THE WORLD'S MOST ENIGMATIC LOVE-SONG
The death of Riley's
beloved
Nellie Millikan Cooley cast Riley into such
despair as a young man that he wrote
"Ay, Dwainie! - My Dwainie!" It makes only empathetic sense as the death
of a loved one
makes nothing but evocative sense. It is
the most tender and enigmatic love poem of the ages.
The
name "Dwainie" derives from the Old English word "Dwine"
meaning something wasted away. By way of quick explanation, "Lurloo"
probably derives from
"lure" or something enticing and "loo"
or something masked as the loo, a mask a woman wore in Riley's day to avoid
getting a suntan. Something which "tees"
draws, tugs, pulls.
Spirkland is heaven from the old English "spirk" (spirit) thus a
"spirit land." "Oover" suggests the compaction of "owl
hooting overhead." etc. If it makes no sense, the fact is that the
loss of Nellie made no sense to Riley until
he found himself in writing
redemptive poetry.
