CRESTILLOMEEM.
The throne is throwing wide its gilded arms
To welcome me. The throne of Krung! Ha! ha!
Leap up, ye lazy echoes, and laugh loud!
For I, Crestillomeem, the queen - ha! ha!
Do fling my richest mirth into your mouths
That ye may fatten ripe with mockery!
I wonder what the kingdom would become
Were I not here to nurse it like a babe,
And dandle1 it beyond the silly reach
Of sycophants and serfs. Ho! Jucklet, ho!
`Tis time my twisted warp of nice anatomy
Were here to weave away upon our web -
Of silken villainies. Ho! Jucklet, ho!
1."Dandle" is something like dangle and handle
mixed up.
(Lifts a secret door to the pave, and drops a star-bud
through the opening. Enter Jucklet.)
JUCKLET.
Spang sprit1! my gracious queen, but thou hast
scorched
My left ear to a cinder, and my head
Rings like a ding-dong on the coast of death!
For, patient hate! thy hasty signal burst
Full in my face as thitherward I came;
But though my lug2 is fried to a crisp, and my
Singed wig stinks like a little sun-stewed wunk,
I stretch my fragrant presence at thy feet,
And kiss thy sandal with a blistered lip.
1. "Sprit" is Chatterton's representation of the verb for
"gives spirit" at "AElla," 2.1332. Chatterton, living in the
century prior to Riley, wrote poetry which he fraudulently
claimed was written by a monk named Rowley of the 15th
Century. Chatterton sold these forgeries for income. The
poetry was actually rather good and came to be much admired
by Riley. There was no such monk as Rowley, of course, and
Chatterton killed himself with arsenic at the age of 17 when
his deception was discovered.
2. The external ear in this use.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
Hold! rare-done fool, lest I may call the cook
And bake thee brown! How fares the king by this?
JUCKLET.
I left him sleeping1, but uncorked his nose,
And o'er the odorous blossom of his lips2
I squeezed the tinctured sponge, and felt his pulse
Come staggering back to regularity.
And four hours hence his highness will awake
and Peace will take a nap.
1. The setting is Riley sleeping off intoxication which
becomes subject to delirium in Act II, with recovery in Act
III.
2. "Liquor breath."
CRESTILLOMEEM.
Ha! what mean you?
JUCKLET.
I mean that he suspects our knaveries.
Some traitor spy is burrowed in the court
Whose unseen eye is ever focused fine
Upon our actions, and whose hungry ear
Eats every crumb of counsel that we drop
In these our secret interviews -for he -
The king - thro' all his talking-sleep to-day
Has jabbered of intrigue, conspiracy,
And treachery and hate in fellowship,
With dire designs upon his royal self,
To oust him from the throne.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
He spoke my name?
JUCKLET.
I never hear him speak but that thy name
Makes melody of every sentence. Yes, -
He thinks thou art as true to him as thou
Art fickle, false and subtle! O how blind,
and lame and deaf and dumb, and worn and weak,
And faint and sick, and all-commodious
His dear love1 is!
1. Riley's love of alcohol.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
Wilt thou wind up thy tongue
Nor let it tangle in a knot of words!
What said the king?
JUCKLET.
He said: "Crestillomeem -
O that she knew this great distress of mine!
For she would counsel with me, and her voice
Would flow in limpid wisdom o'er my wounds,
And, like an ointment, lave my hidden grief,
And heal my bleeding heart;" and so went on
Spinning the web of love in which he lies
Bound hand and foot and buzzing helplessly.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
And did he drop no hint of his distress,
And how, and when, and whence his trouble came?
JUCKLET.
He spoke as the tho' some woman talked with him -
Full courteously he said: "In woman's guise
Thou comest, yet I think thou art indeed
But woman in thy form; they words are strange,
And I am mystified! I feel the truth
Of all thou hast declared, and yet so vague
And shadow-like thy meaning is to me,
I know not how to act to ward the blow
Thou say'st is a hanging o'er me even now."
And then, with open hands held pleadingly,
He asked, "Who is my foe?" and o'er his face
A sudden pallor flashed like death itself,
As tho' if answer had been given it
Had fallen like a curse.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
I'll stake my soul

`Tis Dwainie1, of the Wunks, who peeks and peers
With those fine eyes of hers in our affairs,
And carries Krung, in some disguise, these hints
Of our intent! See thou that silence falls
Forever on her lips, and that the sight
She wastes upon our secret action blurs
With gray and grisly skum that shall for aye
Conceal us from her gaze while she writhes blind
And fangless as the fat worms of the grave.
Here, take this tuft of downy druze, and when
Thou comest on her, fronting full and fair,
Say "Sherzham!" thrice, and fluff it in her face.
1. Nellie Millikan Cooley, Riley's beloved married friend,
who died shortly before the publication of this piece.

JUCKLET.
Thou knowest little magic, O, my queen,
But all thou dost is very excellent.
And now for Amphine - he, too, doubtless, has
Been favored with an outline of our scheme.
And I would kick my soul all over hell
If I might juggle his fine figure up
In such a shape as mine.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
Then this: if thou
Canst ever find him bent above a flower,
Or any blooming thing, and thou canst slip
Behind and reach it first and touch it fair,
And with thy knuckle strike him on the breast,
Then his fine form will shrink and shrivel up
As warty as a toad's - so hideous
Thine own will seem a marvel of rare grace,
Tho' idly speakest them of mystic skill
`Twas that which won the king for me - `twas that
Bereft him of his daughter1 ere we had
Been wedded for a month; she strangely went
Astray one morning from the palace steps;
And when the dainty vagrant came not back
And all the spies in Spirkland in her quest
Came straggling empty-handed home again
Why, then the wise king wiped his rainy eyes
And sagely tho't the little toddler strayed
Out to the island's edge and tumbled off.
I could have set his mind at ease on that;
I could have told him when she tumble off.
I tumbled her, and tumbled her so far
She tumbled in another land, from which
But one charm known to art can tumble her
Back into this.
1. Spraivoll, Riley's poetic self, in this delirium tremens
attack from alcoholic binge.
JUCKLET.
Ay, true enough, perhaps!
But dost thou know that rumors float about
Among thy subjects of thy sorceries?
And if my counsel is worth aught to thee,
Then have a care thy charms do not revert
Upon thyself!
CRESTILLOMEEM.
Ha! ha! no fear of that
While Krung remains -
(She pauses abruptly, and a voice of exquisite melody is
heard singing.)
VOICE.
When kings are kings, and kings are men -
And the lonesome rain1 is raining -
O who shall rule from the red2 throne then,
And who shall wield the scepter when -
When the winds3 are all complaining?

When men are men, and men are kings -
And the lonesome rain is raining -
O who shall list as the minstrel sings
Of the ermine robes and the signet rings
when the winds are all complaining?

1. Rain most often refers to God's judgment on sinners in
frontier American poetry. Such imagery often derives from
scripture in this case possibly Ez. 38.22.
2. Red is the color of sin in frontier American Protestant
folklore. This probably derives from Isaiah 1.18. The sin in
this use would be the overuse of alcohol.
3. The wind is often a depiction of the operation of the Holy
Spirit within the world in the same folklore tradition. John
3.8. In light of the imagery of Spraivoll's initial poem, we
would suspect the answer to the poem's question is no one.

CRESTILLOMEEM.
Whence flows that sweetness, and whose voice is
that?
JUCKLET.
The voice of Spraivoll if mine ears are tuned.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
And who is Spraivoll, and what song is that she
sings?
JUCKLET.
Spraivoll, the Tune Fool is she called
By those who meet her in her nightly rounds.1
She comes from Wunkland, as she so declares,
And has been roosting round the palace here
For half a moon.
1. Riley only wrote poetry at night.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
And pray, where is she perched?
JUCKLET
Under some dingy cornice1, like enough.
She is no woman, tho' - and yet, indeed
She is licensed idiot, and drifts
About as restless, and as useless, too,
As any lazy breeze in summertime.
I'll call her forth to greet your majesty -
Ho! Spraivoll! Ho! my plumeless bird, flit here!
1. Riley was writing most of his poetry at this time in a
place he called the "Morgue," an upstairs space in row office
buildings in downtown Greenfield, Indiana.
(From behind a group of statuary Spraivoll enters.)
SPRAIVOLL. (Singing1)
Ting-along aling-ting! Tingle-tee! Ting-aling,
aling-ting! Tingle-tee!
The world runs round and round for me;
Wind it up with a golden key
Ting-aling, aling-ting! Tingle-tee!
1. Spraivoll's songs contain ellided and unintelligible
words because, we remember, Riley cannot write poetry
while he is intoxicated as he is in Acts I and II. Spraivoll
does much better in Act III when she is "herself" or rather
Riley "himself."
JUCKLET.
Who art thou, woman, and what singest thou?
SPRAIVOLL. (Singing.)
What sings the breene1 on the wertling-vine2,
And the tweck3 on the bamner-stem4?
The song they sing is the same as mine,
And mine is the same to them.
1. Probably a brown wren. Under Chatterton's "Rowley"
technicalities, any word that can take a terminal "e"
does so. Riley's poem has elements of Chatterton "takeoff."
2. Wert, wyrt, wairt, wurt, wort (as in liverwort) refers
to a herb in Middle English. A "wertling-vine" is possibly
a herb-vine.
3. Probably suggestive of a "twaddling" (or silly) "peck" or
"woodpecker" although the "tw" might refer to the Middle
English twecche (twitch).
4. A "bamner-stem" is possibly a "runner bamboo stem" or some
such.
JUCKLET.
Your majesty may be surprised somewhat,
But Spraivoll cannot talk; her only mode
Of speech is melody; and thou might'st put
The gifted fool a-thousand questions, and
In full return, receive a thousand songs,
Each set to different tunes - as full of naught
As space is full of emptiness.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
A fool?
A fool, and with a voice so strangely sweet?
A fool?
JUCKLET.
Ay, warranted! Around the world
She walks unrivalled, and a queen of fools -
Eh, Spraivoll?
SPRAIVOLL. (Singing.)
O, Aye! Tho' Spirkland has grown great
In foolish ways, I ween
Her greatest fool will intimate,
He bows to me as queen.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
So! my Jucklet finds his peer!
Come hither woman, and be not afraid,
For I like fools so well I married one.
And since thou art a queen of fools, and he
A king, why I've a mind to bring you two
Together in some way. Canst use thy tongue
in such a wise thy hearer can but list?
SPRAIVOLL. (Singing.)
If one should ask me for a song
And I should answer, then my tongue
Would twitter, trill and troll along
Until the song was done.

Or should one ask me for my tongue,
And I should answer with a song,
I'd trill it till the song was sung
And troll it all along.
CRESTILLOMEEM.
Thou art indeed a fool, and one I think
To serve my purpose well. Give ear to me!
And Jucklet, thou go to the king and wait
His waking; then repeat these words: "The queen
Impatiently awaits his majesty,
And craves his presence in the Tower of Stars,1
That she may there express all tenderly
Her great solicitude and" - there, say this:
"So much she bade, and drooped her glowing face
Deep in the shadows of her unbound hair,
And with a flashing gesture of her arm
Turned all the moonlight pallid, saying, "Haste!"
1. A "tower of stars" is the prison of his hopes for
success. In Riley's personal symbolism, a tower is a place of
bondage where one is made a prisoner. SEE: Contemporaneous
Riley letter to the Cooleys and his beloved married friend,
Nellie Cooley, dated October 28, 1877 "...take me your
prisoner and `fasten me down forever in the round tower of
your heart; and I'll never murmur for release till heaven
dawns thro the gates." In Riley imagery, stars have to do
with success. In a letter to his brother John of Nov. 16,
1874, Riley states, "In those dark hours (of drifting while a
sign painter), I should have been content with the twinkle of
the tiniest star."
JUCKLET.
And would it not be well to hang a pearl
Or two upon thy silken lashes?
CRESTILLOMEEM.
Go! (Jucklet disappears.)
Now fool, I'll furnish thee a topic for
A song: A woman once, with angel in
Her face and devil in her heart, had cause
To breed confusion to her sovereign lord,
And work the downfall of his haughty son -
The issue of a former marriage, who
Inspired her hatred from the very first;
Thro' her the king is haunted with a dream
That he is soon to die, and so prepares
The throne for the ascension of the son.
The woman now has won the husband's love,
And by her craft and wanton flatteries
Sways him to every purpose but the one
Most coveted. And so, to serve that end
She would make use of thee, and if thou dost
Her will as her good pleasure shall direct.
Why, thou shalt sing at court, and thy sweet voice
Shall woo the echoes of the listening throne.
At present does the king lie in a sleep
Drug-wrought and deep as death - the after-phase
Of an unconscious state in which each act
Of his throughout his waking hours is so
Rehearsed in manner, motion, deed and word
Her spies may tell her of his very tho't,
And should he come upon the throne to-night
Where his wise counselors sit waiting him,
Then has she cause to think her purposes
Will fall in jeopardy; but if he fail,
Thro' any means, to lend his presence there,
Then, by a former mandate, is his queen
Empowered with all sovereignty to reign
And work the royal purposes instead.
Therefore the queen has set an interview
With him that will occur at noon to-night -
One hour ere the time the throne convenes -
And with her thou shalt go, and lie in wait
Until she signal thee to sing, and then
Shalt thou so work upon his mellow mood With that
unearthly magic of thy voice -
So dazzle all his serious tho't with dreams -
The queen may, all unnoticed, slip away,
And leave thee singing to a throneless king.
SPRAIVOLL. (Singing.)
And who shall sing for the haughty son
While the good king droops his head?
And will he dream when the song is done
That a princess fair lies dead?1
1. If he is drunk, can he forget about his dead friend,
Dwainie (Nellie) recently deceased?
CRESTILLOMEEM.
The haughty son has found his "song" sweet curse
And may she sing his everlasting dirge!
She comes from that near-floating land of thine,
And with her fairer skin and finer ways,
Has caught the prince between her mellow palms And
stroked him flutterless. Didst ever hear
Of Dwainie, of the Wunks?
SPRAIVOLL. (Singing.)1
Ay, "Dwainie! My Dwainie!"
The lurloo2 ever sings,
A tremor in his flossy crest
And in his glossy wings,
And "Dwainie! My Dwainie"
The winnow welvers call,
But Dwainie hides in Spirkland
And answers not at all.

The teeper3 twitters "Dwainie!"
The tcheucker4 on his spray
Teeters up and down the wind
And will not fly away;
And "Dwainie! My Dwainie:"
The drowsy oovers5 drawl;
But Dwainie hides in Spirkland
And answers not at all.

O Dwainie! my Dwainie,!
The breezes hold their breath;
The stars are pale as blossoms,
And the night as still as death;
And "Dwainie! My Dwainie!"
The fainting echoes fall;
But Dwainie hides in Spirkland
And answers not at all.

1. A poem of Riley's anguish over his separation from his
great soul-mate, Nellie Cooley, so recently deceased.
Spraivoll, Riley's poetic self, cannot reach Nellie; only
Amphine, Riley's manifestation of love, can as we will soon
discover.
2. Dwainie (Nellie Cooley) is evoked to Riley by an alluring
but hidden spirit. "Lurloo" is a name in intoxicated
onomatopoeia through formation of allegorical qualities
rather than from animal sounds. The name probably derives
from the archaic form "lure" in the sense of an enticement or
allure and the loo which suggests a masking of an appearance
as in the loo or mask a woman wore to avoid tanning her
complexion. The fantastic bird creatures of "Dwainie" are
spirits, a common Riley catachresis extending the obvious
"bird" word into a proper poetic, as in "Song of the Rain."
3. Something which "tees" draws, tugs, pulls. Such a spirit
twitters about Dwainie. Possibly a tree-toad which is said
to "twitter" in Riley's poem "A Treat Ode" of roughly
contemporaneous time. ("Scurious-like!" said the tree-toad, -
\"I've twittered for rain all day...")
4. A tcheucker has the intoxicatese onomatopoeic ring of a
squirrel's call.
5. oover suggests a compaction of "owl hooting overhead"
giving its "hooooooooot."

CRESTILLOMEEM.
A melody ecstatic, and thy words
Altho' so meaningless, seem something more -
A vague and shadowy something, eerie-like,
That makes me catch my breath all tremulous,
But save thy music! Come, that I may make
Thee ready for thy royal auditor. (Exeunt).