JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY (1849-1916) James Whitcomb Riley had the unique distinction of having his native state, even while he was still living, declare his birthday a legal holiday by legislative enactment. Greenfield, Indiana, was his birthplace, and there and in the neighboring city of Indianapolis he spent the greater part of his life. His father, a lawyer, had intended that his son should complete his high school studies and then enter his office as a law student, but the boy had far more picturesque ambitions. He learned the trade of sign-painting, he traveled for a year as advertising agent for a patent medicine vendor, and then for three or four years was entertainer with a traveling troupe. Afterwards came desultory newspaper work, then in 1877 steady employment on the Indianapolis Journal, and finally, after 1885, a career on the lecture platform as a reader of his own poems. He began his poetical work as a humorist. and under various pseudonyms contributed verses to all the papers of the region; then in 1883 he issued at his own expense the little collection entitled The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Leven More Poems. It was not, however, until his volume After whiles, 1887, appeared that he secured general recognition. From that time on he was voluminous, his final collection containing fourteen volumes. Riley may be taken as the leading American representative of that latter-day movement which may be called the democratization of poetry. He dealt with humble life, usually rural life and humble characters; he wrote often in dialect: and he used with liberal hand sentiment, and not over-refined humor, and all those other well-known devices that enable the public reader to win popular audiences. His poems are thoroughly American and thoroughly democratic, and his influence on the period has been considerable. Often he strikes the note of true pathos, especially in his lyrics of childhood, and now and then there are chords that raise him from the ranks of the mere entertainers into the select company of the true poets. The old man 'peared wrapped up in him: But when Cap. Biggler, he writ back 'At Jim was the bravest boy we had In the whole dern rigiment, white er black. And his fightin' good as his farmin' bad - 30 'At he had led, with a bullet clean Bored through his thigh, and carried the flag Through the bloodiest battle you ever seen,— The old man wound up a letter to him 'At Cap. read to us, 'at said: 'Tell Jim Good-by, And take keer of hisse'f!' Jim come home jes' long enough 'At he'd like to go back in the calvery — 40 'Tel finally he rid away, And last he heerd was the old man say,— 'Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f!' Tuk the papers, the old man did, A-watchin' fer Jim, Fully believin' he'd make his mark 50 Some way- jes' wrapped up in him!And many a time the word 'ud come 'At stirred him up like the tap of a drum — At Petersburg, fer instunce, where Jim rid right into the cannons there, And tuk 'em, and p'inted 'em t'other way, And socked it home to the boys in gray. As they skooted fer timber, and on and onJim a lieutenant, and one arm gone, And the old man's words in his mind al day, 'Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yourse'f!' 卷。 Think of a private, now, perhaps, We'll say like Jim, 70 'At's clumb clean up to the shoulder-straps And the old man jes' wrapped up in him! Think of him—with the war plum' through, And the glorious old Red-White-and-Blue A-laughin' the news down over Jim, And the old man, bendin' over himThe surgeon turnin' away with tears 'At had n't leaked fer years and years, As the hand of the dyin' boy clung to His Father's, the old voice in his ears,'Well, good-by, Jim: Take keer of yours'f!' Century Magazine, Jan., 1888. 75 80 |