some sweet way the fates

Are planning, even while thy tear-drops fall;

so calm thee while I speak of thine own self

And I have listened to a whistling bird

That pipes of waiting danger. Did'st thou note

No strange behavior of thy sire of late?

AMPHINE

Ay, he is silent, and he walks as one

In some deep melancholy, or as one

Asleep.

DWAINIE
And does he never speak with thee,

Nor ask thy counsel?

AMPHINE Once he stopped me on

The palace stairs, and whispered, "Lo! my soil,

thy reign draws near - prepare!" and so passed on And vanished like a ghost - so pale he was.

DWAINIE

And didst thou never reason on this thing?

Nor ask thyself "What dims my father's eye,

And makes a sullen shadow of his form?"

AMPHINE

Why, there's a household rumor that he dreams Death lurks forever at his side, and soon

Will signal him away.' But Jucklet says Crestillomeem has said the leeches say

There is no cause for serious concern;

As so I am assured it is nothing more

Than childish fancy; so I laugh, ha! ha!

And wonder, as I see him gliding past,

If ever I shall waver as I walk

And stumble o'er my beard, and knit my brow,

And o'er the dull mosaics of the pave

42 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Play checkers with mine eyes.' Ho, ho! Ah,ha!

1. A possible subtle hint of a Riley suicide plan if he cannot get himself together enough to write poetry. SEE: the contemporary poem in Hoosier dialect, "Lines to an Onsettled Young Man." ("An' what is Death?" - W'y, looky hyur -\ Ef Life an' Love don't suit you, sir, \Hit's jes' the thing yer lookin' fer!"). At this point, Riley's poetry contains the theme of the relief from life that comes with nihilation. SEE the 1879 poem "Death," with its final line "Soh, bless me! I am dead!"

2. Riley is in a stupor and the fears he will die while intoxicated in tremens if he cannot come to. His intoxicated self, Crestillomeem, however, doesn't deter him from alcohol consump­tion. Riley notices himself tumbling about glancing in distraction as do checkers jumping about on a board, square by square.

DWAINIE (Aside)

How dare I tell him? Yet, I must - I must?

AMPHINE

Why, art thou, too, grown childish, that thou canst Find crazy pleasure talking to thyself

And staring frowningly with eyes whose smiles I need so much?

DWAINIE

Nay, rather say their tears, poor thoughtless prince!

AMPHINE

What mean you?

DWAINIE

Why, I mean, one hour agone,

The queen, thy mother ‑

AMPHINE

Nay, say only "queen!"

DWAINIE

The queen, one hour agone, as so I learn, Sent message craving audience with the king At noon to-night, within the Tower of Stars. Thou knowest one hour later that the throne Convenes, and that the king has set his seal Upon a mandate that proclaims the queen Shall there preside if he do not appear.' And therefore she, as I have been apprised, Connives to hold him absent purposely That she may claim the vacancy - for what Covert design I know not, but I know

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 43

It augurs danger to you both.

1. If Riley can't get over his alcoholism, he will consign himself to a life as an alcoholic under Crestillomeem's control.

AMPHINE

I feel

Thou speakest truth, and yet how know you this? DWAINIE

Ask me not that; my lips are welded close,

And more - since I have dared to speak, and thous To listen - Jucklet is accessory,

And even now is plotting for thy fall ‑

But, passion of my soul, think not of me,

For nothing but sheer magic was avail

To work me harm; but look thee to thyself! For thou art blameless cause of all the hate That rankles in the bosom of the queen.

So have thine eyes about thee, that no step May steal behind thee ever -_.for in this

Unlooked of way thy enemy will come.

This much I know, but for what fell intent And purpose dire I dare not even guess;

So look thee, night and day, that none may come Upon thee from behind.

AMPHINE

And thou, 0 precious heart!

How art thou guarded, and what shield hast thou Of safety?

DWAINIE

Fear thou not for me at all;

Possessed am I of wondrous sorcery ‑

The gift of holy magic at my birth,

My enemy must face me as he comes

And I will know him at one utterance,

And then I may disarm him tho' he be

A giant and of thrice a giant's strength,

But hist! What wandering minstrel comes this way? VOICE (In the distance.)

The drowsy eyes of the stars grow dim;

44 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

The wamboo roosts on the rainbow's rim,

And the moon is a ghost of a shine: The soothing song of the crool' is done, But the song of love is a sweeter one,

And the song of love is mine.

Then wake! 0 wake!

For the sweet song's sake,

Nor let my heart with the morning break!

1. Crooning oriole or some such.

AMPHINE

Some serenader, but what does he in

The gardens here at glare of noon? Let us Conceal ourselves within the bower and watch. (They go within.)

VOICE. (Drawing nearer.)

The mist of the morning, chill and gray, Wraps the night in a shroud of spray, The sun is a crimson blot:

The moon fades fast, and the stars take wing; The comet's tail is a fleeting thing,

But the tale of love is not,

Then, wake! 0 wake! For the sweet song's sake, Nor let my heart with the morning break. (Enter Jucklet.)

JUCKLET

Ho! ho! what will my dainty mistress say When I shall stand knee-deep in the wet grass Beneath her window, and with upturned eyes And swaying head, and all-melodious tongue Out-lolling like the clapper ofa bell,

Fling her a song like that? I wonder now If she will not put up her finger thus,

And say, "Hist! heart of mine! the angels call For thee!" Ho! ho! Or will her blushing face Light up her dim boudoir, and from her glass Flare back to her a flame upsprouting from

The red-hot socket of a soul whose light

She tho't long since had guttered out - Ho! ho!

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 45

Or, haply, will she chastely bend above -A parian phantom with its head atip,

And twinkling fingers dusting down the dews

That glitter on the tarpysma vines

That riot round her casement, gathering Their blooms to pelt me with, as I below All winkingly await the fragrant shower? Ho! ho! how jolly is this thing of love! But how much richer, rarer, jollier

Than all the loves is this rare love of mine! Why, my sweet mistress does not even dream

I am her lover; for, to tell the truth, I have a way of wooing all my own,

And waste no speech in creamy compliment, And courtesies all gaumed with winy words. In fact, I do not woo at all. I win! How is it now the old duct glides off?

SONG'

How is it you woo? and now answer me true, -How is it you woo and you win? Why, to answer you true, - the first thing to do

Is simply, my dear, to begin.

But how can I begin to woo or to win When I don't know a Win from a Woo?

Why, cover your chin with your fan or your fin And I'll introduce them to you.

But what if it drew from my parents a view With my own in no manner akin?

No matter, - your view is the best of the two So I hasten to usher them in.

But stay! Shall I grin at the Woo or the Win? And what will he do if I do?

Why, the Woo will begin with "How pleasant it's been"

And the Win with "Delighted with you."

46 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Then supposing he grew very dear to my view? I'm speaking, you know, of the Win?

Why, then you should do what he wanted you to, And now is the time to begin.

The time to begin? 0 then usher him in ‑
Let him say what he wants me to do!

He is here - he's a twin of yourself, - I am Win, And you are my darling - my Woo.

1. An amusing song-poem of courtship and marriage in which Jucklet contemplates his hope of marriage with Dwainie (Nellie, already married of course.) One who "woos" is an object of courtship and one who "wins" gets married. When Jucklet says, "I am win" he is express­ing his confidence that he can become a groom. The phrase is found in an early 1971 Riley courtship poem, the "Unexpected Result," as a "casual" phrase for the ritual of courtship and marriage. ("...If I were you/ I'd marry that woman, that's what I'd do,/ As certain as one and one make two!/ Or ain't you much on the marry now'?/ Well, she's a mighty fat take any­how!"/ "Well now, you can bet she ain't so slow,/ Hang it! I won't play off on her so!/ Where's my overcoat? I'm going to go!/ And you needn't sit up till I come in,/For I am right on the 'woo' and the 'win!'")

That song / call most sensible nonsense;

And if the fair and peerless Dwainie were

But here with that sweet voice of hers, to take The part of "Woo," I'd be the happiest "Win" On this side of futurity! Ho! ho!

DWAINIE. (Aside to Amphine.)

What means he?

AMPHINE.

Why he means that throatless head

Of his needs _,further chucking down between

His ugly shoulders!

(Starts forward, Dwainie detains him.)

DWAINIE. Nay, thou shalt not stir!

See; now the monster has discovered our

Repast, so let us mark him further.

JUCKLET. What!

A roasted wheffle and a toe-spiced whum' -Tricked with a larvey and gherghling's tail

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 47

And, sprit me^t! wine enough to swim them in! Now I should like to put a question to

The guests, but as there are none, I direct My interrogatory to the host:

Am I behind time?

. A "wheffle" is probably something like a waffle and a truffle mix and a "whum" a wheat bun or some such.

2. Give me spirit.

(Showing humbly.) Then I can but trust My tardy coming will be overlooked

In my most active effort to regain

A gracious tolerance by

service now:

Directing the attention to

the fact

That I have brought my

appetite along,

I can but feel - ahem! that

further words

Would he a waste of time.

(Sits at table, pours out wine,

and eats voraciously)

There was a time

When I was rather backward in my ways; But somehow, as I think I have outgrown

The nice, shy age, wherein one makes a meal Of two estardles and a fork of soup.

Hey, Sanaloo; but my starved stomach stands With mouth agape, awe-stricken and aghast Before the rich profusion of this feast; So will I lubricate it with a glass of merl And coax it on to more familiar forms

Of fellowship with these delectables.

(Pours out wine and holds up the goblet.) Mine host - thou of the viewless presence and Hush-haunted lip - thy most imperial,

Ethereal, and immaterial health!

Live till the sun dries up, and comb thy cares With star-prongs till the comets fizzle out

48 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

And fade away and fall and are no more! (Drinks and refills the goblet.)

And if thou wilt permit of the remark, -The gleaming shaft of spirit in this wine Goes whistling to its mark, and full and fair Zipps to the target center of my soul. Why, now, I am the veriest gentleman That ever buttered woman with a smile, And let her melt and run, and drip and ooze All over and around a wanton heart; And if my mistress bent above me now, In all my hideous deformity,

I think she would look over, as it were, The hump upon my back; and so forget The kinds and knuckles of my crooked legs In this enchanting smile, that she would leap Love-dazzled, and fall faint and fluttering Within these open, all-devouring arms Of mine! Ho! ho! and yet Crestillomeem Would have me blight my dainty mistress with This feather from the Devil's wing, but I Am far too full of craft to spoil the eyes That yet shall pour their love like nectar out Into my own, and I am far too deep

For royal wit to wade my purposes.

DWAINIE.

What can he mean.

AMPHINE.

I will rush forward and

Tear out his tongue, and slap it in his .face! DWAINIE.

Nay, nay! It's what he says!

JUCKLET.

How big a fool ‑

How all magnificent an idiot ‑

I would be to blight her, when 1 have power To crush the only object that now lies Between her love and mine! Ho! ho! ho! ho!

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 49

I wonder, when she sees the human toad Squat at her feet, and cock his filmy eyes Upon her, and croak love, if she wilt not Call me to tweezer him with two long sticks, And toss him from her path - 0, ho! ho! ho! Hell bend him o'er some blossom quick, that I

May have one brother in the flesh! (Nods drowsily.)

DWAINIE. (Aside)

Ha! See!

Look, Amphine, he grows drunken; bide a spell And I will vex him with my sorcery';

Then will we leave him, for the hour draws on When all our arts and strategies must needs Be called in action.

I. The spirit of Nellie and her faith in Riley's poetic possibility invests Jucklet, Riley's sur­vival personality, with awareness that his drunkenness may kill him.

Jucklet yawns drowsily, stretches, and gradually sinks at full length on the sward.' Amphine and Dwainie come forward. Amphine is about to place his foot contemptuously upon the sleeper's breast, but is held back by Dwainie, who motions him to turn away and hide his face; this time, she unbinds her hair, and throwing it forward over her face, and bending till it trails the ground she lifts to the knee her dress,and so walks backward round the sleeper, crooning to herself an incoherent song.' Then pausing, letting fall her dress, and rising to full stature, waves her hands above the sleeper's face, and runs to Amphine, who turns about and looks upon her wonderingly.

1.   A grassy surface.

2.   A song of reminder of her faith in Riley which will soon combine with the terror of demen­tia tremens from his alcoholism to reform Riley and wake him out of the poem's delirium.

DWAINIE. Now shalt thou look on

Such misery as thou bast never dreamed.

(As she speaks a chorus of unearthly voices is heard chanting

to strange discord.)

CHANT

When the fat moon smiles
And the comets kiss,

And the Spirkland elves rejoice,

The whanghoo twunkers'

50 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

A tune like this,

And the nightmare nips the royce2:

1. "whanghoo twunkers" is possibly an ellipse for a wailing spirit evoking a "twang" or "plunk" sound.

2. Possibly an ellipse for "royal arse." (As these words die away, a cornet-freighted with weird

shapes, dips from the sky, and trails near the sleeper's feet, while from it two nightmares, Creech and Gritchfang, alight; the comet hisses, switches its tail and disappears, while the two goblins hover over Jucklet, who stares at them with starting eyes and horribly comfort­ed features.)

CREECH (To Gritchfang.)

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

Flutter your wings like your grandmother does,' Tuck in your chin, and wheel over and whir Like a dickerbug fast in the web of the wurr, Reel out your tongue and untangle your toes, And rattle your claws o'er the bridge of his nose; Tickle his ears with your feathers and fuzz, And keep up a hum like your grandmother does.

(Jucklet moans and clutches at the air convulsively.2)

I. In Middle English mythology, the "nightmare" was a female monster supposed to settle upon people and animals in their sleep producing a feeling of suffocation or great distress from which the sleeper vainly tries to free one's self. The grandmother of nightmares would be the ultimate ancestral nightmare herself.

2. An account of Riley's "survival self' in tremens.

AMPHINE (Shuddering)

Most horrible! See how the poor worm writhes! DWAINIE

But good will come of it, a far voice sings.
GRITCHFANG (To Creech.)

Let me dive down in his nostriline caves,

And keep an eye out as to how he behaves;

Fasten him down while I put him to rack,

And don't let him flops from the flat of his back.

(Shrinks to minute size, disappears in the sleeper's nose, and calls gleefully from within:)

Lo! I have bored thro' the floor of his brains,

And set them all writhing with torturous pains;

And I shriek out the prayer as I whistle and whizz,

I may be the nightmare that my grandmother is!

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 51

(Appears, and assuming former shape, crosses to Creech, and they dance on the sleeper's stomach in broken time to chorus.)

CHORUS

Whing! whang! so our ancestors sang,

And they guzzled hot blood and blew up with a bang;

But they ever tenaciously clung to the rule

To only blow up in the hull of a fool ‑

To fizz and explode like a cast-iron toad

In the cavernous depths where his victuals were

stowed ‑

When chances were ripest and thickest and best

To burst every button-hole out of his vest.

(They pause, float high above, and fussing together into a ponderous iron weight, they drop heavily upon the chest of the sleeper, who moans piteous­ly.)

AMPHINE (Hiding his face.)

Ah! Heavens! take we hence!

(Dwainie leads him off, looking backward as she disappears and waving her hands.)

CREECH (To Gritchfang.)

Zipp! Zipp! Zipp! Zipp!

Sting his tongue raw and unravel his lip:

Grope, on the right, down his windpipe, and squeeze

His liver as dry as a petrified flea's.

(Gritchfang bows, shrinks and disappears.)

Throttle his heart till he's black in the face,

And bury it down in some desolate place,

Where only remorse in her agony lives

To dread the advice that your grandmother gives.

(The sleeper struggles convulsively, while the voice of Gritchfang calls from within.)

Ho! I have clambered the rounds of his ribs,

And riddled his lungs into tatters and dribs;

And 1 turn up the tube of his heart like a hose

And squirt all the blood to the end of his nose;

I stamp on his stomach, and caper and prance,

With my tail tossing round like a boomerang lance,

And thus may success ever crown my intent

52 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

To wander the way that my grandmother went.

(Appears, falls hysterically in Creech's outstretched arms. They dance and chorus.)

CHORUS

Whang! Whang! so our ancestors sung.

And they snorted and pawed, and they hissed and

they stung,

And they took a terrific delight in their work

On the fools that they found in the lands of the

Spirk.

And each little grain of their powders of pain

They scraped up and pestled again and again,

And they mixed it in doses for gluttons and sots

Till they strangled their dreams with abdominal

knots.

(The comet again trails past, upon which the nightmares leap and disappear. Jucklet staggers to his feet, glares frenziedly about him, and with a wild, unearthly howl of agony, rushes off.)

ACT III

54 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY:
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

ACT III

Scene I. - Court of Krung -The royal ministers and counselors in session - Crestillomeem, in royal attire presiding - She signals to herald on her right, who steps forward - Blare of trumpets, greeted with loud murmurings and tumult from without.

HERALD.

Hist, ho! Ay,ay! Ay,ay! Her majesty,

The all glorious and ever gracious queen

Crestillomeem, to her most loyal, leal'

And right devoted subjects, greeting sends -Proclaiming, in the absence of the king,

Her royal presence, as by him empowered To sit upon the throne in sovereign state

And work the royal will. (Confusion)

Hist, ho! Ay,ay! Ay,ay!

And be it known, the king, in view of his

Approaching dissolution -

Hath decreed The reading of this royal document.

1. A Middle English word meaning "true." (Sensation among the counselors, etc. within and wild tumult without; cries of "Long live the king!" and "Down with the sorceress!") (Unrolls a scroll with royal seal attached. Sensation in court - wild tumult without, and cries of "Plot!" "Conspiracy!" "Down with the Queen!" "Down with the sorceress!")

CRESTILLOMEEM. (Wildly)

Bring me the traitor-knave who dares to cry

"Conspiracy!"

(Wild confusion without - sound of rioting, and a voice, "Let me be taken!" Enter officers, dragging Jucklet, wild-eyed and hysterical.) CRESTILLOMEEM. (Starting.)

Why bring you Jucklet here?

OFFICER.

Because 'tis he who cries "conspiracy!"

And who incites the mob without with cries Of "Plot" and "Treason!"

CRESTILLOMEEM.

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 55

Ha! Can this be true?

11/ not believe it! Jucklet is my fool,

But not so great a fool that he would tempt

His sovereign's ire. Let him be freed. Come here,

My Fool.

JUCKLET. (Wildly)

Thy Poi? Ho! ho! Why, thou art mine!

(Confusion. Cries of "Strike down the traitor!")
JUCKLET.

Back! all of ye! I have not waded Hell

That I should fear your puny enmity!

But I will give you proof of what I say.

(Presses toward the throne, hurling his opposers left and right. Crestillomeetn sits as tho' stricken speechless, waving him off, while Jucklet folds his arms and stands before her.)

JUCKLET. (To the throng)

Lo! do I here defy her to lift up her voice

And say this is a lie that Jucklet speaks.

(The queen motions to officers, who, unperceived, close behind Jucklet.) And further - I pronounce the document '

That craven herald there holds in his hand

A forgery - a trick - and dare the Queen

Here in my listening presence to command

Its utterance.

I. Probably an anti-temperance Murphy pledge to remain alcoholic rather to remain sober.

CRESTILLOMEEM. (Wildly rising to her feet)

Hold, hireling! traitor! fool!

The Queen thou dost in thy mad boasts insult

Will utter first thy doom.

(Jucklet is seized from behind, and hurled, face upward on the dais at her feet, while a minion, with a drawn sword pressed against his breast, stands over him.)

Ere we proceed

With graver matters let this demon-knave

Ben sent back home to Hell. Give me the sword ‑

The insult has been mine - so even shall

The vengeance be!

(As she bends forward with the sword, Jucklet, with a super human effort

56 ¨ THE POET As FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

frees his hand and with a sudden motion, and an incoherent muttering, flings something' at the queen, who staggers, dropping the sword, and with her arms tossed wildly aloft, totters forward and falls prone upon the pave. In the confusion following, Jucklet mysteriously disappears, and as the bewil­dered and awe-stricken courtiers lift the fallen queen, a clear and piercing voice is heard singing.)

1. Sobriety which will change Riley from Crestillomeem's influence in drunkenness to Krung a respectable person in society.

VOICE.

The pride of noon must wither soon,

The dusk of death must fall;

Yet out of darkest night the moon

Shall blossom over all.

(For an instant a dense cloud envelops the throne, then slowly lifts, discov­ering Krung seated in royal state, with Jucklet in the act of presenting the scepter to him. Blare of trumpets, and chorus of courtiers, ministers, her­alds, etc.)

CHORUS.

All hail! All hail! All hail! Long live the King! KRUNG.

Thro' God's great providence, together with The intervention of an angel whom

I long ago tho't lost to earth and me,'

Once more, as your sovereign, do I greet

And tender you my blessing. Until late

I have been subject of the baleful spells

And witcheries² of this poor woman here'

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

Should light upon hope's fairest minister.

Remove her from my sight.

1.   Nellie.

2.   Intoxication.

3.   Crestillomeem. Riley's drunken self.

(As the queen is led away Spraivoll appears in royal attire. She kneels and kisses the king's hand; in return he kisses her upon the brow, and lifts and seats her at his side.' )

I . Spraivoll. Riley's "versifier" self can now write humble poetry.

Behold in this sweet woman here my child, who,

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 57

when a babe,

The cold, despicable Crestillomeenz ‑

(He bows his head within his hands and shudders) By spells

And wicked necromancies spirited To some strange real, where, happily

A Wunkland princess' found her, and undid The spell by a most potent sorcery'

She doth possess, God-given, to right wrong. La! let the peerless princess now appear!

1.   "Dwainie-Nellie."

2.   The power of encouragement and love.

(He lifts his scepter, and a gust of melody, unearly beautiful, sweeps through the court. The star above the Throne drops slowly downward, bursting like a bubble on the scepter-tip, and issuing therefrom Amphine and Dwainie, hand iii hand, full at the feet of Krung, who bends above them with his bless­ing, while Jucklet capers wildly round the group.)

J UCKLET.

Ho! ho! but I could shriek for very joy ‑

For- tho' fair Amphine even now bends o'er

A blossom, I, ho! ho! have no desire

To meddle with it, since with but one eye

I slept the while she backward walked around Me in the garden.

(Amphine laughs gaily, Jucklet blinks and leers, and Dwainie bites her fin­ger.)

KRUNG.

Peace! good Jucklet, peace!

For this is not a time for juiceless wit ‑

Tho' I have found restored to me my life ‑

Tho' I have found a daughter, I have lost

A son - for Dwainie, with her sorcery, Will, on the morrow, carry him away.'

1. Riley's bond with Nellie causes his "lover-self' to go live with Nellie in her grave or perhaps heaven as her "soulmate."

58 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

SOME COMMENTS ON THE POEM
FROM THE TIME OF ITS FIRST PUBLICATION

Riley never talked about the substance of the poem. There is an account of a Riley acquaintance of the time, Minnie Belle Mitchell, who was in her brother-in-law, George F. Hauck's Greenfield Grocery in 1878 when the Saturday HERALD arrived with "The Flying Islands" in it. Riley's broth­er, Hum, working in the store as a clerk received the newspaper from the paper carrier and spread it out on a counter. While she and Hum were read­ing it, Riley and his friend Frank Hayes came into the store. Minnie Belle remembers saying to Riley. "It's wonderful, simply marvelous," with her teen-age exuberance. She continued, "It's beautiful to look at too, but do you know, I can't understand a word of it - I don't know what it's all about."

She adds, "My extravagant remarks were followed by an explosion of laughter from the three young men, and I knew instantly that I had said the wrong thing and my face was scarlet."

Riley's autobiographical poem was a lark to him at the time. He was "Thomas Chatterton" putting forth a prank poem but without so serious an intent as to try to make any money out of a Middle English "forgery" as Chatterton had tried.

Riley eventually replied, "Well, Minnie Belle, I have to confess-I don't know what that poem is all about myself. It was given to me, you know." Riley was not about to tell his young friend that it was a soul journey while he was intoxicated.

The public was just as confused about "The Flying Islands of the Night" as was Minnie Belle Mitchell.

The Kokomo TRIBUNE published the following about "The Flying Islands of the Night" on September 26, 1878. Our young friend, J.W. Riley, has covered himself all over with glory by his "The Flying Islands of the Night" recently published in the Indianapolis HERALD. Never since the days of Poe has there been such a fanciful piece of versification written. It is so unique and purely original that any attempt to describe it or criticize it would result in a miserable failure. It must be read to be appreciated. Mr. Riley has been before the public but for a short time, but in that time his poems have placed him at the head of the poets of the West. For sublimity, originality, conception and purity of diction, Mr. Riley ranks the leading lit­erary lights of the state. His sonnet on the death of Mr. Philips was one of the ^grandest concepts that was ever penned. Christ hears the wailing of the

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 59

tired soul, and reaching down from Heaven, takes him by the hand and helps him up. We are pleased to learn Mr. Riley's engagements to lecture are numerous and financially his prospects are bright."

Yes, but what about the subject matter?

The poem was really a play. The play was about Riley's life. The strange thing about it was that Riley was all the characters except for Dwainie.

60 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

ALCOHOLIC'S CONFESSIONAL GENRE LITERATURE

What about the plot?

Who would have guessed that Riley's genius had produced the most novel use of a purely American genre in all of literature. Riley had transformed the Alcoholic's Confessional Genre of literature into poetry. He had come close to strangling it. He used it absurdly. Literature had never seen such a mischievous minstrel as Riley before. One of the most original aspects of Riley's writing of "The Flying Islands of the Night" was the use he made of the Alcoholic's Confessional Genre. In that genre generally, an alcoholic describes himself as a despicable alco­holic. Then along comes a "saving soul" or perhaps the "agent of salvation." It is a special person to the doomed alcoholic who pleads to the deranged intoxicated person and inspires them to escape their drunkenness while in tremens or delirium of one sort or another. Presto! The alcoholic is saved and a "new person." This genre was very popular in Riley's time when great temperance movements swept the country. However no other poet made even the slight­est use of the genre. Nor does it appear that any other author followed Riley's lead in applying it to autobiographical poetry. "The Flying Islands of the Night" is really a very complex puzzle. Once we see that Poe's "Scenes from Politian" and mock Thomas Chatterton trumpery were sources of form and language, then we must look to the movement of Riley's piece. Alcoholic's Confessional Genre literature provides that more dominant influence. The key to the genre is an initial description of alcoholic "hell" followed by the saving influence of somebody and then a final scene where sobriety triumphs. In Riley's autobiographical use of the genre, the spirit of the dead Nellie Cooley, his married inspiration of days gone by, is the saving force. Later, during his revisions for subsequent publications, Riley adds his moth­er's love as AEo as a saving force too. We find the alcoholic's confessional genre in the prose of Luther Benson's FIFTEEN YEARS IN HELL. In that book, which Riley was read­ing at the time he wrote "The Flying Islands of the Night," Benson describes the following sequence in his life in which his mother saves him. -My wild revel was protracted for days out of dread of the awful sorrow and remorse

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 61

that I knew must surely come on my getting sober. My mother appeared to me in my troubled dreams, and talked to me as in life. Many times in my slumber, and in my waking fancies did I see her pale, troubled face, with her pitying eyes looking on me as from that bed of pain and death, and at such times I reached out my hands toward her in mute pleading for forgiveness, forgetting or not knowing that she was dead."

Riley looked on Benson with awe and reverence. But was he for real? Was he just another "charlatan"

with a product to sell - piety and salvation - as did Does McCrillus and Townsend sell "miracle cures." Luther was someone of national significance as can be seen in two representative press reports of his time.

From         the          Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) GAZETTE:

Luther Benson, Esq. of Indiana, has just closed one of the most powerful temperance lectures ever delivered here. The house was one solid mass of people, with not one spare inch of standing-room. For

Luther Benson (1847-1989). great lecturer on the evils of
nearly two hours he held the audi- alcohol and reformed alcoholic who counseled Riley on his
alcoholism and took him along with him on a lecture trip near

ence as any magic. At the close a

the time Riley wrote '"Ile Flying Islands of the Night". large number signed the pledge, Benson had been confined to a "madhouse" and jails because of his delirious visions from tremens bout.

some of them the hardest drinkers

here. The people are so delighted

with his good work that they have secured him for another lecture Wednesday evening."

From the Manchester (New Hampshire) PRESS:

"Smyth's Hall was completely filled, seats and standing room at two o'clock Sunday afternoon, with an audience which came to hear Luther Benson. The officers of the Reform Club, clergymen and reformed drunk­ards occupied seats upon the platform. Mr. Benson is a native of Indiana, and says he was a drunkard from six years of age. He was within three months of graduation from college when he was expelled for drunkenness. Then he studied for a lawyer, and was admitted to practice, being drunk

Luther Benson, Riley compatriot later estranged. The friendship ended when Benson sued Riley to collect a debt from Riley who was very careless about his finances.

62 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

while studying and drunk while engaged in a case. At length he reduced himself to poverty, pawning all he had for drink. At length he started to reform and though he had once fallen he was determined to per­severe. Since his reformation two years ago, he gave temperance lectures. He is a young man, a powerful, swinging sort of speaker, with a good command of lan­guage, original with peculiar intonation, pronunciation and idioms, sometimes rough, but eminently popular with his audi­ences. He spoke for an hour and a half steadily, wiping the perspiration from his face at intervals, taking up the greater part of his address with his personal experience. He said he had delirium tremens several times, once for fifteen days, and gave an exceed­ingly minute and graphic description of his

torments. A number of men signed the pledge at the close of the meeting. Among them was one man, who sat in front of the audience and kept drink­ing from a bottle he had evidently in a spirit of bravado, but at the conclu­sion of the address he signed the pledge, crying like a child."

In another example of the genre, THIRTY-THREE YEARS A LIVE WIRE, the autobiography of John T. Hatfield, another reformed alcoholic was incidentally a childhood friend of James Whitcomb Riley who went on to lecture on holiness, the Act II stage (the saving agency) is referred to as an "Anointing." Instead of a "Dwainie" as with James Whitcomb Riley or a "doting mother" as with Benson, Hatfield's inspiration is Christ.Riley was as much aware of Hatfield's writing in the genre as he was Benson's.As to their boyhoods together, Hatfield writes, "James Whitcomb Riley and myself were boys together. We were in the same class at school, and at the same "swimming hole," since made famous in one of Mr. Riley's poems. During the Civil War we marched the streets together with tin pans for drums and broomsticks for guns. Little did passers-by imagine, as they cast indifferent glances at us little dust-begrimed urchins out in the road playing soldier, that, in the coming years, little Johnnie Hatfield would bless his

John Hatfield (1851-ca. 1936). "The Hoosier Evangelist," reformed drinker and friend of James Whitcomb Riley about whom it was said: "John Hatfiled can preach longer and louder, and keep at it longer, and shout more, and jump higher, and get more people to the alter, and pray longer and harder, than any man that walks on the ground.-

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 63

A camp meeting of John Hatfield's at the Cleveland (IN) Campgrounds which John Hatfield called "My home camp" outside Greenfield, Indiana, a place where souls were saved by the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

country as John T. Hatfield, "The Hoosier Evangelist," and little Jim Riley would be known the world over as James Whitcomb Riley, "The Hoosier Poet."

Hatfield held revivals country-wide as a primary speaker of the American "Holiness movement" and founded a religious college in Pasadena, California.

From his boyhood memorials, he says, "My father, in those days, fre­quently kept a bottle of "Old Kentucky Rye" in the cupboard and its con­tents were offered to both children and guests. This custom of the home had something to do in kindling to great intensity my appetite for strong drink, and at the age of twenty years I was frequenting saloons and seeking com­panionship among the vile, soul-destroying influence of saloon life. (Biographer's Note: This crowd probably included James Whitcomb Riley.) Like a meteor in the night I was fast going down, and nothing less powerful than the mighty attraction of heavenly gravitation could reverse my hellward course and draw me to the heights of noble Christian manhood. Thank God, the Holy Spirit interposed, the blood of Christ was supplied, and my young life was transformed from a disgraceful career of drunken profli­gacy to one of eminent usefulness in the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Strangely enough, James Whitcomb Riley's life passage had the same result.

An anointing incident which saves Hatfield from his life of sin is described as occurring at a typical Midwestern camp-meeting of the period. Hatfield says, "People who witnessed the scenes of that day declared that they saw flashes of Divine light appear over the congregation as wave and

64 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

wave of heavenly power descended upon the assembly of thousands." After the meeting, Hatfield went to a farmer's home exhausted and went to bed, hut couldn't sleep until "I again closed my eyes and there appeared before me a vision. I saw a silver horn lined with gold, the large end resting upon my breast. It appeared to be many feet in length from the large end to the mouthpiece which appeared to be quite small. I looked up from the large end, and had never held anything so indescribably beautiful. Suddenly the opening at the small end was darkened and there appeared a halo of light, which seemed to envelop a fast-approaching figure. As nearer and nearer the lovely vision approached, I soon recognized the central figure as that of Jesus and the beautiful halo proved to be a band of bright, shining angels. All the angels were singing and such exquisite tones cannot be described, neither can they be compared to any earthly melodies. In a short time, Jesus stood close beside me, and looked down upon me with an expression that, in clearer tones than words, spoke of tenderest love, then He disappeared. At the same time I felt a sensation in my throat as though I was swallowing something. Then the horn passed away, the angels disappeared and the music ceased. I opened my eyes and then closed them again, hoping that the vision would appear one more, but I waited and listened in vain." The call was for Hatfield to preach just as James Whitcomb Riley's call from his deceased Dwainie was inspiration for him to write poetry and recite it from the lyceum circuit stages around the country.

Whether Riley was intoxicated while writing "The Flying Islands of the Night" is unknown. There is this possibility. Recent study by Mark Brunke and Mer^y Gilbert in "Alcohol and Creative Writing" in PSYCHOLOGICAL REPORTS (1992,71, 651-658) found that alcohol facilitates creative writing and specifically the use of novel figurative language. The testing of the hypothesis had intoxicated persons write brief stories or streams of con­sciousness, all of which were fictional. There were significantly more novel tropes while intoxicated than sober. Subjects also wrote significantly more words when intoxicated. There is obviously very marked used of figurative language and novel trope use in "The Flying Islands of the Night." Nevertheless, the writing bears great sense as an autobiographical exposi­tion under the circumstances of its writing. Whether Riley wrote the piece while intoxicated is debatable but unnecessary to know for its value in this biography.

We cannot fully explore -The Flying Islands of the Night" in this pref­ace to the life of the most important of the late Nineteenth Century American

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 65

poets, James Whitcomb Riley. We must however confirm its autobiograph­ical nature as the basis of this biography. Crestillomeem, Krung, Jucklet and others are the self-visualization which Riley embodied in his wonderfully "astronomically" impossible vision of self- alienation and personality frag­mentation he called "The Flying Islands of the Night" which will govern the biography to follow.

Why bother with such an impossible person?

There may be other reasons for a study of Riley - and some of them will be explored - but ultimately the very mix of his personality, and the eventu­al triumph of his poetic self, "Spraivoll," (usually) was brought about by an intervening instrumentality of spirituality that I find so compelling it must be written about. At its point of greatest flourish, this aspect of Riley became transforming to Riley's poetry as well as literally "saving" him from Crestillomeem. At its very best the quality in his life became kenotic poet­ry. Kenotic poetry is the finest poetry of Post-Civil War American literature and Riley wrote its greatest singing verse. The reason it is the finest poetry of the period is that it connected ecstatically with the American soul and

"Civil War Company A" recruited from Greenfield, Indiana, Riley's hometown. Great social trauma accompanied the end of the war. Reuben Riley is the front left soldier.

expressed its song.

Some mention of the obscure kenotic theological movement originating in Germany must be interwoven into this account and also its odd peripatet­ic journey into the American mid- continent where Riley wrote his poetry. This will come with a discussion of Riley as Spraivoll later on in this biog­raphy.

But for now let us meet Riley as a cast of himself as he knows himself to be at the level of his soul.

There is simply no way of accounting for the life of James Whitcomb Riley without meeting his dialoguing "self- cast" play partners. We will introduce them in the chapters that follow and see how their individual lives were lived.

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