-THE FAITH OF~ 
 THE PEOPLES POET 
 
 DANIEL L, MARSH
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB II ILK Y 
 The People's Poet
 
 THE FAITH 
 
 of the 
 
 PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 DANIEL L. MARSH 
 
 D27 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1920 
 TH BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United State* of America 
 
 WAUNWORTH A CO. 
 
 OOK UANUFACTUIKR* 
 
 AOOKLVN. N. r.
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATES 
 THIS BOOK TO HIS WIFE 
 
 HARRIET TRUXELL MARSH 
 
 1003327
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE PEOPLE'S POET . . .. ^ . >, 11 
 II THE FAITH OF JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 38 
 
 III "His VOICE MAKES NATIVE CHOICE OF 
 
 NATURE'S HARMONY" ..... 58 
 
 IV THE DOCTRINE OF GOD IN RILEY'S 
 
 RHYMES . . . 106 
 
 V THE CHRIST IN RILEY'S RHYMES A 
 
 CHRISTMAS MEDITATION ....._ 135 
 
 VI THE CROSS IN RILEY'S RHYMES A PAS 
 SION WEEK MEDITATION . A .. . 145 
 
 VII SIN ......... ... . 156 
 
 VIII RILEY'S DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY AN 
 
 EASTER MEDITATION 177 
 
 IX PRACTICAL RELIGION HUMBLE SERVICE 205 
 X PATRIOTISM IN RILEY'S RHYMES . 230
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET
 
 THE FAITH OF THE 
 PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 ONCE upon a Chautauqua platform I delivered 
 a lecture-recital entitled "James Whitcomb 
 Riley, Our Typical American Poet." At the close 
 of the lecture-recital, a preacher who was present 
 said to me : 
 
 "I do not agree with your subject. I do not think 
 that James Whitcomb Riley is the 'typical American 
 poet/ " 
 
 In my reply I insisted that while he wrote for the 
 human heart the world around, yet he was thor 
 oughly American in his heredity, his residence, his 
 themes and his habits of thought. 
 
 "With all of this, I will agree," responded my 
 critic; "but still I do not think your subject is true.'* 
 
 "In what particular?" I inquired. 
 11
 
 12 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "Simply because I do not consider him a poet at 
 all," was the rejoinder. 
 
 "Pray, then, what is he?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh," he replied, "just a rhymster just a rhym- 
 ster. I like to think of a poet as one who deals with 
 the great profound things of life in a profound way. 
 Now Riley's stuff is simple, shallow, flung off in a 
 hurry. I would not call him a poet at all." 
 
 I report this only because it is so thoroughly ex 
 ceptional. Out of the tens of thousands of people 
 before whom I have spoken on Riley, that is the 
 only time I have ever heard anybody raise a doubt 
 about his enduring poethood ; and thus, by striking 
 contrast, the genuineness of my thesis is demon 
 strated, that James Whitcomb Riley is the typical 
 American poet of this generation. 
 
 And yet, my preacher friend gave voice to a very 
 common heresy: that anything that is simple and 
 easily understood is not profound and has not re 
 quired much work. People often imagine that any 
 thing that is abstruse and involved and difficult to be 
 seen through is the product of great labor and pro 
 found thought. 
 
 But did you ever stop to think that when you can 
 not see to the bottom of a stream, it is not necessar-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 13 
 
 ily because it is so deep: maybe it is just muddy! 
 It requires far more work and far more brains to 
 express a profound truth simply than to enshroud 
 it in the vagueness of high-sounding phrases. 
 
 Riley mastered the magic secret of poetry: sim 
 plicity! He steered clear of choriambics and hen- 
 decasyllabic verse. That is one reason why he is 
 the People's Poet. But in his simple style he dealt 
 with the profoundest thoughts of life. What are 
 the profoundest thoughts of life? God, man, sin, 
 conscience, immortality, patriotism, nature. Did 
 Riley deal with these subjects in a profound way? 
 In answer I ask only that you read the following 
 chapters of this book. 
 
 But his simple verses were not "just flung off." 
 For the most part they are the result of assiduous 
 toil. He told me once when I called on him in his 
 home in Lockerbie Street, Indianapolis, that he had 
 always done his best work at night, after the rest 
 of the household had retired and he locked his door 
 and worked alone. He said that sometimes he 
 worked for a whole night on a single line of poetry. 
 Once he remarked to a friend that he had always 
 done more work with the rubber end of his pencil 
 than with the point of it ! It is well for young peo-
 
 14 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 pie to be told that story; for excellence never lies 
 this side of drudgery. Pope knew what he was talk 
 ing about when he said : 
 
 "Pensive poets painful vigils keep, 
 
 Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep." 
 
 The magic and the mystery of the poet is to trans 
 figure life and its environment, under the stimulus 
 of emotion and prophetic insight. To be a poem, 
 this transfiguring speech must flow in measured 
 pulse and conform to a definite word-pattern. This 
 throbbing pulse-beat which we call rhythm is as 
 essentially the life of the poem as is the coursing 
 warm blood the life of the body. Everywhere in 
 the universe there is rhythm: the swinging of the 
 stars in their eternal orbits without variation; the 
 succession of the seasons; the beating of the waves 
 upon the beach; the throbbing of our own hearts. 
 The rhythmic march lightens the pack upon the sol 
 dier's back, and the rhythmic movement gives pleas 
 ure to the folk-dancer. Likewise, whatever may be 
 the source of the poet's emotion, his verse moves to 
 an accordant rhythm, imparting to the hearer its 
 own energy and stirring him with a kindred emo 
 tion. Note how true this is of the quick unbending
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 15 
 
 march of Homer's dactylic hexameters, narrating 
 the achievements of heroes; of the majestic flow o.f 
 Milton's iambic pentameter, disclosing a drama of 
 Heaven and hell; of the stately soaring flight of 
 Bryant's Waterfowl; of the quickening, throbbing 
 roll of Riley's "The Drum" : 
 
 "O the drum ! 
 
 There is some 
 
 Intonation in thy grum 
 
 Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb, 
 As we hear, 
 
 Through the clear 
 
 And unclouded atmosphere, 
 Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the ear I 
 
 "There's a part 
 Of the art 
 
 Of thy music-throbbing heart 
 
 That thrills a something in us that awakens with a start, 
 And in rhyme 
 
 With the chime 
 
 And exactitude of time, 
 Goes marching on to glory to thy melody sublime." 
 
 These are only the first two stanzas. Read the 
 entire poem aloud and see if your emotions are not 
 stirred the same as if you were listening to the roll 
 of the drum at the head of a column of marching 
 soldiers that carry the old flag by!
 
 16 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Have you ever been walking along a country road 
 when a shower of rain came up, and do you recall 
 the rhythmic soft sound of the patter of the rain 
 drops in the dust? You can hear it again in a stanza 
 from that universally popular ballad of Riley's, 
 "Out to Old Aunt Mary's": 
 
 "It all comes back so clear to-day! 
 
 Though I am as bald as you are gray,^ 
 Out by the barn-lot and down the lane 
 We patter along in the dust again, 
 As light as the tips of the drops of the rain, 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary's." 
 
 And you can not read the following two lines from 
 "When the Frost Is On the Punkin" without hear 
 ing the hiss-swiss-siss-rasping sound of frosted 
 blades of corn or of fallen autumn leaves as you 
 wade through them : 
 
 "The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, 
 
 And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn." 
 
 Neither can you read aloud the following two lines 
 without hearing the ticking of a clock : 
 
 "O, it sets my hart a-clickin', like the tickin' of a clock, 
 When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the 
 shock." 
 
 In all of Riley's poetry the rhythm is faultless.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 17 
 
 But it takes more than rhythm to make a poem. 
 Mechanically speaking, the musical charm of all 
 good poetry depends upon the subtle but natural ad 
 justment of all other formal elements with this regu 
 lating and harmonizing effect of meter. Words are 
 the only medium of expression available to a poet. 
 A musician works with tone, a sculptor with form, 
 and a painter with color ; but a poet must work with 
 words. Once, so a story goes, an inquisitive friend 
 said to Mr. Riley : 
 
 "I understand you are now getting a dollar a 
 word for your poetry. Is that so?" 
 
 When Riley confirmed the rumor, the inquisitive 
 friend continued : 
 
 "Pretty easy money, isn't it?" 
 
 To which the poet replied: "It is if you can find 
 the right word !" 
 
 Words have a certain sensuous value in them 
 selves. When they are used by a poet as instru 
 ments of beauty, they add the element of melody to 
 the rhythmic structure of a poem. The simplest 
 method by which this tonal quality is secured is 
 rhyme, which is the correspondence in two or more 
 words or lines of terminal sounds beginning with 
 an accented vowel, preceded by different consonant
 
 18 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 sounds, as, for example, "folds" and "golds," "pets" 
 and "lets," "spill" and "sill," etc., in Riley's "A 
 Fruit Piece" : 
 
 "The afternoon of summer folds 
 Its warm arms round the marigolds. 
 
 "And, with its gleaming fingers, pets 
 The watered pinks and violets 
 
 "That from the casement vases spill 
 Over the cottage window-sill, 
 
 "Their fragrance down the garden walks 
 Where droop the dry-mouthed hollyhocks." 
 
 Another part of the melodic element is allitera 
 tion, which is the repetition of the same letter or 
 sound in two or more words in the same line. To 
 make good poetry, alliteration must never be forced 
 or strained after ; it must be so natural that you do 
 not know it is there until you stop to hunt for it, 
 as the recurring 'W in this line from "A Tale of 
 the Airly Days" : 
 
 "Tell me a tale of the timber-lands,"-H 
 
 or the two ";V' in tnis line from "O ut to 
 Mary's" :
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 19 
 
 "The jelly the jam and the marmalade," 
 or the two 'W and three "p's" in this line : 
 
 "And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear." 
 
 It is really a fine art to know how to use alliteration 
 without making it appear to be striven for and 
 Riley has mastered the art. 
 
 Another mark of good poetry, so far as the emo 
 tional and sensuous appeal is concerned, is an abun 
 dant use of the most musical letters of the alphabet, 
 namely, "//' "m" and "n." But here again the use 
 must not be forced; it must be so natural that we 
 revel in the sweet music of the poetry without hav 
 ing these mellifluous consonants obtrude themselves 
 upon our notice. Here, also, Riley has succeeded. 
 As an illustration of this, require yourself to observe 
 the use he has made of "//' "m" and "n" in the fol 
 lowing stanza from "Out to Old Aunt Mary's" : 
 
 "And the old spring-house, in the cool green gloom 
 Of the willow trees, and the cooler room 
 Where the swinging shelves and the crocks were kept, 
 Where the cream in a golden languor slept, 
 While the waters gurgled and laughed and wept 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary's." 
 
 The foregoing stanza is also a good illustration 
 of tone-color, a subtle quality which suggests the
 
 20 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 meaning of words by the sound and value of their 
 syllables, as: 
 
 "The old spring-house, in the cool green gloom," 
 
 or 
 
 "Where the cream in a golden languor slept," 
 
 where the slow change in vowel quality produces a 
 feeling in one like looking at that part of a picture 
 where the shade gradually blends with the light. 
 
 Truly, measured by all these standards, Riley is a 
 poet. 
 
 But poetry is more than the painfully exact lan 
 guage of the class-room; it is the free, capricious 
 melody of nature. It is more than the thought-out 
 music of the head; it is one uninterrupted voluntary 
 of the heart. It is more than rhyme and jingling 
 sensibilities and measure and cadence; it is the ap 
 plication of ideas to life. Life and poetry belong 
 together. When they are divorced, poetry becomes 
 artificial and anaemic, and life becomes sordid and 
 dull. Mr. Riley's work stands out preeminently 
 because of its naturalness, exuberance, vitality and 
 sincerity. It is always spirited, fresh, original and 
 full of the sap of life. His poems are the "genuine 
 article," as we would say in the parlance of the
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 21 
 
 street, or "The Ginoine Ar-tickle," as he calls it in 
 the Hoosier dialect: 
 
 "Talkin' o' poetry, There're few men yit 
 'At's got the stuff b'iled down so's it'll pour 
 
 Out sorgum-like, and keeps a year and more 
 Jes' sweeter ever' time you tackle it! 
 
 Why, all the jinglin' truck 'at hes been writ 
 Fer twenty year and better is so pore 
 You cain't find no sap in it any more 
 
 'N you'd find juice in puff-balls ! AND I'D 
 QUIT! 
 
 What people wants is facts, I apperhend; 
 And naked Natur is the thing to give 
 
 Your writin' bottom, eh? And I contend 
 'At honest work is allus bound to live. 
 
 Now them's my views ; 'cause you kin recommend 
 
 Sich poetry as that from end to end." 
 
 But not only is he a poet, he is the Poet of the 
 People. His poems stand the final test of the mil 
 lions. He has endeared himself to a wider range of 
 humanity than any other American poet. Our most 
 popular poets before him were Longfellow and 
 Whittier, and their most popular poems were "Hia 
 watha" and "Snow-Bound." But neither one was 
 ever read by a tithe of the people who read any num 
 ber of Riley's rhymes. Where one person on a 
 beautiful June day will quote the opening line of 
 Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," a dozen people
 
 22 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 will be talking about Riley's "Knee-Deep in June/' 
 and on a keen frosty autumn morning it seems as 
 though everybody one meets were familiar with 
 "When the Frost is on the Punkin and the Fodder's 
 in the Shock." In any unselected group of Amer 
 icans, read the titles of the best-known poems of 
 any dozen poets you please, including among them 
 Riley's "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," and have the 
 people vote by ballot the poem with which they are 
 most familiar, and it is a safe guess that an over 
 whelming majority will vote "An Old Sweetheart 
 of Mine." 
 
 The responsive tenderness of his heart has won 
 lettered and unlettered, rich and poor, high and low, 
 because it finds its way over the fruitful levels 
 where men are equal. He has glorified the emo 
 tions, sorrows, struggles and triumphs of those who 
 live and toil, love and are true. He has become the 
 Poet Laureate of the People, not by any royal de 
 cree but by the common consent and judgment of 
 his countrymen. 
 
 He is a bard of the old line of the line of Burns, 
 Shelley and Poe. The immortal spirit of song that 
 moves with the race, singing of the things that it
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 23 
 
 loves, was truly in James Whitcomb Riley. Shel 
 ley says that "Poets are the hierophants of unappre- 
 hended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic 
 shadows which futurity casts upon the present." 
 Possessors of this spirit of song are all one tribe, 
 whether they be harpers among the herdsmen, 
 prophets in the presence of kings, minstrels or trou 
 badours, ballad pedlers or poet laureates. They 
 are a tribe to which is bequeathed the honor and 
 glory of preserving whatever is fine and worth 
 while in the spirit of the times. 
 
 Superficial people think that Riley's verses are 
 intensely local; they dismiss them as provincial. 
 But they are no more provincial than are the poems 
 of honey-lipped Theocritus who sang at the court 
 of Ptolemy Philadelphus sixteen hundred years be 
 fore Riley sang among the farmsteads of Indiana. 
 There is no apparent polish about our Poet of the 
 People, and yet even his most idiomatic and uncouth 
 Hoosier dialect verses describe relations of men, 
 emotions of men, yearnings of men, beliefs of men 
 that are common to the race. Nothing human is 
 foreign to him. There is something spacious and 
 robust in his humanity, something that gives it a
 
 24 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 truly Elizabethan tone. He combines, in a most un 
 usual degree, the homespun phrase with the lyric 
 feeling. 
 
 The love of a man for a maid is a theme that has 
 remained unchanged, unhackneyed, inexhaustible. 
 The sentiment that was felt by Daphnis and Chloe 
 is the same that breathes through Riley's "Farmer 
 Whipple Bachelor." We love its humanness and 
 its homely sincerity : 
 
 "I remember onc't in harvest, when the 'cradle-in' ' was done, 
 (When the harvest of my summers mounted up to twenty- 
 one), 
 
 I was ridin' home with Mary at the closin' o' the day 
 A-chawin' straws and thinkin', in a lover's lazy way!" 
 
 One reason why he is so popular is because he 
 is so thoroughly real. His realm is on the unclouded 
 confines of the natural, the genuine, the true, and 
 there he delights to surround himself with images 
 of beauty and of sweet confidence, to plant his 
 homes and fields and flower gardens in a day upon 
 which the sun should ever shine. He is real that 
 is the reason why men read him and love him. He 
 wraps round all of his poems the atmosphere of per 
 fect reality. And therefore, in "The Rhymes of 
 Ironquill" he has truly pictured the way in which
 
 THE FAITH OP THE PEOPLE'S POET 25 
 
 many common Americans have received his own 
 poems. The man professed that he did not care for 
 poetry; but his wife brought home a volume of 
 these poems which were true to nature, and well, 
 let Riley tell it : 
 
 "And then she made me read the thing, 
 
 And found my specs and all: 
 And I jest leant back there i jingl 
 
 My cheer ag'inst the wall 
 And read and read, and read and read, 
 
 All to myse'f ontil 
 I lit the lamp and went to bed 
 
 With Rhymes of Ironquill! 
 
 "I propped myse'f up there, and durn! 
 
 I never shet an eye 
 Till daylight! hogged the whole concern 
 
 Tee-total, mighty nigh! 
 I'd sigh sometimes, and cry sometimes, 
 
 Er laugh jest fit to kill 
 Clean captured-like with them-air rhymes 
 
 O' that-air Ironquill !" 
 
 His analytical subtlety, meticulousness, refinement 
 of reasoning, and propriety and power of language 
 the good faith with which he manages the evoca 
 tion and exhibition of his real and common and at 
 tractive creations enables him to meet and master 
 every mood of his readers, so that people who would
 
 26 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 think it a mark of weakness to be caught reading 
 any poetry at all, and especially poems of sentiment, 
 do read any number of Riley's rhymes, and cry over 
 his poems of sentiment. Take, for example, "Thet- 
 Air Young-Un," which tells the story of a little boy 
 who loved to wander along the mill stream, who 
 loved nature and was always wondering what the 
 water was talking of, and one day they missed him, 
 and oh, tears blind us, for it is the story of the 
 universal father of all little children who have 
 passed out of sight beyond the River of Death : 
 
 "Found his hat 'way down below 
 Hinchman's Ford. 'Ves' Anders he 
 Rid and fetched it. Mother she 
 Went wild over that, you know 
 Hugged it! kissed it! Turribul! 
 My hopes then was all gone too. . . . 
 Brung him in, with both hands full 
 O' warter-lilies 'peared-like new- 
 Bloomed fer him renched whiter still 
 In the clear rain, mixin' fine 
 And finer in the noon sunshine. . . ." 
 
 Provincial? Oh, no! He conjured situations 
 that might have arisen in Sicily sixteen hundred 
 years ago or in Judea four thousand years ago ; and 
 which will keep on recurring as long as human be-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 2 
 
 ings shall inhabit the earth. He dug beneath the 
 problems of the passing day for his inspiration. The 
 tears in his verse are for the common heartaches of 
 humanity. He wraps this universality of appeal in 
 an atmosphere of perfect reality. Look at "Nothin' 
 to Say" with this in mind : You can feel the utter 
 loneliness of the old man who has an only daughter, 
 and she wants to get married, and she has come to 
 ask her father whether he has any objection, and 
 it makes the heartbroken old man yearn for her 
 mother who has been dead these many years, and 
 he feels that he can not give his daughter up, yet 
 he does not want to interfere with her happiness, 
 so with a loving sob he repeats over and over, 
 "Nothin' to say" : 
 
 "Nothin' to say, my daughter ! Nothin' at all to say ! 
 Gyrls that's in love, I've noticed, giner'ly has their way! 
 Yer mother did, afore you, when her folks objected to me 
 Yit here I am and here you air! and yer mother where is 
 she? 
 
 "You look lots like yer mother : purty much same in size ; 
 And about the same complected ; and favor about the eyes : 
 Like her, too, about livin' here, because she couldn't stay; 
 It'll 'most seem like you was dead like her ! but I hain't got 
 nothin' to say.
 
 28 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "She left you her little Bible writ yer name acrost the page 
 And left her ear-bobs f er you, ef ever you come of age ; 
 I've alluz kep' 'em and gyuarded 'em, but ef yer goin' away 
 Nothin' to say, my daughter ! Nothin' at all to say ! 
 
 "You don't rickollect her, I reckon? No: you wasn't a year 
 old then! 
 
 And now yer how old air you? Wy, child, not 'twenty'! 
 When? 
 
 And yer nex' birthday's in Aprile? and you want to git mar 
 ried that day? 
 
 I wisht yer mother was livin' 1 but I hain't got nothin' to say I 
 
 "Twenty year 1 and as good a gyrl as parent ever found ! 
 There's a straw ketched on to yer dress there I'll bresh it off 
 
 turn round. 
 
 (Her mother was jes' twenty when us two run away.) 
 Nothin' to say, my daughter ! Nothin' at all to say I" 
 
 It is this universality of appeal that has made 
 Riley so beloved. The laughter in his verse is not 
 at the broad Rabelaisian humor of some passing 
 Hoosier barnyard joke; it is rather the whimsical 
 humor that is the common chuckle of humanity a 
 humor which no man with any sense of humor 
 would ever try to define. His humor is unsophisti 
 cated. It is not the glittering epigram nor the sting 
 ing social satire that delights him, but the homely 
 characterization, the humor of childhood, the jest 
 that is agreeable through its piquancy, as "The Old 
 Tramp" :
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 29 
 
 "A' old Tramp slep' in our stable wunst, 
 
 An' the Raggedy Man he caught 
 An' roust him up, an' chased him off 
 
 Clean out through our back lot! 
 
 "An' the old Tramp hollered back an' said, 
 'You're a purty man ! You air ! 
 
 With a pair o' eyes like two fried eggs, 
 An' a nose like a Bartlutt pear !' " 
 
 The quintessence of humor is the element of sur 
 prise. Riley has it. His humor is elfish. In such 
 a poem as "The Flying Islands of the Night" he 
 gives free rein to his fondness for the bizarre and 
 the odd in coining words and images. But his 
 humor is always kindly. There is never any sting 
 in it. There is never any sting in anything he 
 writes. Once "To a Poet-Critic" he wrote: 
 
 "Yes, the bee sings I confess it 
 Sweet as honey Heaven bless it! 
 Yit he'd be a sweeter singer 
 Ef he didn't have no stinger." 
 
 He is a thoroughly wholesome poet. It was his 
 proud boast that he had never written a line that 
 could not be read by any person or anywhere. 
 
 His training to be the People's Poet was good, not 
 only while he studied in the public school or the
 
 30 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Greenfield Academy or his father's law office; but 
 more particularly in his childhood home, 
 
 "A simple old frame house eight rooms in all 
 Set just one side the center of a small 
 But very hopeful Indiana town," 
 
 and wandering sun-tanned and bare-footed "Up and 
 Down Old Brandywine" creek, plunging into the 
 "Old Swimmin' Hole," wandering at will across 
 richly scented clover fields, through the hazel 
 thickets, 
 
 "And then in the dust of the road again ; 
 
 And the teams we met, and the countrymen ; 
 And the long highway, with sunshine spread 
 As thick as butter on country bread, 
 Our cares behind, and our hearts ahead 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary's" ; 
 
 or as a young man bowling over the country with 
 a patent medicine show, or painting signs, or loaf 
 ing with farmers, or reporting for a country news 
 paper, learning the little tragedies and comedies of 
 our common life which he later wove with such 
 marvelous skill into his poems, and mastering also 
 the Hoosier dialect which became music upon his 
 lips. As he said of Lewis D. Hayes when he died, 
 so we say of Riley :
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 31 
 
 "Though he knew Man's force and his purpose, 
 
 As strong as his strongest peers, 
 He knew, as well, the kindly heart, 
 
 And the tenderness of tears." 
 
 He read omnivorously. He knew about the sor 
 rows of the Greek gods, and the stories of the 
 heroes of old, and the problems of other ages; but 
 the poems he has written are the sort of poems 
 Theocritus would write if he were living in Indiana 
 to-day. "How," asks Carlyle in his Essay on Burns, 
 "How does the poet speak to men with power but 
 by being still more a man than they?" That fits 
 Riley. Once, in accepting his poem entitled, "In 
 Swimming-Time," the editor of the Century Mag&- 
 zine wrote Mr. Riley as follows: "I must say that 
 there is nobody at present writing who seems, to me, 
 to get so much of genuine human nature in a short 
 space, as you do." If you think this is too strong, 
 read the following lines picked from the middle of 
 his poem on "A Pen-Pictur' of a Cert'in Friwolus 
 Old Man" : 
 
 " 'Oh I' he says, 'to wake and be 
 Barefoot, in the airly dawn 
 
 In the pastur' ! thare,' says he, 
 'Standin' whare the cow's slep' on
 
 32 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 The cold, dewy grass that's got 
 
 Print of her jest steamy hot 
 Fer to warm a feller's heels 
 In a while ! How good it feels !' " 
 
 If you were not brought up on a farm you will not 
 be able to appreciate that, and if you were brought 
 up on a farm no comment is necessary. 
 
 He was a man of the common people. He knew 
 poverty. He knew what it was to struggle fiercely, 
 tragically, for existence. He knew what it was to 
 have the world turn its cold shoulder on him. He 
 knew the sadness and disappointment of seeing the 
 flowers he plucked turn to ashes in his hands. More 
 than once he felt baffled and almost beaten in life's 
 fierce battle. Later he became well-to-do, rich in 
 deed, from his lectures and the royalty on his books. 
 He was lionized and feted by the great ones of 
 earth. Honors were showered upon him. But the 
 money and fame that came to him added nothing to 
 his inspiration, nothing to his happiness. He was 
 still the Poet of the People, faithfully revealing 
 human nature. In "Down to the Capital," he nar 
 rates the story of two men who had been chums in 
 their young manhood in Indiana. The one had be 
 come rich and was now a Congressman at Washing-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 33 
 
 ton. The other was a poor old soldier who had gone 
 to Washington to call on his old friend and get him 
 to- secure a pension for him. The poor man returns 
 home, and is telling his neighbors about his visit 
 about the fine home that his old friend has, and 
 about a reception that was given in it, and then how 
 the rich man crept out with the poor man, and be 
 moaned the artificiality of his high-priced life: 
 
 " 'And all I want, and could lay down and sob fer, is to know 
 The homely things of homely life; fer instance, jes' to go 
 And set down by the kitchen stove Lord ! that 'u'd rest me 
 
 so, 
 Jes' set there, like I ust to do, and laugh and joke, you know. 
 
 " 'Jes' set there, like I ust to do,' says Fluke, a-startin' in ; 
 'Peared-like, to say the whole thing over to hisse'f ag'in; 
 Then stopped and turned, and kind o' coughed, and stooped 
 
 and fumbled fer 
 Somepin' o' 'nuther in the grass I guess his handicercher. 
 
 "Well, sence I'm back from Washington, where I left Fluke 
 
 a-still 
 
 A-leggin' fer me, heart and soul, on that-air pension bill, 
 I've half-way struck the notion, when I think o' wealth and 
 
 sich, 
 They's nothin' much patheticker'n jes' a-bein' rich!" 
 
 It is because his song is so human that the com 
 mon people hear him gladly and so do the masters 
 of literature. His poems will stand as an expres-
 
 sion of the tastes and qualities of the people of this 
 age. His personality loves the cheery and hopeful 
 things, clings to simplicity, discovers the quaintly 
 humorous near at hand, and sings life's pathos with 
 compassion, a home-keeping and home-loving poet, 
 depending upon common sights and sounds for his 
 inspirations, and engrossed with the significance of 
 facts. He wants what the people want, "Somep'n 
 Common-Like" : 
 
 "Somep'n 'at's common-like, and good 
 And plain, and easy understood ; 
 Somep'n 'at folks like me and you 
 Kin understand, and relish, too, 
 And find some sermint in 'at hits 
 The spot, and sticks and benefits. 
 
 "We don't need nothin' extry fine; 
 'Cause, take the run o' minds like mine. 
 And we'll go more on good horse-sense 
 Than all your flowery eloquence; 
 And we'll jedge best of honest acts 
 By Nature's statement of the facts. 
 
 "So when you're wantin' to express 
 Your misery, er happiness, 
 Er anything, 'at's wuth the time 
 O' telling in plain talk er rhyme 
 Jes' sort o' let your subject run 
 As ef the Lord wuz listenun."
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 35 
 
 That is the kind of poetry he wrote, and that is 
 the kind of man he was. A defect of character 
 in many otherwise great people is egotism. It has 
 been called a "respectable" sin, but the qualifying 
 adjective does not make it any less a sin. Mr. Riley 
 has wonderfully drawn his own picture, uncon 
 sciously, in certain words that he records of Eras 
 mus Wilson. Those of us who know Erasmus 
 Wilson know that they fit him, too. Our poet com 
 mends him for his modesty, humility and natural 
 ness all of them great qualities and all of them 
 marks of the real man. As what we speak of as 
 "common sense" is generally the most uncommon 
 commodity in any community, so also a common 
 man, the kind we like and the kind the Poet of the 
 People was, is really very uncommon, indeed : 
 
 "You're common, as I said afore 
 You're common, yit oncommon more.- 
 You allus kindo' 'pear, to me, 
 What all mankind had ort to be 
 Jest natchurl, and the more hurraws 
 You git, the less you know the cause 
 Like as ef God Hisse'f stood by, 
 Where best on earth hain't half knee-high, 
 And seein' like, and knowin' He 
 'S the Only Grate Man really, 
 You're jest content to size your hight 
 With any feller man's in sight. "
 
 36 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Big, kind, modest Erasmus Wilson, to whom 
 Riley inscribed the poem from which the above lines 
 are taken, once after the whole country had joined 
 in celebrating Riley's birthday, spoke of him as 
 
 follows : 
 
 i 
 
 "As the poet is one who sees and can tell, our poet 
 is one who sees clearly things that are dim and hazy 
 to us ; senses distinctly things that are vague dreams 
 to us, and carries us to joyous heights where we 
 cannot climb alone. Truly he is our prophet re 
 vealing life to us. 
 
 "The fact that so very many of us read Riley 
 proves that he is our sort of a poet. And we are all 
 the better for reading him, because he tells us the 
 things we want to know, or that we only half know, 
 thereby interesting us in things wholesome and help 
 ful. 
 
 "And that is just what all this jubilation was 
 about, and not because a big, bumptious, egotistic 
 fellow, with a section of the alphabet appended to 
 his name, had climbed onto a treacherous pedestal 
 and bade us look upon him. 
 
 "Our poet lives in little Lockerbie Street, but he 
 belongs to no single town or city or state. His mis 
 sion being to the people, not alone to the learned and 
 great, but to the common people, his home is with 
 them, not exactly 'boardin' around/ but living with 
 them." 
 
 Truly, Riley himself has sized up the People's
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 37 
 
 Poet in these lines he wrote on "The Poet of the 
 Future" : 
 
 "O the Poet of the Future ! He will come as man to man, 
 
 With the honest arm of labor, and the honest face of tan, 
 
 The honest heart of lowliness, the honest soul of love 
 
 For human-kind and nature-kind about him and above. 
 
 His hands will hold no harp, in sooth ; his lifted brow will bear 
 
 No coronet of laurel nay, nor symbol anywhere, 
 
 Save that his palms are brothers to the toiler's at the plow, 
 
 His face to heaven, and the dew of duty on his brow."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE FAITH OF JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING his immense popu 
 larity, very few people ever even think of 
 James Whitcomb Riley as a religious poet. "Oh, 
 yes," they say, "he wrote of home and children and 
 nature but religion : No !" 
 
 Wordsworth described poetry as "the impassioned 
 expression which is the countenance of all science" ; 
 "the first and last of all knowledge" ; "as immortal 
 as the heart of man." If Wordsworth has not over 
 stated the matter (and he has not), it follows that 
 no one can be the best poet without a high, heroic 
 idea of religion. No poet can properly be described 
 as religious simply because of the recurrence of holy 
 phrases in his poems ; but rather because of the spirit 
 which permeates the whole, as an incandescent bulb 
 shines through an alabaster vase. James Russell 
 Lowell asserts that reverence is the very primal 
 
 38
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 39 
 
 essence and life of poetry. "From reverence the 
 spirit climbs on to love, and thence beholds all 
 things." Here again Riley is not found wanting. 
 Reverently does he contemplate the universal laws 
 of the soul. I have read with care every line of 
 his Complete Works, and have been deeply im 
 pressed how he, as a true seer, often brings to view 
 fragments of the broken table of God's law, and 
 makes known the meaning thereof to his generation. 
 He rarely or never invokes the mythologies. He 
 shows a strict adherence to the ancient beliefs and 
 pieties. There is in him nothing of the modern 
 skeptical mockery which indulges itself in facetious 
 flippancies, counting nothing too sacred for its acid 
 jests. 
 
 There are some people in whom the questioning, 
 doubting spirit has grown so strong that they say 
 they can not believe. There are some who think it 
 smart to say that they do not believe; there are 
 others who with hungry eyes and aching heart say 
 that they wish they could believe. Mr. Riley strikes 
 the nail squarely on the head when he says, "We 
 Must Believe," the motif of which is: "Lord, I be 
 lieve ; help Thou mine unbelief." Mr. Riley says that 
 from birth we are endowed with love and trust, and
 
 40 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 that just as instinctively as the child believes in the 
 parent, so we must believe in God. He says we 
 must believe, because we have been impelled from 
 infancy to seek some clear fulfillment withheld from 
 seekers here on earth. We do not find the perfec 
 tion or the glories for which we are seeking. We 
 have seen its promise in the glories of the physical 
 universe and the tear of sodden sorrow: 
 
 "We must believe 
 
 Being from birth endowed with love and trust; 
 Born unto loving; and how simply just 
 That love that faith ! even in the blossom-face 
 The babe drops dreamward in its resting-place, 
 Intuitively conscious of the sure 
 Awakening to rapture ever pure 
 And sweet and saintly as the mother's own. 
 Or the awed father's, as his arms are thrown 
 O'er wife and child, to round about them weave 
 And wind and bind them as one harvest-sheaf 
 Of love to cleave to, and forever cleave. . . . 
 Lord, I believe : 
 
 Help Thou mine unbelief. 
 
 "We must believe 
 
 Impelled since infancy to seek some clear 
 
 Fulfilment, still withheld all seekers here; 
 
 For never have we seen perfection nor 
 
 The glory we are ever seeking for : 
 
 But we have seen all mortal souls as one t 
 
 Have seen its promise, in the morning sun
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 41 
 
 Its blest assurance, in the stars of night; 
 
 The ever-dawning of the dark to light; 
 
 The tears down-falling from all eyes that grieve 
 
 The eyes uplifting from all deeps of grief, 
 Yearning for what at last we shall receive. . . . 
 Lord, I believe: 
 
 Help Thou mine unbelief. 
 
 "We must believe : 
 
 For still all unappeased our hunger goes, 
 
 From life's first waking, to its last repose: 
 
 The briefest life of any babe, or man 
 
 Outwearing even the allotted span, 
 
 Is each a life unfinished incomplete: 
 
 For these, then, of th' outworn, or unworn feet 
 
 Denied one toddling step O there must be 
 
 Some fair, green, flowery pathway endlessly 
 
 Winding through lands Elysian ! Lord, receive 
 
 And lead each as Thine Own Child even the Chief 
 Of us who didst Immortal life achieve. . . . 
 Lord, I believe: 
 
 Help Thou mine unbelief." 
 
 No real objection can be raised against making 
 the affirmation of the deep things of religion by 
 faith. Faith is the sixth sense of the soul. It is a 
 worthy organ of confidence in spiritual things. 
 Riley holds in his "Uncle Sidney's Views" that the 
 true age of wisdom is when we are boys and girls 
 and know things because we believe them no matter 
 whether they agree with laws or not :
 
 42 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "It is faith, then, not science and reason, I say, 
 That is genuine wisdom. And would that to-day 
 We, as then, were as wise and ineffably blest 
 As to live, love and die, and trust God for the rest !" 
 
 Riley had a good religious foundation. He was 
 descended from a long line of devout Christians. 
 His grandmother on his father's side, Margaret 
 Slick Riley, often preached not licensed, but by 
 privilege. She had two brothers who were Meth 
 odist preachers. His grandfather Marine, on his 
 mother's side of the house, was also a Methodist 
 preacher. We find traces of Riley's affection for 
 his preacher grandfather in several of his early 
 poems, notably in "The Old-Fashioned Bible," 
 printed in 1881, before he had caught the eye of 
 Fame. In it we can see the little boy with corn- 
 silk white hair, and wide blue eyes, gazing with 
 wonder upon the "gravely severe" face of the Meth 
 odist preacher his grandfather! Ah! blessed days 
 when the future poet laureate of the people went to 
 the Methodist meeting-house, to hear his grand 
 father preach. Let him tell it in his own way : 
 
 "How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood 
 
 That now but in mem'ry I sadly review ; 
 The old meeting-house at the edge of the wildwood, 
 
 The rail fence and horses all tethered thereto ;
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 43 
 
 The low, sloping roof, and the bell in the steeple, 
 
 The doves that came fluttering out overhead 
 
 As it solemnly gathered the God-fearing people 
 
 To hear the old Bible my grandfather read. 
 
 The old-fashioned Bible 
 
 The dust-covered Bible 
 
 The leathern-bound Bible my grandfather read. 
 
 "The blessed old volume 1 The face bent above it 
 
 As now I recall it is gravely severe, 
 Though the reverent eye that droops downward to love it 
 
 Makes grander the text through the lens of a tear, 
 And, as down his features it trickles and glistens, 
 
 The cough of the deacon is stilled, and his head 
 Like a haloed patriarch's leans as he listens 
 
 To hear the old Bible my grandfather read. 
 The old-fashioned Bible 
 The dust-covered Bible 
 The leathern-bound Bible my grandfather read. 
 
 "Ah ! who shall look backward with scorn and derision 
 
 And scoff the old Book though it uselessly lies 
 In the dust of the past, while this newer revision 
 
 Lisps on of a hope and a home in the skies? 
 Shall the voice of the Master be stifled and riven? 
 
 Shall we hear but a tithe of the words He has said, 
 When so long He has, listening, leaned out of Heaven 
 
 To hear the old Bible my grandfather read? 
 The old-fashioned Bible 
 The dust-covered Bible 
 The leathern-bound Bible my grandfather read." 
 
 In answer to an inquiry of mine, Mr. Edmund 
 H. Eitel, of Indianapolis, editor of the poet's com-
 
 44 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 plete works, his nephew and sometime secretary, 
 wrote me as follows : 
 
 "Mr. Riley once told me that he was a member 
 of the Methodist Church, and I said, 'Are you still 
 a member?' because I had heard that he had joined 
 on probation, but was never actually taken into the 
 church. He replied, 'I am a member of the Meth 
 odist Church.' So the story I heard was not quite 
 correct. As a young man he was blackboard artist 
 in the Sunday School, and a very effective black 
 board artist, too. Many of his first recitations were 
 given in churches, as for instance, one of his early 
 appearances in Indianapolis was in the Roberts Park 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, at which time he re 
 cited The Bear Story/ This was in 1874." 
 
 It has been said that "the cheery optimism, tol 
 erance and mercy that are the burden of his verse 
 summed up his religion." And yet he had some 
 very definite beliefs. 
 
 He believed in God. Through a number of years 
 Mr. Riley wrote a long poem of one hundred and 
 five stanzas, which he titled the "Rubaiyat of Doc 
 Sifers." It was written two quatrains on a single 
 white card and these were thrown aside in a hap 
 hazard manner through the years. They were all 
 written in the same verse-form and not having any 
 special contiguity of plan resemble somewhat the
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 45 
 
 "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam/' but they are diamet 
 rically opposed to the spirit and faith of Omar's 
 poem. This Doc Sifers is not, strictly speaking, an 
 historical character, but one that Mr. Riley devel 
 oped in his own imaginings until he came to love the 
 character with an ardent love. He himself says that 
 his poem is an indirect reply to the epicurean pes 
 simism and cynicism found in the other Rubaiyat. 
 Doc Sifers is "a picture of a wholesome, helpful, 
 industrious man a doctor with hale faith in God 
 and man, in contrast to the old Persian's utterly 
 hopeless doctrine." In many respects, "Doc Sifers" 
 is Riley himself. Again and again our poet affirms 
 his faith in the overruling Providence of a God 
 who is all-wise, merciful and kind. Take, for ex 
 ample, this stanza from the "Rubaiyat of Doc 
 Sifers": 
 
 "Doc argies 'at 'The Rey-eyed Law,' as he says, 'ort to learn 
 To lay a mighty leenient paw on deeds o' sich concern 
 As only the Good Bein' knows the wherefore of, and spreads 
 His hands above accused and sows His mercies on their 
 heads.' " 
 
 He believed in Christ and the gospel He came to 
 proclaim. A friend of mine, the Reverend Doctor 
 W. W. Hall, was holding evangelistic meetings in
 
 46 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Riley's boyhood home, Greenfield, Indiana, in the 
 fall of 1914, less than two years before the poet's 
 death. Mr. Riley sent him a poem which he had en 
 titled "The Evangelist," with this greeting : 
 
 "These lines are a greeting to you and an epitome 
 of your first sermon in Greenfield. You are at lib 
 erty with them." 
 
 And then followed the "lines" as follows : 
 
 "Hail, Harbinger of God's Good News! 
 'Good News' to pulpits and to pews: 
 Oh, hear His voice in 'Peace Be still,' 
 And dwell entwined in His sweet will. 
 
 " 'The Purpose ?' Ah, with glad accord, 
 Put on the armor of the Lord, 
 And forth to battle ! all as one, 
 The fight! The fight! Is now begun! 
 
 " 'The Plan ?' 'Tis writ with pencil pure, 
 Line and dimension straight and sure: 
 Inquire of Him 'Lord, what to do?' 
 Then let Him have His way in you. 
 
 "The Motive?' That all tongues confess 
 To Him our Hope and Righteousness 1 
 Tho' now the view be darkly dim, 
 Through faith we'll win the world to Him ! 
 
 "'And Victory?' It will be won! 
 God's Promise through His Promised Son! 
 We'll sing it in the realms above 
 Enraptured by Enraptured Love!"
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 47 
 
 He believed in the immortal life. Like most of 
 the great realities of religion, he personally sub 
 mitted it to the test of experience. Marcus Dickey 
 in his revelatory Youth of James Whitcomb Riley 
 speaks of the terrific loneliness and sorrow that 
 came into the young man's life through the sudden 
 death of his mother. Mr. Dickey quotes Riley as 
 saying : 
 
 "I was alone," said he, "till as in a vision I saw 
 my mother smiling back upon me from the blue 
 fields of love when lo ! she was young again. Sud 
 denly I had the assurance that I would meet her 
 somewhere in another world. I was gathering the 
 fruit of what had been so happily impressed on me 
 in childhood. I had seen that the world is a stage. 
 Now I saw that the universe is a stage. Another 
 curtain had been lifted. My mother was enraptured 
 at the sight of new scenery. It was the dream of 
 Heaven with which 'Johnny Appleseed' had im 
 pressed my mother in the Mississinewa cabin." 
 
 He believes so profoundly in Immortality that he 
 even runs, consciously or unconsciously, into the 
 argument from Evolution, which, let us not forget, 
 teaches us not only the survival of the fittest (and 
 may we not say that a belief that has survived 
 through all the centuries of human existence such as 
 this firm, steadfast belief in the existence of God,
 
 48 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 and a life beyond the grave is evidently a fit belief 
 to survive) ; but it also teaches us that for every 
 natural faculty, appetite, or instinct there is some 
 thing that will answer; and so Mr. Riley insists that 
 our hunger which goes unappeased from life's first 
 waking to its last repose; the feeling that life is 
 somehow unfinished, incomplete; these argue that 
 
 "O there must be 
 
 Some fair, green, flowery pathway endlessly 
 Winding through lands Elysian ! Lord, receive 
 
 And lead each as Thine Own Child even the Chief 
 Of us who didst Immortal life achieve. . . . 
 Lord, I believe: 
 
 Help Thou mine unbelief." 
 
 He believed in the forgiveness of sin. After he 
 had made that sad blunder of the Poe Poem hoax, 
 and the world turned its cold shoulder upon him, 
 and in his despair he began to dissipate, then, in re 
 pentance he wrote to an understanding friend, as 
 recorded by Marcus Dickey : 
 
 "My steps are turning gladly toward the light, 
 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 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 FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 49 
 
 Forgiveness does not extinguish the deeds of the 
 past; but it does rearrange the relations between 
 the spirit of man and our Heavenly Father, remov 
 ing the barriers which sin erected between them. 
 Riley's "The Song I Never Sing" tells the story of 
 redeeming love that brings salvation to the sin- 
 dimmed soul. Like a passionate evangelist he pours 
 forth the apostrophe of the last stanza : 
 
 "O nameless lay, sing clear and strong, 
 
 Pour down thy melody divine 
 Till purifying floods of song 
 Have washed away the stains of wrong 
 That dim this soul of mine! 
 O woo me near and nearer thee, 
 Till my glad lips may catch the key, 
 And, with a voice unwavering, 
 Join in the song I never sing." 
 
 He believed in Humanity. He believed in man 
 "As Created" : 
 
 "There's a space for good to bloom in 
 Every heart of man or woman, 
 And however wild or human, 
 
 Or however brimmed with gall, 
 Never heart may beat without it; 
 And the darkest heart to doubt it 
 Has something good about it 
 After all."
 
 50 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 In 1907 Mr. Riley published a poem bearing the 
 caption "What Title," which was a tribute to Presi 
 dent Theodore Roosevelt, in which he asks what 
 title best befits our first American. Then he runs 
 over certain names : statesman, soldier, hero, chief, 
 leader, patriot, orator, president, chief executive, but 
 is not satisfied with any of these as the best title by 
 which to describe the one to whom he is paying the 
 tribute. There is something greater than any of 
 these and that word is MAN. There is no cheap 
 thought of man connected with this. He recognizes ^ 
 each individual as sprung of Heaven's first stock; 
 and these are the words with which the beautiful 
 tribute ends : 
 
 "Nay his the simplest name though set 
 
 Upon him like a coronet, 
 
 God names our first American 
 
 The highest, noblest name The Man." 
 
 He was a believer in the common man. He be 
 lieved in the laboring man as well as in the great 
 president. In "A Child's Home Long Ago," he 
 says: 
 
 "'Twas God's intent 
 
 Each man should be a king a president ; 
 And while through human veins the blood of pride 
 Shall ebb and flow in Labor's ruling tide,
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 51 
 
 The brow of toil shall wear the diadem, 
 
 And justice gleaming there, the central gem, 
 
 Shall radiate the time when we shall see 
 
 Each man rewarded as his works shall be. 
 
 Thank God, for this bright promise ! Lift the voice 
 
 Till all the waiting multitudes rejoice." 
 
 It is one of the familiar teachings of scripture 
 that God is no respecter of persons, and Mr. Riley 
 only restated this doctrine in the poem "To Uncle 
 Remus," when he says : 
 
 "The Lord who made the day and night, 
 He made the Black man and the White; 
 
 So, in like view, 
 
 We hold it true 
 That He hain't got no favorite." 
 
 "The Hired Man's Faith in Children" is Mr. 
 Riley's faith also. It is a faith in humankind that is 
 absolutely necessary in the one who would touch 
 humankind to lift it up. 
 
 "I believe all childern's good, 
 Ef they're only understood, 
 Even bad ones, 'pears to me, 
 'S jes* as good as they kin be!" 
 
 He believed in practical religion. There is a 
 strange kinship between "Doc Sifers" and Christ's 
 illustrations of religion. Christ announced His own 
 program as one of practical service: preaching to
 
 52 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 the poor, healing the broken-hearted, recovering 
 sight to the blind and delivering the captives. When 
 John's disciples came inquiring for His credentials, 
 He simply pointed to the deeds of mercy and serv 
 ice that He had rendered others. So Riley speaks 
 of lovable "Doc Sifers" : 
 
 "Without a-claimin' any creed, Doc's rail religious views 
 Nobody knows ner got no need o' knowin' whilse he choose 
 To be heerd not of man, ner raise no loud, vainglorious 
 
 prayers 
 In crowded marts, er public ways, er i jucks, anywheres! 
 
 " 'Less'n it is away down in his own heart, at night, 
 
 Facin' the storm, when all the town's a-sleepin' snug and 
 
 tight 
 Him splashin* hence from scenes o' pride and sloth and gilded 
 
 show, 
 To some pore sufferer's bedside o' anguish, don't you know 1" 
 
 Riley strikes no false note. He is a sane and 
 wholesome optimist, guiding our dispositions away 
 from the paths of sin. There are two kinds of sins. 
 One, sins of the body; they are coarse, crude and 
 vulgar; the other the sins of disposition; they are 
 more or less "refined" : selfishness, and jealousy, and 
 egotism, and an unforgiving spirit, and grouchiness, 
 are sins in the sight of God, nevertheless. Mr. Riley 
 has no use for the grouch. The Savior entered into
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 53 
 
 the joys of the wedding feast, and laughter, and 
 the music of the prodigal returned, and all the com 
 mon joys of the common life; and He began his 
 tremendous Sermon on the Mount by an eightfold 
 repetition of the word "happy" in intensified form. 
 And Mr. Riley, in his quaint style, gives beautiful 
 expression to this wholesome theology in his lines 
 "On Any Ordenary Man in a High State of Laugh- 
 ture and Delight," when he says : 
 
 "As it's give' me to perceive, 
 
 I most cert'in'y believe 
 
 When a man's jest glad plum through, 
 
 God's pleased with him, same as you." 
 
 He believes in the old home. In "Ike Walton's 
 Prayer," which is a lyric of great worth, we have a 
 man who prays not for gold and jewels, and lands 
 and kine, but for a humble home with the light and 
 joy of home; and for a woman who would make of 
 their simple home a place divine, and for just a wee 
 cot and love. He prays not for great riches or vast 
 estates and castle halls, but for the simple things 
 that make life really worth the living: children, sun 
 shine, and the gentle breeze and the fragrance of 
 blossoms, and the songs of birds, and again the wee 
 cot He prays not that man may tremble at his
 
 54 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 power of place and lordly sway, but he prays for 
 the confidence of his neighbor ; and again : 
 
 "The wee cot, and the cricket's chirr, 
 Love, and the glad sweet face of her." 
 
 Or again, you can feel a heart-throb, not a mere 
 metrical ictus, in the lines : 
 
 "We must get home : All is so quiet there : 
 The touch of loving hands on brow and hair 
 Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild 
 The lost love of the mother and the child 
 Restored in restful lullabies of rain, 
 We must get home we must get home again ! 
 
 "We must get home again we must we must ! 
 
 (Our rainy faces pelted in the dust) 
 
 Creep back from the vain quest through endless 
 
 strife 
 
 To find not anywhere in all of life 
 A happier happiness than blest us then. . . . 
 We must get home we must get home again I" 
 
 He believes in patriotism. His love of the old 
 flag and his devotion to America are sublime. Let 
 us see his self -revelation again in "Doc Sifers" : 
 
 "Yes-jtr/ Doc's got convictions and old-fashioned kind o' 
 
 ways 
 
 And idies 'bout this glorious Land o f Freedom ; and he'll raise 
 His hat clean off, ho matter where, jes' ever' time he sees 
 The Stars and Stripes a-floatin' there and flappin' in the 
 
 breeze.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 55 
 
 "And tunes like old 'Red-White-and-Blue' '11 fairly drive him 
 
 wild, 
 Played on the brass band, marchin' through the streets 1 Jes' 
 
 like a child 
 
 I've saw that man, his smile jes' set, all kind o' pale and white, 
 Bareheaded, and his eyes all wet, yit dancin' with delight!" 
 
 Riley has faith in nature. He loves it with an 
 ardent love. He opens our eyes to see the wonder 
 of things as they are. Take, for example, a couple 
 of stanzas out of "The Poems Here at Home" : 
 
 "What We want, as I sense it, in the line 
 O' poetry is somepin' Yours and Mine 
 Somepin' with live stock in it, and out-doors, 
 And old crick-bottoms, snags, and sycamores: 
 Putt weeds in pizen-vines, and underbresh, 
 As well as johnny-jump-ups, all so fresh 
 And sassy-like ! and groun'-squir'ls, yes, and 'We,' 
 As sayin' is, 'We, Us and Company !' 
 
 "Putt in old Nature's sermonts, them's the best, 
 
 And 'casion'ly hang up a hornets' nest 
 
 'At boys 'at's run away from school can git 
 
 At handy-like and let 'em tackle it ! 
 
 Let us be wrought on, of a truth, to feel 
 
 Our proneness fer to hurt more than we heal, 
 
 In ministratin* to our vain delights 
 
 Fergittin' even insec's has their rights 1" 
 
 Truly, after reading Riley 's poems through we 
 give our verdict in the words which he wrote on a 
 fly-leaf in John Boyle O'Reilly's Poems :
 
 56 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "I like the thrill of such poems as these, 
 
 All spirit and fervor of splendid fact s 
 Pulse, and muscle, and arteries 
 
 Of living, heroic thought and act ! 
 Where every line is a vein of red 
 
 And rapturous blood all unconfmed 
 As it leaps from a heart that has joyed and bled 
 
 With the rights and the wrongs of all mankind." 
 
 Riley does not have a relatively large number of 
 poems that are on religious subjects, as such; and 
 yet one will often come upon a line or a half-dozen 
 lines of wondrously rich religious value, appar 
 ently dropped incidentally into the middle of some 
 nature or narrative poem which one is perusing, as 
 a man once found a pearl of great price in a field 
 which he was cultivating for another purpose. 
 
 I have felt that it would be worth while to dig 
 these pearls out and string them together and that 
 is what I have attempted to do in the following 
 chapters. I have found so much of help and inspira 
 tion and joy in these literary-religious pearls that I 
 have collected them for others. I have sought to 
 gather them all up. Therefore, everything that 
 Riley says about God, or Christ, or sin and its for 
 giveness, or immortality, or patriotism will be found 
 in the following chapters.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 57 
 
 If this book shall enhance Riley's popularity with 
 religiously-inclined folk, and religion's popularity 
 with lovers of Riley, I shall be satisfied; for, as he 
 said of John Clark Ridpath, so we say of him : 
 
 "Thus broadly based, his spacious faith and love 
 Enfolded all below as all above 
 Nay, ev'n if overmuch he loved mankind, 
 He gave his love's vast largess as designed."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 "His VOICE MAKES NATIVE CHOICE OF 
 NATURE'S HARMONY" 
 
 THAT is what James Whitcomb Riley said of 
 Frank L. Stanton. He said that Stanton's 
 song was as "pure as a joyous prayer" because he 
 sang of the fields, the open air, the orchard-bough, 
 the mocking-bird, the blossoms, the wildwood-nook, 
 the dewdrop, "and the kiss of the rose's lip." But 
 when Riley spoke of Stanton he was simply de 
 scribing his own chief theme. Take the first four 
 stanzas of the poem and see how accurately they 
 describe most of Riley's rhymes : 
 
 "He sings : and his song is heard, 
 
 Pure as a joyous prayer, 
 Because he sings of the simple things 
 
 The fields, and the open air, 
 The orchard-bough, and the mocking-bird, 
 
 And the blossoms everywhere. 
 
 "He sings of a wealth we hold 
 
 In common ownership 
 The wildwood nook, and the laugh of the brook, 
 
 And the dew-drop's drip and drip, 
 The love of the lily's heart of gold 
 
 And the kiss of the rose's lip. 
 
 58
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 59 
 
 "The universal heart 
 
 Leans listening to his lay 
 That glints and gleams with the glimmering dreams 
 
 Of children at their play 
 A lay as rich with unconscious art 
 
 As the first song-bird's of May. 
 
 "Ours every rapturous tone 
 
 Of every song of glee, 
 Because his voice makes native choice 
 
 Of Nature's harmony 
 So that his singing seems our own, 
 
 And ours his ecstasy." 
 
 What finer description of Riley's nature poetry- 
 could be written than that it is 
 
 "A lay as rich with unconscious art 
 As the first song-bird's of May." 
 
 He is truly an artist here of the highest order, albeit 
 his art is unconscious. It has been said that "the 
 function of art is (1) to teach us to see; (2) to 
 teach us what to see ; and (3) to teach us to see more 
 than we see/' Measured by this standard the poems 
 of James Whitcomb Riley reveal the artistic tem 
 perament in all his references to the natural order. 
 
 1. HE TEACHES US TO SEE 
 
 He possessed an extraordinary power of observa 
 tion. There are some men whose eyes are of no 
 more use to other people than if they had painted
 
 60 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 marbles in their heads. The difference between a 
 sharpshooter and the ordinary mass of soldiers is 
 largely a matter of keenness of observation. No 
 one can be a real poet unless he possesses what 
 Thomas Carlyle called "the seeing eye." It is this 
 which reveals the inner harmony of things, and 
 makes known the musical idea which nature has 
 dressed up in these often rough habiliments. To 
 Carlyle's requirement we might add that the poet 
 must possess also the hearing ear, so that when in 
 meekness and love he lays his head upon the mother- 
 breast of nature he will be able to interpret the 
 musical soft beatings of her bounteous heart. Riley 
 possessed both. He was on these intimate terms 
 with nature. In "A Poor Man's Wealth" he revels 
 in his opulence of poverty for 
 
 "When I ride not with you I walk 
 In Nature's company, and talk 
 With one who will not slight or slur 
 The child forever dear to her 
 And one who answers back, be sure, 
 With smile for smile, though I am poor." 
 
 In our florid American way we have given many 
 nicknames to this national bard of ours; but one 
 that seems to fit him peculiarly well is "The Bobby
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 61 
 
 Burns of America." Burns sang his sweetest songs 
 of the simple, commonplace things that he daily saw 
 and felt, as the lark of his native Scotland goes sing 
 ing its way into the sky, its breast still wet with the 
 dews of earth. Even so is Riley able to see the 
 divine nimbus that hangs over the commonplace 
 things of life. Go through his "Time of Clearer 
 Twitterings" and note the glory with which he sur 
 rounds the shellbark hickory, or sycamore, or hazel 
 thicket, or pennyroyal or mint ! Take the last stanza 
 and read it through and you feel that black-haws 
 and May-apples are as fit subjects for the poet as is 
 "the nectar that Jupiter sips," thus : 
 
 "Ah ! will any minstrel say, 
 In his sweetest roundelay, 
 What is sweeter, after all, 
 Than black-haws, in early Fall? 
 Fruit so sweet the frost first sat, 
 Dainty-toothed, and nibbled at! 
 And will any poet sing 
 Of a lusher, richer thing 
 Than a ripe May-apple, rolled 
 Like a pulpy lump of gold 
 Under thumb and finger-tips, 
 And poured molten through the lips? 
 Go, ye bards of classic themes, 
 Pipe your songs by classic streams ! 
 I would twang the redbird's wings 
 In the thicket while he sings I"
 
 While others would journey to romantic, historic 
 and classic haunts to find some poetic nugget, Riley 
 dug the gold of poetry out of the soil of his native 
 Indiana. Nothing that nature made was considered 
 unworthy of his notice. It is simply astonishing 
 how many of the common things of life he men 
 tions and how frequently he refers to them. I 
 have gone through his Complete Works with con 
 siderable care, and have marked and counted the 
 natural objects that he mentions in his poems. I 
 suppose that I have missed some; but my findings 
 are as follows : 
 
 He mentions by name thirty-five different flow 
 ers. The rose heads the list, appearing at least 
 ninety-five times. The lily comes second, forty- 
 three times. Then follow the pink, the water-lily, 
 the honeysuckle, the morning-glory, the hollyhock, 
 the primrose, wild-rose, buttercup, tiger-lily, peony, 
 violet, elder-blossom, forget-me-not, sweet-william, 
 sweet-pea, lilac, marigold, daisy, sunflower, aster, 
 phlox, pansy, mignonette, poppy, daffodil, etc. He 
 loves especially the old flowers. He makes the 
 farmer's wife who has grown rich and moved to 
 town express herself in this manner :
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 63 
 
 "What's in all this grand life and high situation, 
 And nary pink nor hollyhawk a-bloomin' at the door? 
 
 Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station 
 Back where we ust to be so happy and so porel" 
 
 Once when he was confined to his bed by sickness, 
 his friend, Eugene V. Debs, brought him a bouquet 
 of roses. Then Riley wrote a dialect poem about 
 "Them Flowers," the closing lines of which are : 
 
 "You see, it's like this, what his weaknesses is, 
 
 Them flowers makes him think of the days 
 Of his innocent youth, and that mother o* his, 
 
 And the roses that she us't to raise; 
 So here, all alone with the roses you send 
 
 Bein' sick and all trimbly and faint, 
 My eyes is my eyes is my eyes is old friend 
 
 Is a-leakin' I'm blamed ef they ain't!" 
 
 Our poet mentions by name forty-three different 
 kinds of trees. The apple tree heads the list, being 
 spoken of thirty-seven times twenty-six times the 
 reference is general five times the Rambo is speci 
 fied, four times the Pippin, once the Prince Harvest 
 and once the White Peruvian. The elm and syca 
 more are each mentioned fourteen times ; the locust, 
 maple and buckeye each thirteen times ; the cherry, 
 peach and oak each eleven times ; the pear and hazel
 
 64 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 each ten times; the beech nine times; we find the 
 plum, quince, haw, cedar, dogwood, mulberry, but 
 ternut, walnut, hickory, poplar, sassafras and so on, 
 at least forty-three different kinds of trees em 
 balmed in his poems. 
 
 Likewise he sees the grain, the common grain of 
 our fields and he sings of it. Corn appears, by 
 my count, thirty-one times in his poetry; wheat, 
 thirteen times ; barley, three times ; rye, oats, cotton 
 and popcorn each twice ; sorghum, sugar-cane, buck 
 wheat and sweet-corn each once. The wild joy he 
 felt in living close to these grains of the field is ex 
 pressed in that best known of all his lyrics : 
 
 "When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the 
 shock," 
 
 or in his reminiscent "Song of Yesterday" : 
 
 "And, cool and sweet, 
 
 My naked feet 
 Found dewy pathways through the wheat ; 
 
 And out again 
 
 Where, down the lane, 
 The dust was dimpled with the rain." 
 
 If Moses saw, in the back part of the desert, a 
 bush aflame with the divine significance, so Riley 
 would teach us to see the Awful Imminence in the
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 65 
 
 flaming bloom of clover or goldenrod or ironweed. 
 He speaks of thirty-five different kinds of grass and 
 weeds. Just ordinary unnamed weeds appear seven 
 teen times. Grass is mentioned seventy-eight times ; 
 clover and vines, each twenty-eight ; moss, thirteen ; 
 thistle and reed, each nine times; grape-vine, eight; 
 brier, seven ; pennyroyal and peppermint, four times 
 each; ivy poison vine, calamus, fern, cattail, rush, 
 three times each; dog- fennel, jimson-weed, rag 
 weed, horseradish, dandelion, ironweed and poke- 
 berry, twice each; ginseng, wintergreen, boneset, 
 sheepsour, nettle, mullein, dock-greens, toadstool, 
 pimpernel, each at least once. It was difficult for 
 Riley to write without thinking of the grasses and 
 the blossoms : thus even in "Little Girly-Girl" her 
 blue eyes and glimmering tresses were 
 
 "Like glad waters running over 
 Shelving shallows, rimmed with clover," 
 
 and the waving grass becomes billows of beauty and 
 the blossoms but the flecks of foam where the bil 
 lows break : 
 
 "And the meadow's grassy billows 
 Break in blossoms round the willows 
 Where the currents curve and curl." 
 
 Riley teaches us to see nearly all of our common
 
 66 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 fruits and vegetables as being not unworthy of 
 poetic treatment. I find the apple (this is specif 
 ically the fruit in addition to the tree referred to 
 above) mentioned at least thirty-five times; sixteen 
 times the variety is not designated; eight times the 
 Pippin is singled out; three times the Prince Har 
 vest ; twice the Rambo ; twice the Russet ; once each 
 the Winesap, the Siberian Crab, the Rhode Island 
 Greening and the Bellflower. Sometimes he makes 
 our mouths water with descriptions of the delicious 
 eating qualities of the apple, and sometimes, as in 
 "A Song of Long Ago," he asks us just to 
 
 "Let the eyes of fancy turn 
 
 Where the tumbled Pippins burn 
 
 Like embers in the orchard's lap of tangled grass and fern." 
 
 That is exactly what they are like, though we never 
 thought of it until he told us, did we ? 
 
 The peach (sometimes the "Clingstone," some 
 times the "Freestone" and sometimes just the 
 peach) is mentioned eleven times. The grape comes 
 in seventeen times ; the pear, fifteen times, Bartlett 
 pear once and Sugar pear once; all sorts of fruits 
 and vegetables are glorified by our poet: cherries, 
 plums, berries, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, 
 squash, pumpkin, gourd, lettuce, turnips, rhubarb,
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 67 
 
 parsnips, beans, cabbage, beets, watermelons fif 
 teen times: oh, he knows all about "Wortermelon 
 Time" : 
 
 "Oh ! it's in the sandy soil wortermelons 'does the best, 
 And it's thare they'll lay and waller in the sunshine and the 
 dew 
 
 Tel they wear all the green streaks clean off of theyr breast; 
 And you bet I ain't a-findin' any fault with them; air you?" 
 
 And so on to the end : he can tell you the names of 
 the different varieties, and the best ones, and that 
 you must not plant them too near pumpkins, and so 
 on: there is nothing about watermelons which he 
 does not know. And this same wonderful power of 
 observation and meticulous knowledge is seen in all 
 the things of nature of which he writes. He speaks 
 in "Old Heck's Idolatry" of the pear ; but it is more 
 than that, it is a 
 
 "Tawny, mellow pear, whose golden ore 
 Fell molten on the tongue and oozed away 
 In creamy and delicious nothingness." 
 
 Or the muskmelon is a 
 
 "Netted melon, musky as the breath 
 Of breezes blown from the Orient." 
 
 Or we see the bloom on grape or plum and pass it by 
 unseen until R?ley shows us :
 
 68 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "And purple clusterings of plum and grape, 
 Blurred with a dust dissolving at the touch 
 Like flakes the fairies had snowed over them." 
 
 The wild fruits he knows as well as the tame 
 and probably better. They all enter the temple of 
 his poetry for their glorification : hickory nuts, wal 
 nuts, beechnuts, May-apples, wild-strawberries, 
 wild-plums, pawpaws : as a sample of the sheer, un 
 adulterated delight that he found in nature, as well 
 as a sample of wildly imaginative yet; wholly accu 
 rate description, take this delicious stanza out of 
 "Up and Down Old Brandywine" : 
 
 "And sich pop-paws! Lumps o' raw 
 Gold and green, jes' oozy th'ough 
 With ripe yaller like you've saw 
 Custard-pie with no crust to : 
 And jes' gorges o' wild plums, 
 Till a feller'd suck his thumbs 
 Clean up to his elbows! My! 
 Me some more er lent me die!" 
 
 The barnyard fowls also are in his poetry, and 
 all kinds of animals, both domestic and wild. I find 
 the chicken mentioned thirty-eight times, the duck 
 and the goose each five times, the turkey and the 
 guinea each four times, and the peafowl once. 
 Among animals, the dog heads the list, appearing at 
 least one hundred and thirty-seven times; and then
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 69 
 
 the horse sixty-six times ; the bear sixty times ; the 
 cow forty-two times; the coon twenty-two times; 
 the wolf twenty-one times ; the hog nineteen times ; 
 the sheep thirteen times, and so on: the cat, the 
 panther, the mule, chipmunk, deer, otter, muskrat, 
 weasel, squirrel, fox, possum, rabbit all kinds of 
 animals. And someway or other when we look at 
 these animals through Riley's eyes they no longer 
 seem common or unclean. Take "The Hoss" : 
 
 "The hoss he is a splendud beast; 
 
 He is man's friend, as heaven desined, 
 And, search the world from west to east, 
 
 No honester you'll ever find !" 
 
 Or take the dog : how much of human nature he 
 expresses, and how faithful portrayal of human 
 affection for a dog he gives us in "When Old Jack 
 Died," the first stanza of which is : 
 
 "When Old Jack died, we stayed from school (they said, 
 
 At home we needn't go that day), and none 
 
 Of us ate any breakfast only one, 
 
 And that was Papa and his eyes were red 
 
 When he came round where we were, by the shed 
 
 Where Jack was lying, half-way in the sun 
 
 And half-way in the shade. When we begun 
 
 To cry out loud, Pa turned and dropped his head
 
 70 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 And went away; and Mamma, she went back 
 Into the kitchen. Then, for a long while, 
 All to ourselves, like, we stood there and cried. 
 We thought so many good things of Old Jack, 
 And funny things although we didn't smile > 
 We couldn't only cry when Old Jack died." 
 
 Our beloved Nature Poet had such wonderful 
 powers of observation that he seemed to hear and 
 see everything. All his faculties were keenly alive. 
 Nature is a page written all over with large and 
 small letters. It is interlined and cross-lined and has 
 many marginal notes. There are many different 
 readers of this interesting page. Some people look 
 at it and see only the headings in large type. Others 
 read much of the story, but never see the inter 
 lining or cross-lining or marginal notes. Most any 
 body will see a horse, but only the few will note that 
 
 "The hoss-fly is a whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz, 
 And the off-mare is a-switchin' all of her tale they is." 
 
 Most anybody will see the swan that floats majes 
 tically upon the water, but only the close observer 
 will note what the bumblebees and water-bugs are 
 doing as does Riley in "The Brook-Song" : 
 
 "Sing about a bumblebee 
 That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled mumblingly, 
 
 Because he wet the film 
 
 Of his wings, and had to swim, 
 While the water-bugs raced round and laughed at him !"
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 71 
 
 Most anybody pities a man in pain, but how many 
 
 "Pity as much as a man in pain 
 
 The writhing honey-bee wet with rain," 
 
 as does Riley in "Away"? Really, his mind was 
 like a photographer's sensitized plate, everything in 
 focus was caught and individualized instantly. 
 
 We need not be surprised, therefore, to find him 
 mentioning (according to my count) twenty-two 
 different insects. The honey-bee holds the highest 
 place, appearing seventy- four times; the cricket, 
 katydid and firefly each twenty-three times; the 
 bumblebee nineteen times; the dragonfly thirteen 
 times; the locust twelve times; the butterfly nine 
 times, and so on down the list: bug, grasshopper, 
 flea, hornet, glow-worm, fly, horse-fly, mosquito, 
 spider, wasp, yellow- jacket, caterpillar, June bug. 
 His "Two Sonnets to the June-Bug," while excruci 
 atingly funny, is sufficient evidence that he knew 
 the characteristics of these little creatures. In the 
 first sonnet he describes the "eternal buzzin' sere 
 nade" that is kept up by the June bug, and in the sec 
 ond sonnet declares : 
 
 "And I've got up and lit the lamp, and clum 
 On cheers and trunks and wash-stands and bureaus, 
 And all such dangerous articles as those, 
 
 And biffed at you with brooms, and never come
 
 72 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 In two feet of you, maybe skeered you some, 
 
 But what does that amount to when it throws 
 
 A feller out o' balance, and his nose 
 Gits barked ag'inst the mantel, while you hum 
 Fer joy around the room, and churn your head 
 
 Ag'inst the ceilin', and draw back and butt 
 The plasterin' loose, and drop behind the bed, 
 
 Where never human-bein* ever putt 
 Harm's hand on you, or ever truthful said 
 
 He'd choke your dern infernal wizzen shut!" 
 
 He is acquainted with fish, too, is Riley, and 
 counts them worthy of a place in his poems. They 
 are found there at least forty times not only fish 
 in general, but in particular there are pike, catfish, 
 bass, sunfish, codfish, sculpin, minnow, sucker, 
 trout, bream and perch. He even calls them by their 
 familiar names, as "Chub," "silver-side," "goggle- 
 eye," and so forth. 
 
 The turtle, the terrapin, the snail, the fishing 
 worm, the frog, the toad, the tree-toad, the snake 
 with all of these he is well acquainted, and treats 
 them with poetic grace. 
 
 But it is when he gets among the birds that he 
 throws off all restraint and wallows in bliss. His 
 powers of observation are as keen as those of the 
 birds themselves. In "Knee-Deep in June," he says :
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 73 
 
 "Ketch a shadder down below, 
 And look up to find the crow 
 Er a hawk, away up there, 
 'Pearantly froze in the air ! 
 
 Hear the old hen squawk, and squat 
 
 Over ever' chick she's got, 
 Suddent-like ! and she knows where 
 
 That-air hawk is, well as you ! 
 
 You jes' bet your life she do! 
 Eyes a-glitterin' like glass, 
 Waitin' till he makes a passl" 
 
 The birds see quickly everything that is going on 
 around them; so does our poet; but with this dif 
 ference : their vision is sharpened by fear, his vision 
 is sharpened by love. He sees the birds and he 
 knows them by name. How did he ever get to know 
 all of these feathered songsters, to know their plum 
 age and their habits as well as a professional ornith 
 ologist? He did not know that somebody would 
 go through his poems to count how many birds are 
 there, and yet they all come flocking into his rhymes 
 as naturally as they come into our orchards and 
 meadows at the return of summer. I find forty- 
 seven distinct kinds of birds in his poems. The 
 robin is mentioned most frequently, thirty-five 
 times ; the bluebird, twenty-eight ; the dove, twenty- 
 one; the quail (sometimes called "Old Bob White")
 
 
 74 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 and the whippoorwill are each mentioned eighteen 
 times; the swallow appears twelve times; the red- 
 bird, the lark and the humming-bird each ten times ; 
 the nightingale, hawk and thrush each nine times; 
 the killdeer and the bluejay each eight times; the 
 bat and the red-headed woodpecker (sometimes 
 called "sapsuck") each seven times; and so on 
 through the list, we find the wren, seagull, eagle, 
 blackbird, catbird, buzzard, crane, crow, owl, chick 
 adee (sometimes called the "titmouse" or the "tom 
 tit"), sparrow (or "chipbird"), mocking bird, 
 canary, bee-bird, peewee, bittern, vulture, pelican, 
 kite, kingfisher, loon, snowbird, chewink, snipe, yel- 
 lowbill, flicker (or "yellow hammer"), yellow-bird, 
 martin, raven, bobolink, pigeon. 
 
 Riley does not only name the birds ; but he knows 
 them. As an example of his meticulous observation 
 of them and of his accurate description of them, 
 take the jay. A scientist (in Webster's New Inter 
 national Dictionary) describes it as follows : 
 
 "The jays are smaller and more aboreal than the 
 crows, more gracefully formed, more highly colored 
 (blue often predominating), and many species have 
 a long tail and large erectile crest. They have roving 
 habits, harsh voices, pugnacious dispositions, and
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 75 
 
 are noted for destroying the nests, eggs and young 
 of weaker birds." 
 
 Now compare with that scientific description Riley's 
 description. In "Knee-Deep in June," he merely 
 touches the subject, in this manner : 
 
 "Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass, 
 
 In them baseball clothes o' his, 
 Sportin' round the orchard jes* 
 Like he owned the premises 1" 
 
 But he draws the portrait at fuller length in child 
 dialect in "The Jaybird," as follows : 
 
 "The Jaybird he's my favorite 
 
 Of all the birds they is ! 
 I think he's quite a stylish sight 
 
 In that blue suit of his : 
 An' when he 'lights an' shuts his wings, 
 
 His coat's a "cutaway" 
 I guess it's only when he sings 
 
 .You'd know he was a jay. 
 
 "I like to watch him when he's lit 
 
 In top of any tree, 
 'Cause all the birds git wite out of it 
 
 When he 'lights, an' they see 
 How proud he act', an' swell an' spread 
 
 His chest out more an' more, 
 An' raise the feathers on his head 
 
 Like it's cut pompadore 1"
 
 76 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Now, this is the question that obtrudes itself upon 
 us: How could any man see so well all things in 
 nature, and then set down so faithfully what he 
 saw ? How did he happen to notice, as in "A Brave 
 Refrain," on that winter morning that 
 
 "The knuckled twigs are gloved with frost"? 
 Or how did he happen to notice in that "Vision of 
 Summer" the 
 
 ". . . lush glooms of the thicket"? 
 Or how did he happen to become so well acquainted 
 with "The Bat," as to tell all about it in two lines : 
 
 "Thou dread, uncanny thing, 
 
 With fuzzy breast and leathern wing" ? 
 
 What was it so sharpened his powers of observa 
 tion as to make him sensitive to colors in nature 
 
 "From rainbow tints, to pure white snow," 
 as he puts it in "To a Boy Whistling" ? What was 
 it made him so intimate with midsummer as to hail 
 it as "An Old Friend" that brings its harvest store 
 of olden joys, "odorous breaths of clover hay," the 
 doves, and 
 
 "Vast overhanging meadow-lands of rain, 
 
 And drowsy dawns, and noons when golden grain 
 
 Nods in the sun"?
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 77 
 
 Why in his appeal to "Babyhood" did he yearn to 
 
 "Turn to the brook where the honeysuckle tipping 
 O'er its vase of perfume spills it on the breeze, 
 
 And the bee and humming-bird in ecstasy are sipping 
 From the fairy flagons of the blooming locust trees"? 
 
 How had he come to observe both the dragonfly and 
 blossoms so carefully as to remark casually in "Pan" 
 the dragonfly was 
 
 "Like a wind-born blossom blown about ?" 
 
 Or what was it prompted him to watch a primrose 
 blossoming out so that when he wanted to tell of 
 "Armazindy's" transformation from a child to a 
 woman, he likened her to the primrose : 
 
 "Jevver watch a primrose 'bout 
 Minute 'fore it blossoms out 
 Kind o' loosen-like, and blow 
 Up its muscles, don't you know, 
 And, all suddent, bu'st and bloom 
 Out life-size?" 
 
 What is the answer to all these questions ? There 
 is only one answer, and that is Riley's true love of 
 nature. He was not a cold-blooded specialist peep 
 ing into nature's closets. He was a lover who lived 
 close to nature's heart, who looked lovingly and 
 steadily at nature, observing the individual features
 
 78 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 of bird and bee, of field and flower. He joyed in 
 seeing 
 
 "Nothin* but green woods and clear 
 Skies and unwrit poetry 
 By the acre 1" 
 
 as he put it in "A Pen-Pictur* of a Cert' in Friwolus 
 Old Man." His ear detected the most furtive 
 sounds. He listened even when he could 
 
 "Hear nothin* but the silunce." 
 
 His nose detected the most fugitive odors all be 
 cause he was a lover of nature. Love sharpens the 
 vision and the hearing; enlivens the feet; steadies 
 the hand. It is as important to enjoy as it is to 
 understand. Riley absorbed as well as investigated. 
 His poems have a strong flavor of the rank, rich 
 soil from which they sprang. 
 
 It is out of this sympathetic and emotional en 
 joyment of nature that the lyric is born. The one 
 capable of it feels that the 
 
 "Unwrit poetry by the acre" 
 
 is all his. His joy, wonder, worship, surge to ex 
 pression. He perceives everywhere a harmony 
 which is beauty, and he bodies it forth in material
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 79 
 
 form through the medium of words, fashioning it 
 according to his own mood. This pageantry of 
 color and form and sound and stir that he notes ev 
 erywhere in earth and sky and air floods his whole 
 being with emotion and bids him sing in accordant 
 rhythm, and so he sings "A Song" : 
 
 "There is ever a song somewhere, my dear ; 
 
 There is ever a something sings alway; 
 There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear, 
 
 And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray. 
 The sunshine showers across the grain, 
 
 And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree; 
 And in and out, when the eaves drip rain, 
 
 The swallows are twittering ceaselessly. 
 
 "There is ever a song somewhere, my dear, 
 
 Be the skies above or dark or fair, 
 There is ever a song that our hearts may hear 
 There is ever a song somewhere, my dear 
 
 There is ever a song somewhere." 
 
 This is the very spirit of poetry. The note of lark 
 or bluebird or swallow gives the key. The song that 
 is ever somewhere is etherealized into rarer music 
 by the poet's transfiguring and interpreting tempera 
 ment. It is emotion that gives birth to the lyric 
 poem. One April day in 1891, Mr. Riley wrote 
 "The First Bluebird." Though it is in the Hoosier 
 dialect and pretends to be a "Benj. F. Johnson of
 
 80 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Boone" poem, yet it is just what all lovers of nature 
 have felt (and been unable to express) after a win 
 ter of "rain and snow! and rain again." Thus: 
 
 "This morning I was 'most afeard 
 
 To wake up when, I jing! 
 I seen the sun shine out and heerd 
 
 The first bluebird of Spring! 
 Mother she'd raised the winder some ; 
 And in acrost the orchard come, 
 
 Soft as a' angel's wing, 
 A breezy, treesy, beesy hum, 
 
 Too sweet for anything! 
 
 "The winter's shroud was rent apart 
 
 The sun bu'st forth in glee, 
 And when that bluebird sung, my hart 
 
 Hopped out o' bed with me !" 
 
 Go through "A Hoosier Calendar" which Riley 
 wrote, having a stanza for each month, and see the 
 poet's full outpouring of himself. He does not care 
 so much for the first three months, but in April he 
 begins to get "inspiration," and then May : 
 
 "And May! It's warmin' jest to see 
 The crick thawed clear ag*in and dancin* ; 
 
 'Pears-like it's tickled 'most as me 
 
 A-prancin' 'crosst it with my pants on t 
 
 And then to hear the bluebird whet 
 
 His old song up and lance it through you, 
 
 Clean through the boy's heart beatin' yet 
 Hallylooya!"
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 81 
 
 But it is by no means only in "A Hoosier Cal 
 endar" that we find the full outpouring of our 
 bard's self in lyric poems. He revels in "The Laugh 
 ter of the Rain" : 
 
 "The rain sounds like a laugh to me 
 A low laugh poured out limpidly." 
 
 He was profoundly sensitive to the beauty of the 
 world. He loved nature for her own sake, and be 
 cause she ministered to his love of what was fair and 
 good to look upon. With perfect abandon he sings 
 "The Brook-Song" : 
 
 ""Little brook ! Little brook ! 
 
 You have such a happy look 
 
 Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and curve 
 and crook 
 
 As your ripples, one and one, 
 
 Reach each other's hands and run 
 Like laughing little children in the sun 1" 
 
 To my mind, the best example of Riley's nature 
 poetry is "The South Wind and the Sun." He al 
 ways had a particular affection for this poem. It is 
 longer than most of his lyrics, containing twenty 
 stanzas of eight lines each and it should all be read 
 and re-read aloud for one to be borne along on the 
 swelling current of its warm and colored image, and
 
 82 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 to eddy in its surgent, glowing words. Take, for 
 example, two stanzas the first one and another 
 picked at randon from the middle of the poem ; 
 
 "O the South Wind and the Sun I 
 How each loved the other one ; 
 
 Full of fancy full of folly- 
 Full of jollity and fun ! 
 How they romped and ran about, 
 Like two boys when school is out, 
 
 With glowing face, and lisping lip, 
 Low laugh, and lifted shout! 
 
 "Over meadow-lands they tripped, 
 
 Where the dandelions dipped 
 In crimson foam of clover-bloom, 
 
 And dripped and dripped and dripped ; 
 
 And they clinched the bumble-stings, 
 
 Gauming honey on their wings, 
 And bundling them in lily-bells, 
 
 With maudlin murmurings." 
 
 The month of June always set Riley going. One 
 of his earliest poems he entitled "June," in which 
 he declared that he nestled like a drowsy child and 
 dozed in June's 
 
 ". . . downy lap of clover-bloom ;" 
 and he heard the lily blow 
 
 "A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade," 
 
 Better known than Lowell's "What is so rare as a
 
 83 
 
 day in June?" is Riley's "Knee-Deep in June." It 
 seems as though everybody knows it or ought to. 
 It closes with words that hold forever, as an aroma, 
 the evanescent mood of the nature-lover: 
 
 "But when June comes Clear my th'oat 
 
 With wild honey! Rench my hair 
 In the dew 1 and hold my coat ! 
 
 Whoop out loud 1 and th'ow my hat I 
 June wants me, and I'm to spare! 
 Spread them shadders anywhere, 
 I'll git down and waller there, 
 And obleeged to you at that!" 
 
 But our poet uses the lyrical form also as the 
 means of expression for his ripest wisdom and most 
 burdened thought. Sometimes it is a welling song 
 and sometimes a cry; but it is still the lyric. He 
 meets and masters every mood. He transmutes his 
 private griefs as well as his private joys into the 
 great passionate streams of universal suffering with 
 in reach of all men. Read through (and weep while 
 you read) the lines he wrote "On the Death of Lit 
 tle Mahala Ashcraft," the opening stanza of which 
 is: 
 
 "Tittle Haly! Little Halyl' cheeps the robin in the tree; 
 *Little Haly 1' sighs the clover, 'Little Haly !' moans the bee ; 
 Little Haly! Little Haly!' calls the killdeer at twilight; 
 And the katydids and crickets hollers 'Haly!' all the night."
 
 84 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Riley is in deep sympathy with all of nature's 
 moods, and he feels that nature is in sympathy with 
 him. Therefore, the robin and the bluebird can 
 sing in sadder notes when he is sad, and though 
 sometimes the rain is like "low laughter," yet when 
 he weeps it is like "wild gusts of tears." Thus when 
 "Little Marjorie," the four-year-old daughter of his 
 friend, William C. Bobbs, died, he wrote an appeal 
 ing poem, the first two stanzas of which are : 
 
 "'Where is little Marjorie?' 
 There's the robin in the tree, 
 With his gallant call once more 
 From the boughs above the door ! 
 There's the bluebird's note, and there 
 Are spring-voices everywhere 
 Calling, calling ceaselessly 
 'Where is little Marjorie?' 
 
 "And her old playmate, the rain, 
 Calling at the window-pane 
 In soft syllables that win 
 Not her answer from within 
 *Where is little Marjorie?' 
 Or is it the rain, ah me! 
 Or wild gusts of tears that were 
 Calling us not calling her !" 
 
 We get the same feeling of our brooding Poet's 
 mystic sympathy with nature that not only enables 
 him to understand nature's secrets, but also makes
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 85 
 
 nature meet his every mood. We are thinking just 
 now of how no mood is denied the lyric. "Our Lit 
 tle Girl" is an illustration of its characteristic note 
 of intense personality. Sorrow, regret, tears, sob 
 all the way through it. The Poet transmutes his 
 private griefs into the great passionate universal 
 yearning : "We want our little girl again" : 
 
 "And yet the way before us 
 
 O how empty now and drear ! 
 How e'en the dews of roses 
 
 Seem as dripping tears for her ! 
 And the song-birds all seem crying, 
 
 As the winds cry and the rain, 
 All sobbingly, 'We want we want 
 
 Our little girl again !' " 
 
 2. HE TEACHES US WHAT TO SEE 
 
 The function of art is not only "to teach us to 
 see," but also "to teach us what to see." Measured 
 by this standard, James Whitcomb Riley's nature 
 poetry is not found wanting. He is not only a care 
 ful observer, seeing and hearing everything because 
 he loves nature; but he possesses powers of descrip 
 tion that are nothing short of marvelous. Who 
 that has ever done that most delightful work of 
 plowing a loamy sod-field on a spring day does not 
 thank Riley for his whimsical descriptions in "Mis-
 
 86 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 ter Hop-Toad." We followed the plow across the 
 field ; but we failed to see what we might have seen. 
 Take the first stanza as a sample : 
 
 "Howdy, Mister Hop-Toad I Glad to see you out ! 
 Bin a month o' Sund'ys sense I seen you hereabout. 
 Kind o' bin a-layin' in, from the frost and snow? 
 Good to see you out ag'in, it's bin so long ago I 
 Plows like slicin' cheese, and sod's loppin' over even ; 
 Loam's like gingerbread, and clods's softer'n deceivin' 
 Mister Hop-Toad, honest-true Spring-time don't you love it? 
 You old rusty rascal you, at the bottom of it!" 
 
 That is just right: it "plows like slicin' cheese"; 
 the "loam is like gingerbread." Why, of course! 
 We have seen that kind of plowing many a time; 
 but we never had the fun of making that figure of 
 speech. Every farmer should thank Riley for tak 
 ing the drudgery out of farm work ; for calling at 
 tention to the inconspicuous beauties which the 
 prosaic toilsomeness of country life has too often 
 failed to perceive. His "Thoughts fer the Discur- 
 aged Farmer" are good for all of us, no matter what 
 our occupation. If we read it aloud on a summer 
 morning we are bound to go singing to our work, 
 whether that work be in harvest field or mill or mine 
 or store or office or bank. What glowing imagery ! 
 The summer wind smelling the sweet fragrance of
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 87 
 
 the locust blossoms; the bees "swigging" honey 
 until they stutter in their buzzing or stagger in their 
 flying; the flicker rolling up its feathers for joyous 
 work as a farmer rolls up his sleeves ! Thank you, 
 Riley, for opening our eyes to see the wonders of a 
 June morning! 
 
 "The summer winds is sniffin* round the bloomin' locus' trees ; 
 And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees, 
 And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly, 
 Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin' and stagger as they fly. 
 The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit on his wings 
 And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings ; 
 And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz, 
 And the off -mare is a-switchin' all of her tale they is." 
 
 And so he goes on through four more stanzas open 
 ing before our wondering vision the amazing de 
 lights of a summer morning, ending with the unfor 
 gettable lines : 
 
 "Fer the world is full of roses, and the roses full of dew, 
 And the dew is full of heavenly love that drips fer me and 
 you." 
 
 One summer when Riley was only twenty-five 
 years of age, he was visiting friends for a week at 
 an old-fashioned homestead on the banks of Lick 
 Creek. One day he went out and spent a few hours 
 with some thrashers, and then returned across fields
 
 88 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 to the homestead three miles away. At one point he 
 followed what he called "a darling pathway/' over 
 hung with willow boughs. He forthwith wrote 
 twenty-six stanzas to describe the delights of "A 
 Country Pathway." Before going for a walk in the 
 country again, read this graceful poem through, and 
 you will see things you never saw before. For in 
 stance, when you come to a meadow you will see the 
 clover stalks nodding in the breeze; but more than 
 that, you will see them shake rosy fists at you as 
 though they resented the intrusion, and, protesting, 
 they will threaten to drive you out, as though the 
 bumblebees buzzing around the clover were their 
 watch-dogs. He is following the Pathway : 
 
 "In pranks of hide-and-seek, as on ahead 
 I see it running, while the clover-stalks 
 
 Shake rosy fists at me, as though they said 
 'You dog our country walks 
 
 " 'And mutilate us with your walking-stick ! 
 We will not suffer tamely what you do, 
 
 And warn you at your peril, for we will sick 
 Our bumblebees on you !' " 
 
 The farmer who goes out to husk his corn on an 
 autumn morning, "When the frost is on the punkin 
 and the fodder's in the shock," knows after reading
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 89 
 
 Riley (though he may not have known it before) 
 that: 
 
 ". . . the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the 
 
 haze 
 
 Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days 
 Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock 
 When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock." 
 
 The Hoosier bard has done us all a rare service in 
 stimulating our eyes to see, and our ears to hear, in 
 all the little commonplaces about us, those endlessly 
 changing details which make life everywhere so un- 
 fathomably, immeasurably wondrous. In his "Life 
 at the Lake" we behold nature as truly a miracle, 
 getting that inspiration which miracles always 
 breathe into the spirit of mankind. We behold : 
 
 "The green below and the blue above ! 
 The waves caressing the shores they love." 
 
 We hear 
 
 "The leaf-hid locust whet his wings," 
 
 and we are glad to be told what the locust is doing 
 when he makes that peculiar noise; we never knew 
 before; but now it does sound like the farmer whet 
 ting his scythe. Vividness distinguishes the descrip 
 tive passages of all of Riley 's nature poetry. He 
 sets his scenes in vividly real background so faith-
 
 90 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 ful to actual nature that the local sentiment aroused 
 as you read his poems may generally be accepted as 
 true. Take a bit of description out of the center of 
 his long poem, "Old Hec's Idolatry" his "Knights" 
 suddenly came 
 
 "Upon an open road that circled round 
 A reedy flat and sodden tract of sedge, 
 Moated with stagnant water, crusted thick 
 With slimy moss, wherein were wriggling things 
 Entangled, and blind bubbles bulging up 
 And bursting where from middle way upshot 
 A tree-trunk, with its gnarled and warty hands 
 As tho' upheld to clutch at gliding snakes 
 Or nip the wet wings of the dragon-fly." 
 
 Mr. Riley's greatest nature descriptions have to 
 do with the summer-time. Even in the winter he 
 can make us see summer. If you doubt this read 
 "The Muskingum Valley," a poem which he com 
 posed while riding up the Muskingum Valley, in 
 Ohio, all day in an old hack on a bitterly cold day in 
 March, to fill a lecture engagement at McConnells- 
 ville. He says : "During the journey the cold was so 
 trying that in reaction and for diversion I busied 
 myself picturing the summer-time in the valley and 
 the beauty of it." He succeeded so well that, read 
 ing it anywhere, anytime of year, we can see the
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 91 
 
 blossoms and the soft-sloping hills and the river as 
 restful as "an old fiddle-tune." We quote the first 
 stanza as a sample : 
 
 "The Muskingum Valley ! How longin' the gaze 
 A feller throws back on its long summer days, 
 When the smiles of its blossoms and my smiles wuz one- 
 And-the-same, from the rise to the set of the sun : 
 Wher' the hills sloped as soft as the dawn down to noon, 
 And the river run by like an old fiddle-tune, 
 And the hours glided past as the bubbles 'ud glide, 
 All so loaferin'-like, 'long the path o' the tide." 
 
 Some of us never really saw "A Summer Sun 
 rise" until we read*Riley's beautiful poem with that 
 tide. Take a few lines picked at random : 
 
 "And mountains, peering in the skies, 
 Stand ankle-deep in lakes of gold." 
 
 What a vivid description suggesting the mountains 
 standing there in the morning sunlight, "ankle-deep 
 in lakes of gold," and "peering in the skies." We 
 have often seen mountains do just that thing, but we 
 did not know that was what they were doing until 
 Riley taught us to see. 
 
 "And spangled with the shine and shade, 
 
 I see the rivers raveled out 
 In strands of silver, slowly fade 
 In threads of light along the glade 
 
 Where truant roses hide and pout."
 
 92 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 That is a true scene in God's open country on a 
 summer morning: the gleaming rivers across the 
 landscape are "raveled out in strands of silver" ; 
 
 "But as I gaze, the city's walls 
 Are keenly smitten with a gleam 
 
 Of pallid splendor, that appalls 
 
 The fancy as the ruin falls 
 In ashen embers of a dream." 
 
 Riley always excelled in his descriptions of the 
 coming of dusk. In his "August," after faithfully 
 picturing "a day of torpor in the sullen heat of 
 Summer's passion," he represents Day, in the clos 
 ing lines, as going to sleep in the arms of Night: 
 
 "Till, throbbing on and on, the pulse of heat 
 Increases reaches passes fever's height, 
 
 And Day sinks into slumber, cool and sweet, 
 Within the arms of Night" 
 
 We have all gazed in rapture at the first star shin 
 ing in the sky at even time, and sometimes in child 
 ish inquisitiveness wonder how it got there; but in 
 his "Dusk Song" our poet makes us see it as vividly 
 as we have seen boys wading in a river : 
 
 "One naked star has waded through 
 The purple shallows of the night." 
 
 For exalted description and the creation of the 
 concomitant of emotional tone, I know nothing that
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 93 
 
 surpasses his account of "Dusk" in "Dead Leaves." 
 The first sentence must suffice here : 
 
 "The frightened herds of clouds across the sky 
 Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day 
 Into the dusky lands of gray 
 
 And somber twilight." 
 
 Not unlike the foregoing are some lines found in 
 "Thanksgiving Day at Hunchley's," where he pic 
 tures mystic voices and sounds of terror bred of 
 nature's laws : 
 
 "I have leaned upon Niagara, and heard the wailing tide 
 Where it leaps its awful chasm in unending suicide : 
 
 "I have heard the trampling footsteps of the roaring hurricane 
 As he lashed his tail of lightning, and tossed his shaggy mane ; 
 I have heard the cannonading of the devastating storm." 
 
 Riley possessed to a more marked degree than 
 any other American writer the art of describing 
 natural objects and presenting ideas in symphonies 
 and harmonies of tone. Almost .any one of his 
 nature poems will illustrate this fact. Read aloud, 
 for instance, two or three stanzas from "The 
 Shower," and see how they impress you : 
 
 "The landscape, like the awed face of a child 
 Grew curiously blurred ; a hush of death 
 
 Fell on the fields, and in the darkened wild 
 The zephyr held its breath.
 
 94 THE FAITH OF TH PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "The sullen day grew darker, and anon 
 Dim flashes of pent anger lit the sky; 
 
 With rumbling wheels of wrath came rolling on 
 The storm's artillery. 
 
 "The cloud above put on its blackest frown, 
 And then, as with a vengeful cry of pain, 
 
 The lightning snatched it, ripped and flung it down 
 In raveled shreds of rain." 
 
 3. HE TEACHES US TO SEE MORE THAN WE SEE 
 
 It is a further function of art to "teach us to sec 
 more than we see." Riley does it. In his hands the 
 natural becomes a translucent veil through which the 
 spiritual pours its light and inspiration into the 
 hearts of men. The last poem from which we have 
 quoted, "The Shower," was one of his earlier 
 poems, written in April, 1879. It put him in the 
 very van of lyric poets; but more than that, the final 
 stanza of it stamps him as a true artist in the sense 
 of the highest "function of art," which we are now 
 considering : 
 
 "While I, transfigured by some wondrous art, 
 Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod, 
 
 My empty soul brimmed over, and my heart 
 Drenched with the love of God." 
 
 Read his works carefully and you will be amazed
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 95 
 
 at how often he likens natural objects to psycholog 
 ical phenomena, as in "Dawn, Noon and Dew fall" : 
 
 "Trompin' home acrost the fields : Lightnin'-bugs a-blinkin' 
 In the wheat like sparks o' things feller keeps a-thinkin' ;" 
 
 or as in "The Speeding of the King's Spite" : 
 
 "The girl had grown, in the mother's care 
 Like a bud in the shine and shower 
 
 That drinks of the wine of the balmy air 
 Till it blooms in matchless flower;" 
 
 or as in "Squire Hawkins's Story".: 
 
 "Now love's as cunnin' a little thing 
 As a hummin'-bird upon the wing" ; 
 
 or as in "The Funny Little Fellow," who had "a 
 heart as mellow as an apple over-ripe," and 
 
 "His smile was like the glitter 
 
 Of the sun in tropic lands 
 And his talk a sweeter twitter 
 
 Than the swallow understands ;" 
 
 or as when he wants to tell of the mental as well as 
 physical effect that the touch of "Dear Hands" 
 has upon him, he declares that the touches of her 
 hands are light as "the fall of velvet snow-flakes,"
 
 96 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 or "the down of the peach," or the "flossy fondlings 
 of the thistle-wisp caught in the crinkle" of a brown 
 leaf, or as "the falling of the dusk at night," or as 
 "the dew that falls so softly down no one ever knew 
 the touch thereof save lovers" ; or as in "Limitations 
 of Genius," he makes us see the agitated whiteness 
 of a pale woman's face when she becomes animated, 
 as: 
 
 "Her pale face lit 
 Like winter snow with sunrise over it"; 
 
 or as when he wants to refer to that strange psy 
 chological phenomenon, that sudden clustering of a 
 crowd of boys upon the slightest excitement in any 
 community, 
 
 "Like a clot of bees round an apple-core" ; 
 
 or as in "The Harper" where he desires to describe 
 the spiritual effect that the skilful playing of a harp 
 has upon him, he likens the strings to slanting rain 
 and the player's fingers to a drift of faded blossoms : 
 
 "Like a drift of faded blossoms 
 
 Caught in a slanting rain, 
 His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp 
 
 In a tremulous refrain"; 
 
 and he knows of no better way to describe the ex 
 quisite music than to call it "rainy sweet" :
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 97 
 
 "Patter and tinkle and drip and drip ! 
 
 Ah! but the chords were rainy sweet! 
 And I closed my eyes and I bit my lip, 
 
 As he played there in the street." 
 
 He closed his eyes and bit his lip because it made 
 him think of the little bed in the corner of the gar 
 ret with the rafters and the little window and 
 
 "The rain above, and a mother's love, 
 And God's companionship 1" 
 
 or as in "Armazindy" he compares a bad woman to 
 a snake : oh, how his description of her stings and 
 burns and suits : 
 
 "But she wuz a cunnin', sly, 
 Meek and lowly sort o* lie, 
 'At men-folks like me and you 
 B'lieves jes' 'cause we ortn't to. 
 Jes' as purty as a snake, 
 And as pisen mercy sake!" 
 
 or as in "To My Old Friend, William Leachman," 
 where the soul's sorrow is compared to an icy win 
 ter, and a sympathizing friend to the sun that thaws 
 it out and brings summer to the soul : 
 
 "And the clock, like ice a-crackin', clickt the icy hours in 
 
 two 
 And my eyes'd never thawed out ef it hadn't been f er you !"
 
 98 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Truly, Riley was so much of an artist that all 
 nature seemed like an art-gallery to him, full of 
 lovely pictures. He became the People's Poet be 
 cause he kept close to nature as a source of inspira 
 tion furnishing him an infinite variety of images and 
 fancies. He was not given to "preaching," and yet 
 he beheld nature as a great book of parables which 
 he joyed to interpret for us. He beholds "Autumn" 
 as a harvester, swart and hale, faring homeward 
 with slow stride, 
 
 "Weary both in arm and limb, 
 Yet the wholesome heart of him 
 Sheer at rest and satisfied." 
 
 In that graceful poem, "A Country Pathway," he 
 speaks of coming, in his wanderings, to a place 
 where the perfect day bursts into bloom, 
 
 "And crowns a long, declining stretch of space, 
 Where King Corn's armies lie with flags unfurled, 
 
 And where the valley's dint in Nature's face 
 Dimples a smiling world." 
 
 We see more there than we ordinarily see, not only 
 in that the valley is a dimple in nature's face, but 
 more in that the stalks of waving corn are the un 
 furled banners of a triumphant King a King tri 
 umphant over Want. This very thought we find
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 99 
 
 brought out more plainly in three lines from "A 
 Child's Home Long Ago" : 
 
 "The soldier corn-stalks on their battle-ground 
 March on to harvest victories, and flaunt 
 Their banners o'er the battlements of want." 
 
 He teaches us to see more than we see that's the 
 point. Take "Wortermelon Time," for instance. 
 After dilating at length upon watermelons, and con 
 fessing that the way he "hankers after wortermel- 
 ons is a sin," he calls attention to the "more" : 
 
 "Oh, they's more in wortermelons than the purty-colored meat, 
 And the overflowin' sweetness of the worter squshed betwixt 
 
 The up'ard and the down'ard motions of a feller's teeth, 
 And it's the taste of ripe old age and juicy childhood mixed." 
 
 Our Poet is always seeking* for the infinite not 
 so much the infinite in contradistinction to the finite, 
 as the infinite in the finite. He confers spirituality 
 and permanence on the fleeting objects of sense. He 
 makes this world the visible symbol of a spiritual 
 power. He invests the world with light. Thus 
 from a good-natured contentment with the kind of 
 weather that God sorts out and sends him, he rea 
 sons, as in "Wet-Weather Talk," to a comforting 
 belief in the wise over-ruling Providence of God in 
 all the vicissitudes of life; for though
 
 100 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "These-here cy-clones a-foolin' round 
 
 And back'ard crops! and wind and rain! 
 And yit the corn that's wallerd down 
 N May elbow up again 1" 
 
 In the beautiful sonnet which he calls "Sun and 
 Rain," he makes us see the glimmering mist of 
 blended sunshine and rain as God's smile; the lily 
 bows like a white saint in prayer; the blossoms, with 
 divine tenderness, lift their wet eyes to heaven as 
 does the Poet : 
 
 "All day the sun and rain have been as friends, 
 Each vying with the other which shall be 
 Most generous in dowering earth and sea 
 
 With their glad wealth, till each, as it descends, 
 
 Is mingled with the other, where it blends 
 In one warm, glimmering mist that falls on me 
 As once God's smile fell over Galilee. 
 
 The lily-cup, filled with it, droops and bends 
 Like some white saint beside a sylvan shrine 
 
 In silent prayer ; the roses at my feet, 
 Baptized with it as with a crimson wine, 
 
 Gleam radiant in grasses grown so sweet, 
 The blossoms lift, with tenderness divine, 
 Their wet eyes heavenward with these of mine." 
 
 After Mr. Riley had read Oliver Davie's "Rev 
 eries and Recollections of a Naturalist" (which 
 Robert G. Ingersoll called "one of the finest tributes 
 to Nature ever penned"), he wrote a poem which he 
 calls "The Naturalist." While it purports to be a
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 101 
 
 description of Oliver Davie, it in very truth de 
 scribes the service that our Hoosier bard has ren 
 dered us; for he has caused us to go forth to the 
 forest where peace and love breathe prayer-like in 
 the breeze and in the coo of doves ; he has caused us 
 to uncover our heads and hear the Master speak to 
 us in the spirit of the wood ; he has taught us to "see 
 more than we see" in the birds and the grasses and 
 even the rain : 
 
 "In gentlest worship has he bowed 
 To Nature. Rescued from the crowd 
 And din of town and thoroughfare, 
 He turns him from all worldly care 
 Unto the sacred fastness of 
 The forests, and the peace and love 
 That breathes there prayer-like in the breeze 
 And coo of doves in dreamful trees 
 Their tops in laps of sunshine laid 
 Their lower bows all slaked with shade. 
 
 "With head uncovered has he stood, 
 Hearing the Spirit of the Wood 
 Hearing aright the Master speak 
 In trill of bird, and warbling creek; 
 In lisp of reeds, or rainy sigh 
 Of grasses as the loon darts by 
 Hearing aright the storm and lull, 
 And all earth's voices wonderful, 
 Even this hail an unknown friend 
 Lifts will he hear and comprehend."
 
 102 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Mr. Riley was a great admirer of John Clark Rid- 
 path. After his death he wrote a tribute which was 
 read at his memorial service in which he gives us 
 a cross-section of his own heart and mind: 
 
 "The skies, the stars, the mountains and the sea, 
 He worshiped as their high divinity 
 Nor did his reverent spirit find one thing 
 On earth too lowly for his worshiping. 
 
 "The weed, the rose, the wildwood or the plain, 
 The teeming harvest, or the blighted grain, 
 All all were fashioned beautiful and good, 
 As the soul saw and the senses understood." 
 
 That is fine! It all depends upon the soul that 
 sees and the senses that understand. His "reverent 
 spirit" finds nothing "on earth too lowly for his 
 worshiping." Truly, a reverent spirit is a posses 
 sion not to be lightly esteemed. Reverence is one of 
 the cardinal virtues. When a man has the right 
 kind of eyes he will see God in nature as Jesus saw 
 Him in the flight of birds and in the flowers of the 
 field. He will see Him as Wordsworth saw Him in 
 that lovely valley of the Wye, near Tintern Abbey; 
 or, as once when he saw a single primrose growing 
 upon a rock, and, brooding upon it, said : "Thou art
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 103 
 
 become to me the court of Deity." It was the great 
 scientist, Louis Agassiz, who said : "Back of the law 
 written in the rocks is the hand that writes ; back of 
 the hand is a mind it is the Mind of the Living 
 God." God is present everywhere. He made the 
 mountains to shoulder up the sky. He clothes the 
 earth with vestments of green. The stars are but 
 sparks struck out on the anvil of His eternal pur 
 pose, and His power keeps them burning now in the 
 illimitable depths of space. I have no sympathy 
 with that false supernaturalism that finds God only 
 in signs and wonders. He is as much in the buds of 
 spring, arid the growing corn, and the ripening har 
 vest to-day as He was in the giving of manna to the 
 wilderness- wandering Israelites of long ago. After 
 all, the best way to cultivate the sense of reverence 
 and awe is not by some mighty and phenomenal 
 contingency, but by the influence of the common 
 place. I f we approach each bush with reverence, we 
 may detect a mystic, burning Presence. Riley 
 teaches us to see that "all works" "worthy of Omnip 
 otence" are worthy of our reverence. This is the 
 whole meaning of his poem, "The Rest," the closing 
 stanza of which contains the following lines :
 
 104 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "It was enough, thus childishly to sense 
 All works since worthy of Omnipotence 
 As worshipful. Therefor, as any child, 
 He knelt in tenderness of tears, or smiled 
 His gratefulness, as to a playmate glad 
 To share His pleasures with a poorer lad." 
 
 That is a very beautiful thought: that we should be 
 as simple and sincere in our gratitude to God for the 
 wonderful world He has given us as a poor lad 
 would be to a playmate who had shared his pleas 
 ures with him. No wonder that Riley concluded 
 "The All-Golden" with the rapturous outburst : 
 
 "My soul soars up the atmosphere 
 
 And sings aloud where God can hear, 
 
 And all my being leans intent 
 
 To mark His smiling wonderment. 
 
 O gracious dream, and gracious time, 
 
 And gracious theme, and gracious rhyme 
 
 When buds of Spring begin to blow 
 
 In blor.soms that we used to know 
 
 And lure us back along the ways 
 
 Of time's all-golden yesterdays !" 
 
 Thank you, dear Poet of the People, for the 
 things you have taught us. Your "song makes of 
 Earth a realm of light and shadow," "vast and 
 grand with splendor of the morn," and your voice 
 "makes melodious all things below," as you once
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 105 
 
 said of your friend, Benj. S. Parker. So do we 
 take your words and make them our own, address 
 ing them back to you with utter sincerity : 
 
 "Thy rapt song makes of Earth a realm of light 
 And shadow mystical as some dreamland 
 Arched with un fathomed azure vast and grand 
 
 With splendor of the morn; or dazzling bright 
 
 With orient noon ; or strewn with stars of night 
 Thick as the daisies blown in grasses fanned 
 By odorous midsummer breezes and 
 
 Showered over by all bird-songs exquisite. 
 
 This is thy voice's beatific art 
 To make melodious all things below, 
 
 Calling through them, from far, diviner space, 
 
 Thy clearer hail to us. The faltering heart 
 Thou cheerest ; and thy fellow mortal so 
 
 Fares onward under Heaven with lifted face."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE DOCTRINE OF GOD IN RILEY'S RHYMES 
 
 EVERY man has some God. It would be just 
 as reasonable to talk about vegetation growing 
 independently of the light of the sun as to talk about 
 man's existence independent of a god. His idea 
 about God is fundamental. As the light of the sun 
 gives color to everything; to the modest violet 
 blooming alone in the fence-corner, no less than to 
 the mighty oak that fronts the storm, so man's con 
 ception of God colors every detail of his life, not 
 only his thinking, but also his doing. Deed is only 
 the practical expression of creed. If you know what 
 a man's idea of God is, you can construct the main 
 outlines of his whole belief; for in that idea is 
 bound up what he thinks of right and wrong, of 
 sin and salvation, of time and eternity, of his rela 
 tion to his fellow men and of his relation to the 
 Great Unseen. 
 
 If we go through James Whitcomb Riley's poetry 
 to discover what he believed concerning God, we 
 shall be as refreshed in spirit as though bland but 
 bracing breezes had blown upon us from the hills of 
 
 106
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 107 
 
 Heaven; we shall be as comforted as a fearful child 
 is comforted when its mother croons to it and cud 
 dles it in the dark and silent night. We can group 
 practically all he says about God under four head 
 ings: (1) An unquestioning belief in the existence 
 of a personal and imminent God; (2) a firm faith 
 in an overruling Divine Providence; (3) confidence 
 that God hears and answers prayer; (4) the fore 
 going rest upon the conviction that God is good and 
 merciful. 
 
 We find in Riley no trace of that sneering, cynical 
 attitude toward religious questions which was only 
 too common among many of his compatriots. He 
 exercises what Professor James calls "the will to 
 believe." Plaintively he sings "We Must Believe," 
 each stanza of which poem ends with the fervent 
 words : 
 
 "Lord, I believe : 
 
 Help Thou mine unbelief 1" 
 
 To one who is able to think the question through 
 the first reason for believing in the existence of God 
 is the fact that we are able to understand something 
 of the laws that obtain in the universe. For just 
 as we conclude that a musical score that can be un 
 derstood by a rational mind must have been pro-
 
 108 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 duced by a rational mind, even so we conclude that 
 if a rational mind is able to interpret this great piece 
 of cosmic music which we call the universe, it must 
 be the product of the rational mind which we call 
 God. The modern atheist, in offering a mechanical 
 explanation of the universe, spells nature with a 
 capital "N" and science with a capital "S." His 
 "Nature" is the rival of God, and his "Science" 
 leaves the surface of things, where it belongs, and 
 goes beyond the phenomena, and prates of the infin 
 ities and the eternities and "the iron chain of neces 
 sity." 
 
 In two stanzas of his long and wholesome poem, 
 "The Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers," Mr. Riley introduces 
 us in his quaint Hoosier style to such characters as 
 these in this fashion : 
 
 "And onc't when gineral loafin'-place wuz old Shoe-Shop 
 
 and all 
 
 The gang'ud git in there and brace their backs ag'inst the wall 
 And settle questions that had went onsettled long enough, 
 Like 'wuz no Heav'n ner no torment' jes* talkin' awful 
 
 rough! 
 
 "There was Sloke Haines and old Ike Knight and Coonrod 
 
 Simmes all three 
 
 Ag'inst the Bible and the Light, and scoutin' Deity. 
 'Science,' says Ike, 'it DlMonstrates it takes nobody's word 
 Scriptur* er not, it 'vestigates ef sich things could occurred !' "
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 109 
 
 Now, in Mr. Riley we find no trace of that incredul 
 ity and spirit of skeptical mockery which scintillates 
 endless epigrams and facetious flippancies, counting 
 nothing too sacred for its acid jest. But just the 
 same, he is able to wield the sharp sword of sarcasm 
 with wonderful skill when the notion strikes him; 
 and we can not but clap our hands in admiration at 
 the fine answer he causes Doc Sifers to make to the 
 cock-sure dogmatism of the shallow-pated shoe-shop 
 loafers : 
 
 "Well, Doc he heerd this, he'd drapped in a minute, fer to git 
 
 A tore-off heel pegged on ag'in, and as he stood on it 
 
 And stomped and grinned, he says to Ike, 'I s'pose now, 
 
 purty soon 
 Some lightin'-bug, indignant-like, '11 'vestigate the moon! 
 
 " 'No, Ike,' says Doc, 'this world hain't saw no brains like 
 
 yourn and mine 
 
 With sense enough to grasp a law 'at takes a brain divine. 
 I've bared the thoughts of brains in doubt, and felt their finest 
 
 pulse, 
 And mortal brains jes' won't turn out omnipotent results.'" 
 
 This is sound philosophy. The mind is awe- 
 stricken as the facts of science flash upon it. In 
 whatever direction we look we see unmistakable evi 
 dences of wisdom, power, benevolence and design. 
 Since the universe bears the impress of mind, a
 
 110 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 mind is the only adequate cause of the universe. 
 Only a mind great enough to cause all other exist 
 ence can be self-existent. It requires God to "turn 
 out omnipotent results." 
 
 When Mr. Riley's friend, John Boyle O'Reilly, 
 died, our poet declared : 
 
 w 'Tis promotion that has come * 
 Thus upon him. Stricken dumb 
 Be your meanings dolorous ! 
 God knows what He does." 
 
 Let us hold fast to that profound doctrine, so simply 
 expressed : "God knows what He does !" The hid 
 den power carrying on the world is purposeful and 
 intelligent. As the scheduled running of a locomo 
 tive can be accounted for only in the acknowledg 
 ment that an engineer is on board, so to talk sen 
 sibly about the dynamism of the world we must lift 
 it to the plane of volitional causation. In his poem, 
 "Good-by er Howdy-do," Riley expresses it exactly : 
 
 "Some One's runnin' this concern 
 That's got nothin' else to learn; 
 Ef He's willin', we'll pull through 
 Say good-by er howdy-do !" 
 
 Anselm once said : "The idea of God in the mind 
 of man is the one unanswerable evidence of the ex-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 111 
 
 istence of God." This is up-to-date reasoning; for 
 in a world of reality every natural appetite, desire 
 or power has its counterpart. There is air for the 
 lungs, light for the eye, food for the stomach, truth 
 for the reason, love to answer those who love. Now, 
 man is constitutionally religious. The universal 
 idea of the existence of God is intuitive; it inheres 
 in the very nature of man. Shall we say that 
 nature, which never deceives man in aught else, 
 plays fast and loose with him in this respect? But 
 if the argument is worth anything it points not only 
 to the existence of a Supreme Being, but to a good 
 God who is worthy of our trust, love and worship. 
 In a tender poem, fittingly called "The Enduring," 
 Riley describes the old shoe-shop at Greenfield, In 
 diana, which he frequented when a boy. He con 
 cludes each one of the three verses with the legend 
 that was cut in antique lines over the portal of the 
 shoe-shop : 
 
 "Wouldst have a friend? Wouldst know what friend is best? 
 Have God thy friend : He passeth all the rest" 
 
 Our gentle poet tells us that as he reads the words 
 over again, his old eyes make the meaning clearer 
 than did the eyes of youth. Man's religious nature
 
 112 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 is the crown of his being, and can be satisfied with 
 nothing less than God as its counterpart. As the eye 
 was made for light and the ear for sound, so man 
 was made for God. The sentiment with which the 
 poem "Unless" closes is true : 
 
 "O souls that thirst, and hearts that fast, 
 And natures faint with famishing, 
 God lift and lead and safely bring 
 
 You to your own at last!" 
 
 God lifts and leads and satisfies! This spiritual ex 
 perience is the most practical evidence of God. Ex 
 perience is the final test. I have made the test. I 
 have had the spiritual experience which convinces 
 me of the existence of God. I do not stand alone; 
 I am in company with the truest, sanest and best 
 among the sons of men; and I am in line \vith the 
 best philosophy of the time. Pragmatism, of which 
 we hear so much, only means : Does it work ? Is it 
 worth while? Of what value is it? And history 
 has proved that to surrender to the great and good 
 God, to come into communion and fellowship with 
 Him, makes for the holiest character, and inspires 
 the noblest life. By this method, cowards have be 
 come courageous; libertines have become chaste; 
 drunkards have become sober; liars have become
 
 truthful; doubters have become disciples; selfish 
 lives have become generous and Christ-like. Have 
 you doubts about the existence of God? Then go 
 to Him through Jesus Christ, by faith link your life 
 with His, and you will be able to say with Riley, 
 who, after a most exquisite description of "The 
 Shower," in lines that might have occurred in the 
 rhapsodies of Isaiah, says : 
 
 "While I, transfigured by some wondrous art, 
 Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod, 
 
 My empty soul brimmed over, and my heart 
 Drenched with the love of God." 
 
 That "God is not disquieted" is a great truth that 
 gives sanity to the universe and peace to the mind. 
 It is the motif of "The Legend Glorified" : 
 
 "Though awful tempests thunder overhead, 
 I deem that God is not disquieted, 
 The faith that trembles somewhat yet is sure 
 Through storm and darkness of a way secure. 
 
 "Bleak winters, when the naked spirit hears 
 
 The break of hearts, through stinging sleet of tears, 
 
 I deem that God is not disquieted ; 
 
 Against all stresses am I clothed and fed. 
 
 "Nay, even with fixed eyes and broken breath, 
 My feet dip down into the tides of death, 
 Nor any friend be left, nor prayer be said, 
 I deem that God is not disquieted."
 
 114 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Is that not a good commentary on the Scripture: 
 "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from 
 above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, 
 with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of 
 turning." Upon the changelessness of God rests our 
 entire confidence in Him, and our reliance upon His 
 proffered mercies and His gracious plans. He "is 
 not disquieted." He is not a God of caprice. He 
 can manage His own work. Heaven is not thrown 
 into a panic because of some temporary turmoil on 
 earth. 
 
 God is present with us in nature. That is a doc 
 trine of Scripture. The Book of Psalms is a veri 
 table handbook of poetic description. To Jesus, all 
 nature, birds and flowers and fields, spoke of the 
 love and care of God; So, also, does our dear Riley 
 teach us, in his poem to Oliver Davie, "The Nat 
 uralist," that if we have hearing properly attuned we 
 shall "hear aright the Master speak" in all the sweet 
 
 sounds of nature : 
 / 
 
 "In gentlest worship has he bowed 
 To Nature. Rescued from the crowd 
 And din of town and thoroughfare, 
 He turns him from all worldly care 
 Unto the sacred fastness of 
 The forests, and the peace and love
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 115 
 
 That breathes there prayer-like in the breeze 
 And coo of doves in dreamful trees 
 Their tops in laps of sunshine laid, 
 Their lower boughs all slaked with shade. 
 
 "With head uncovered has he stood, 
 Hearing the Spirit of the Wood 
 Hearing aright the Master speak 
 In trill of bird, and warbling creek; 
 In lisp of reeds, or rainy sigh 
 Of grasses as the loon darts by 
 Hearing aright the storm and lull, 
 And all earth's voices wonderful, 
 Even this hail an unknown friend 
 Lifts will he hear and comprehend." 
 
 But not only is God with us in nature: He is 
 with us in history. One can not read Riley's 
 "America's Thanksgiving (1900)" without being 
 hushed with a reverential awe. If the ancient He 
 brews built their temple with a consciousness of the 
 divine overshadowing all their work and lending it 
 unspeakable solemnity, no less truly is one who 
 reads this "Thanksgiving" poem conscious of the 
 overshadowing presence of the great God in all our 
 nation's life; so that with clearer sight we see our 
 boundless debt to God who causes wrong to grow 
 into right, and who transforms the clanging fray of 
 battle discord "into a pastoral song of peace and 
 rest."
 
 116 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "So, let us thank Thee, with all self aside, 
 Nor any lingering taint of mortal pride; 
 
 As here to Thee we dare 
 
 Uplift our faltering prayer, 
 Lend it some fervor of the glorified." 
 
 In 1620 a Dutch trading ship sailed up the James 
 River, with its cargo of human slaves. The ini 
 quitous business grew on these shores until it be 
 came a hideous nightmare to all right-thinking peo 
 ple. Yet its defenders drove their arguments home 
 with logic and clinched them with Scripture. Some 
 of its horrors were "Told by the Noted Traveler" 
 in Mr. Riley's "Child- World." After this tale had 
 been told, one of those who had listened to it with 
 flushed face, yearned to know 
 
 "That all unwritten sequence that the Lord 
 Of Righteousness must write with flame and sword, 
 Some awful session of His patient thought. 
 Just then it was, his good old mother caught 
 His blazing eye so that its fire became 
 But as an ember though it burned the same. 
 It seemed to her, she said, that she had heard 
 It was the Heavenly Parent never erred, 
 And not the earthly one that had such grace ; 
 'Therefore, my son,' she said, with lifted face 
 And eyes, 'let no one dare anticipate 
 The Lord's intent. While He waits, we will wait* "
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 117 
 
 And the business grew until it was overthrown by 
 the shock of the sword. Yet through it all God 
 wrought a larger human freedom, and placed upon 
 the white man's heart a new sense of responsibility 
 for the salvation of the dark continent. It is always 
 so. The human will blocks God's plans sometimes. 
 But He can afford to wait. He will triumph in the 
 end. He is always keeping watch over His own. 
 He sways the future. True statesmanship through 
 the ages has been nothing more or less than the abil 
 ity on the part of some men to discern the direction 
 in which God is going, and to move things out of 
 the way for Him. 
 
 Riley ever sees his entire dependence on Omnipo 
 tence for every gift, and feels that God does all 
 things transcendently well. This is the secret of his 
 good-natured contentment with whatever Provi 
 dence does. I like his "Philosophy" in which he ad 
 ministers this gentle rebuke to the superficial egotist : 
 
 "The signs is bad when folks commence 
 A-findin' fault with Providence, 
 And balkin' 'cause the earth don't shake 
 At ev'ry prancin' step they take." 
 
 The same doctrine of the unerring overruling 
 Providence of a good God who will bring victory
 
 118 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 out of defeat and success out of failure, is unmis 
 takably set forth in the dialect poem "Wet- Weather 
 Talk," which is so good and expresses this splendid 
 philosophy of Riley's in such a striking way that I 
 shall give it all: 
 
 "It hain't no use to grumble and complane; 
 
 It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice. 
 When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, 
 
 W'y> rain's my choice. 
 
 "Men ginerly, to all intents 
 
 Although, they're apt to grumble some 
 Puts most theyr trust in Providence, 
 And takes things as they come 
 That is, the commonality 
 Of men that's lived as long as me 
 Has watched the world enough to learn 
 They're not the boss of this concern. 
 
 "With some, of course, it's different 
 
 I've saw young men that knowed it all, 
 And didn't like the way things went 
 On this terrestchul ball; 
 But all the same, the rain, some way 
 Rained jest as hard on picnic day; 
 Er, when they railly wanted it 
 It mayby wouldn't rain a bit 1 
 
 "In this existence, dry and wet 
 
 Will overtake the best of men 
 Some little skift o' clouds'll shet 
 
 The sun off now and then.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 119 
 
 And mayby, whilse you're wondern who 
 You've fool-like lent your umbrell' to, 
 And want it out'll pop the sun, 
 And you'll be glad you hain't got none I 
 
 "It aggervates the farmers, too 
 
 They's too much wet, er too much sun, 
 Er work, er waitin' round to do 
 Before the plowin' 's done ; 
 And mayby, like as not, the wheat, 
 Jest as it's lookin' hard to beat, 
 Will ketch the storm and jest about 
 The time the corn's a-jintin' out. 
 
 "These-here cy-clones a-foolin' round 
 
 And back'ard crops ! and wind and rain ! 
 And yit the corn that's wallerd down 
 May elbow up again ! 
 They ain't no sense, as I can see, 
 Fer mortuls, sich as us, to be 
 A-faultin' Natchur's wise intents, 
 And lockin' horns with Providence I 
 
 "It hain't no use to grumble and complain ; 
 
 It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice. 
 When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, 
 
 W'y, rain's my choice." 
 
 This is not fatalism. It is the bed-rock of the 
 most comfortable philosophy of life. Let the "rain" 
 stand for all the pain, the annoyances, the disap 
 pointments, the frustrated plans of life, the things
 
 120 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 that perplex us and that vex us, and then remember 
 that just when the "rain" threatens, 
 
 "And maybe, whilse you're wundern who 
 You've fool-like lent your umbrell' to, 
 
 And want it out'll pop the sun, 
 And you'll be glad you hain't got none !" 
 
 And the calamity that impended does not happen 
 or if it does, and turns you aside from the path you 
 have worked out for yourself, then when you have 
 climbed the hill of the future and look back over 
 the path you have trod you can see unmistakable 
 signs of the guiding hand of God all the way past. 
 True, God is incomprehensible in His Providence; 
 but Providence is inferred from Redemption, and 
 that in turn shifts back to Creation. For God cre 
 ated the universe because of His desire to communi 
 cate His life ; and to it, therefore, He holds the same 
 relation that a parent does to a child. It might help 
 us to start with the parental instinct, with its pa 
 tience, its unselfishness, its self-denying love, and 
 reason from that up to God. It would be well for 
 us, also, to recall the Providences in our own lives, 
 to have an autobiography in our minds of the influ 
 ences that have entered into the shaping of our lives 
 and the molding of our careers. Thus will it be
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 121 
 
 easy for us to make "rain our choice" when God 
 sorts it out for us. For we know that "God is 
 mightier than the storm," as Riley says in "Heat- 
 Lightning" : 
 
 "If the darkened heavens lower, 
 Wrap thy cloak around thy form ; 
 
 Though the tempest rise in power, 
 God is mightier than the storm I" 
 
 One of the greatest hymns of the Church in which 
 Christians have expressed their faith for many years 
 begins : 
 
 "God moves in a mysterious way 
 His wonders to perform." 
 
 It is a stately and majestic hymn, but no truer to 
 Scripture and not as understandable to the common 
 people as is "A Hymb of Faith" written by Jar.ies 
 Whitcomb Riley. It was one of his early poems to 
 appear with the pseudonym "Benj. F. Johnson of 
 Boone," being preceded only by "The Old Swim- 
 min'-Hole" and "Thoughts fer the Discuraged 
 Farmer." Mr. Riley began to write these "Benj. 
 F. Johnson" poems while he was employed on the 
 Indianapolis Journal in the summer of 1882. At 
 first he was not known as the author of them. He 
 represented them as having been written by a "coun-
 
 122 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 try poet," by this method creating for them the at 
 mosphere of perfect reality. Usually he composed 
 a letter, also purporting to be from "Benj. F. John 
 son of Boone County," to accompany the publica 
 tion of the poem. Thus, with "A Hymb of Faith" 
 was supposed to come this letter : 
 
 "It will be an undoubtable surprise to you to git 
 the poem I now send to you herein enclosed; but I 
 was a-readin' one which starts out 'God moves in a 
 mysterious way His wonders to pur form,' and the 
 idy struck me that I could write off somepin in that 
 style which would express a man's views," etc. 
 
 Then follows the "Hymb of Faith," which is more 
 of a prayer than a hymn : 
 
 "O, Thou that doth all things devise 
 
 And fashion f er the best, 
 He'p us who sees with mortul eyes 
 
 To overlook the rest. 
 
 "They's times, of course, we grope in doubt, 
 
 And in afflictions sore ; 
 So knock the louder, Lord, without, 
 
 And we'll unlock the door. 
 
 "Make us to feel, when times looks bad, 
 
 And tears in pity melts, 
 Thou wast the only he'p we had 
 
 When they was nothin' else." 
 
 Then follow a half-dozen stanzas describing the buf-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 123 
 
 fetings, and yet the triumph, of the life of Jesus, 
 after which comes this expression of faith: 
 
 "No matter, then, how all is mixed 
 
 In our near-sighted eyes, 
 All things is fer the best, and fixed 
 
 Out straight in Paradise. 
 
 "Then take things as God sends 'em here, 
 
 And, ef we live er die, 
 Be more and more contenteder, 
 
 Without a-astin' why." 
 
 Are you lonesome, so lonesome, and does your 
 back ache, and your head ache, and your heart ache ? 
 God is with you you are not alone. In the person 
 of Jesus Christ, He said: "Lo, I am with you al 
 ways, even unto the end of the world." Is the road 
 that you are traveling rough and steep? But if you 
 look you may see the Master's footprints in the 
 road. And full often God uses our aches and sor 
 rows and burdens to make us conscious of His pres 
 ence, according to Riley's touching poem, "There Is 
 a Need" : 
 
 "There is a need for every ache or pain 
 That falls unto our lot. No heart may bleed 
 
 That resignation may not heal again 
 And teach us there's a need.
 
 124 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "There is a need for every tear that drips 
 Adown the face of sorrow. None may heed, 
 
 But weeping washes whiter on the lips 
 Our prayers and there's a need. 
 
 "There is need for weariness and dearth 
 Of all that brings delight. At topmost speed 
 
 Of pleasure sobs may break amid our mirth 
 Unheard and there's a need. 
 
 "There is need for all the growing load 
 Of agony we bear as years succeed ; 
 
 For lo, the Master's footprints in the road 
 Before us There's a need." 
 
 Is this anything more than a poetic way of ex 
 pressing the great words of Saint Paul : "We know 
 that to them that love God all things work together 
 for good, even to them that are called according to 
 His purpose." All things : the dark and the light, 
 the sad and the joyous. "The Best is Good Enough" 
 is the title of one of our poet's most thoughtful pro 
 ductions, the climax of which is : 
 
 "One only knows our needs, and He 
 
 Does all of the distributing. 
 I quarrel not with Destiny: 
 The best is good enough for me." 
 
 God is the Divine Physician. He "knows our 
 needs." We shall trust Him to do "all the dis 
 tributing." He knows what distribution to make 
 of the "all things" to make them work together for
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 125 
 
 our good, as a physician knows how to compound 
 certain drugs, any one of which alone might be in 
 jurious to us, but which work together for our heal 
 ing. 
 
 The same comforting thought is repeated in the 
 poem entitled "We to Sigh Instead of Sing," set 
 ting forth the thoughtful goodness of God. He in 
 troduces this thought by describing a day of "rain, 
 rain, nothing but rain," which was followed by a 
 day of shining splendor, and then passes on to show 
 that the tender God will cause the day of weeping to 
 be followed by a day of rejoicing. He says : 
 
 "We to sigh instead of sing, 
 
 Yesterday, in sorrow, 
 While the Lord was fashioning 
 
 This for our To-morrow 1" 
 
 In "The Sermon of the Rose" our bard again ex 
 presses his faith in the intense and personal care of 
 God. This mellifluous, highly symbolical poem opens 
 with these words : 
 
 "Wilful we are, in our infirmity 
 
 Of childish questioning and discontent 
 Whate'er befalls us is divinely meant 
 Thou Truth the clearer for thy mystery! 
 Make us to meet what is or is to be 
 With fervid welcome, knowing it is sent 
 To serve us in some way full excellent,
 
 126 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Though we discern it all belatedly. 
 The rose buds, and the rose blooms, and the rose 
 Bows in the dews, and in its fulness, lo, 
 
 Is in the lover's hand, then on the breast 
 Of her he loves, and there dies. And who knows 
 What fate of all a rose may undergo 
 Is fairest, dearest, sweetest, loveliest?" 
 
 Thank you, dear Riley; I do believe that "what- 
 e'er befalls us is divinely meant" provided, of 
 course, that we "love God." Mr. Riley once wrote 
 a letter to a friend in adversity in which he said : 
 
 "No mortal condition is better than the one He 
 seems to weigh you down with. In my own case I 
 am coming every day to see clearer the gracious uses 
 of adversity. Simply, it is not adversity. It is the 
 very tenderest most loving and most helpful touch 
 of the hand Divine." 
 
 In harmony with the doctrine of this letter, we 
 have his poem "Kissing the Rod," which probably is 
 as complete a summary of his message to mankind 
 as is to be found in any one of his poems : 
 
 "O heart of mine, we shouldn't 
 
 Worry so! 
 What weVe missed of calm we couldn't 
 
 Have, you know ! 
 What we've met of stormy pain, 
 And of sorrow's driving rain, 
 We can better meet again, 
 
 If it blow !
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "We have erred in that dark hour 
 
 We have known, 
 When our tears fell with the shower, 
 
 All alone ! 
 
 Were not shine and shower blent 
 As the Gracious Master meant? 
 Let us temper our content 
 
 With His own. 
 
 "For, we know, not every morrow- 
 Can be sad ; 
 
 So, forgetting all the sorrow 
 We have had, 
 
 Let us fold away our fears, 
 
 And put by our foolish tears, 
 
 And through all the coming years 
 Just be glad." 
 
 In "At Sea," he represents us as being out on a 
 sea, "with lifted sails of prayer," in quest of light, 
 and not finding it. Then he beseeches that the One 
 who wrought earth and sea will 
 
 "Blow back upon our foolish quest 
 
 With all the driving rain 
 Of blinding tears and wild unrest, 
 
 And waft us home again 1" 
 
 "Thoughts fer the Discuraged Farmer" was the 
 second poem that Mr. Riley wrote under the pen- 
 name of "Benj. F. Johnson of Boone County." In 
 it, the hale, sound, artless, lovable character is at his
 
 128 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 best. It is brimful of the most delightful pictorial 
 language. It expresses immaterial ideas by words 
 which suggest pictures from the farm. It is a piece 
 of the wild, capricious music of nature. It is an 
 outburst of lyrical feeling. It is not to our purpose 
 to give it all here; but rather do I pick out a few 
 lines that reaffirm the providential care of God: 
 
 "Some says the crops is ruined, and the corn's drownded out, 
 And propha-sy the wheat will be a failure, without doubt; 
 But the kind Providence that has never failed us yet, 
 Will be on hands onc't more at the 'leventh hour, I bet !" 
 
 Then after giving further and worthy reasons for 
 rejoicing, the poem ends with those oft-quoted glor 
 ious lines : 
 
 "Whatever be our station, with Providence fer guide, 
 Sich fine circumstances ort to make us satisfied; 
 Fer the world is full of roses, and the roses full of dew, 
 And the dew is full of heavenly love that drips fer me and you." 
 
 How different that from the philosophical doc 
 trine called Pessimism that the world, if not the 
 worst possible, is worse than none at all. In an 
 other of his poems entitled "Our Queer Old World," 
 Mr. Riley has four stanzas in which he describes in 
 dialect style the certain funny, and tragical, and al 
 ways to-be-complained-at existence of the child, and
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 129 
 
 of the lad, and of the young chap, and of the old 
 man. And in the last stanza after describing the 
 follies and shows and lies and bad weather, and in 
 firmities of age, he says : 
 
 "We're not a-faultin' the Lord's own plan > 
 
 All things 's jest 
 
 At their best. 
 It's a purty good world, old man 1" 
 
 Another of the "Benj. F. Johnson of Boone" 
 poems that sets forth his homely philosophy of con 
 tentment with things the way the Lord does them is 
 "Us Farmers in the Country." After enumerating 
 the phases of the weather at which "we're apt to 
 <T imble some" (and the weather symbolizes all the 
 \ ^.ssitudes of life) he decides: 
 
 "Now what I'd like and what you'd like is< plane enugh to see: 
 It's jest to have old Providence drop round on you and me 
 And ast us what our view is first, regardin' shine er rain, 
 And post 'em when to shet her off, er let her on again! 
 And yit I'd ruther, after all consider'n' other chores 
 I' got on hands, a-tendin' both to my affares and yours 
 I'd ruther miss the blame I'd git, a-rulin' things up thare, 
 And spend my extry time in praise and gratitude and prayer." 
 
 The last phrase introduces us to another phase of 
 Riley's doctrine of God : "And spend my extra time" 
 not only in "praise and gratitude" but also in
 
 130 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "prayer" He has no more doubt about the efficacy 
 of prayer, than Saint James has. James says : "Pray 
 one for another. . . . The supplication of a right 
 eous man availeth much." Riley makes his "Noted 
 .Traveler" tell the story of certain slaves who had 
 escaped from slavery, and kept on faithfully pray 
 ing and working until their every son at last was 
 free as themselves, and then declares : 
 
 " So prevail 
 
 The faithful! So had the Lord upheld 
 His servants of both deed and prayer, 
 His the glory unparalleled 
 Theirs the reward." 
 
 The same positive tone closes the "Envoy" of one 
 of his earlier volumes : 
 
 ". . . Listen, friend I 
 God answers with a silence pure as gold 
 Just as of old." 
 
 Hence, if we do not get the answer we expected, 
 if no answer comes but silence, still his faith in 
 God's goodness is so strong that the silence is "pure 
 as gold." And he sees a blessing in delayed an 
 swers, for in his "Thanksgiving" poem he exhorts 
 us to thankfulness for love and sorrow, for winter 
 clouds and storms, for summer calms, and "for all
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 131 
 
 the things that come as alms from out the open hand 
 of Providence," but especially, 
 
 "Let us be thankful thankful for the prayers 
 Whose gracious answers were long, long delayed, 
 
 That they might fall upon us unawares, 
 And bless us, as in greater need we prayed." 
 
 The spirit and stress of prayer pervades much of 
 our bard's work, even when it is not labeled as de 
 votional; but there are enough "prayers" to merit 
 being collected and issued in a separate volume. 
 They are as helpful as the prayers of Robert Louis 
 Stevenson, and would not be out of place on any 
 shelf of devotional classics. Take for example, such 
 poems as "Ike Walton's Prayer," "The Mortul 
 Prayer," "The Prayer Perfect," "Kneeling with 
 Herrick," "The Christmas Carol," "God Bless Us 
 Every One." In "A Hymb of Faith," in early print, 
 the following lines were used as a sub-title : 
 
 "So ran the honest, earnest prayer 
 Of old Ben Johnson pleading there." 
 
 It is worth while praying to God because we are 
 assured of God's goodness and love and tender 
 mercy. He sympathizes with us. This is the com 
 forting and inspiring teaching of "He Cometh in 
 Sweet Sense" :
 
 132 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "He cometh in sweet sense to thee, 
 Be it or dawn, or noon, or night, 
 
 No deepest pain, nor halest glee 
 But He discerneth it aright. 
 
 "If there be tears bedim thine eyes, 
 His sympathy thou findest plain, 
 
 The darkest midnight of the skies 
 He weepeth with the tears of rain. 
 
 "If thou art joyful, He hath had 
 His gracious will, and lo, 'tis well, 
 
 As thou are glad, so He is glad, 
 Nor mercy strained one syllable. 
 
 "Wild vows are words, as prayers are words, 
 God's mercy is not measured by 
 
 Our poor deservings : He affords 
 To listen, if we laugh or cry." 
 
 Amidst the jarring contentions of opposing creeds 
 with emphasis upon this or that man-made differ 
 ence, we so often forget that the mercy of God in 
 unrestrained qualities is offered to all; even as the 
 rain loves all leaves, or as the sun kisses the little 
 hillocks no less than it does the great mountains that 
 are eager for the anguish of holding up the sky on 
 their brawny shoulders. "God's Mercy" what a 
 big name for a little verse of four lines, and yet, 
 who is there among the blundering, stumbling, sin 
 ning sons of man that does not think that the poet 
 speaks the truth when he says :
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 133 
 
 "Behold, one faith endureth still 
 Let factions rail and creeds contend, 
 
 God's mercy was, and is, and will 
 Be with us, foe and friend." 
 
 It is because of our firm and steadfast faith in 
 God's mercy that we join with Riley in the prayer 
 he offers in "America's Thanksgiving" : 
 
 "And, Father, give us first to comprehend, 
 
 No ill can come from Thee ; lean Thou and lend 
 
 Us clearer sight to see 
 
 Our boundless debt to Thee, 
 Since all Thy deeds are blessings, in the end." 
 
 Who has not waited in "The Watches of the 
 Night" ? What a description of each one's own ex 
 periences at some time in his life. We have in this 
 poem the darkness, the desolation, the contrition, the 
 fear, the awful hush, the stifling darkness, the spec 
 tral visits, the shuddering sins of wrongs we have 
 wrought ; and then he asks whether we dare believe 
 that we shall win the dawn at last; and then he 
 shows that One leads through "The Watches of the 
 Night" : 
 
 "He is with us through all trials, in His mercy and His 
 
 might ; 
 
 With our mothers there about Him, all our sorrow dis 
 appears,
 
 134 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Till the silence of our sobbing is the prayer the Master 
 
 hears 
 
 And His hand is laid upon us with the tenderness of tears 
 In the waning of the watches of the night." 
 
 So, because we believe in God, who loves us and 
 cares for us and watches over us, and shapes our 
 destiny and answers our prayers, we will take up 
 Riley's "Song of the Cruise" : 
 
 "And in rapture we'll ride through the stormiest gales, 
 
 For God's hand's on the helm and His breath in the sails. 
 
 Then murmur no more, 
 
 In lull or in roar, 
 But smile and be brave till the voyage is o'er."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CHRIST IN RILEY'S RHYMES A CHRISTMAS 
 MEDITATION 
 
 THE Christmas issue of the New York World 
 in 1890 contained greetings from the most 
 famous writers of that day such writers as Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain, Ella Wheeler Wil- 
 cox, John P. Newman, James Whitcomb Riley, and 
 others. Mr. Riley's "Greeting" was telegraphed by 
 request to the editor of the World on the day be 
 fore Christmas. It consists of only six lines; but 
 those six lines reveal the kindly, gentle spirit of 
 America's best-loved poet his simplicity, his de 
 mocracy, his cheerful optimism, his love of man 
 kind, and his adherence to the ancient beliefs and 
 pieties. His "Greeting" was as follows : 
 
 "A word of Godspeed and good cheer 
 
 To all on earth, or far or near, 
 
 Or friend or foe, or thine or mine 
 
 In echo, of the voice divine, 
 
 Heard when the star bloomed forth and lit 
 
 The world's face, with God's smile on it." 
 
 135
 
 136 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 What an unusually beautiful way that is of speak 
 ing of the incarnation of our Lord! Ten years be 
 fore, in one of the most mellifluous poems he ever 
 wrote, "Sun and Rain," Mr. Riley had made use of 
 practically the same phrase where he spoke of the 
 sun and rain that all day had vied with each other 
 in dowering earth and sea : 
 
 "With their glad wealth, till each, as it descends, 
 Is mingled with the other, where it blends 
 In one warm, glimmering mist that fell on me 
 As once God's smile fell over Galilee." 
 
 I suppose if we were expressing the same idea in 
 unadorned prose that instead of speaking of God's 
 "smile," we would speak of the favor or propitious- 
 ness of God manifested in the coming of Jesus into 
 the world. 
 
 Another of Mr. Riley's Christmas poems is en 
 titled "Das Krist Kindel." In it he describes how; 
 on a chill December night, while the hungry winter 
 prowled without, he sat in his "old split-bottomed 
 rocker" musing all alone before a glowing fire, and 
 while he mused he saw in vision "the fireplace 
 changing to a bright proscenium." With exquisite 
 charm he evokes and exhibits a creation of little 
 actors on a mimic stage, engaged with delights
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 137 
 
 delectable until they espy a Baby-Boy, then in an 
 ecstasy of glee they throw aside their treasures as 
 they cluster around him. He is described as 
 
 "... a wondrous little fellow, with a dainty double-chin, 
 And chubby cheeks, and dimples for the smiles to blossom in ;" 
 
 and while a group, presenting costly presents, sur 
 rounds the happy mother, our seer thrills with awe 
 and wonder at the following melody of prayer that 
 drifts o'er his hearing: 
 
 "By the splendor in the heavens, and the hush upon the sea, 
 And the majesty of silence reigning over Galilee, 
 We feel Thy kingly presence, and we humbly bow the knee 
 And lift our hearts and voices in gratefulness to Thee. 
 
 "Thy messenger has spoken, and our doubts have fled and 
 
 gone 
 As the dark and spectral shadows of the night before the 
 
 dawn; 
 
 And, in the kindly shelter of the light around us drawn, 
 We would nestle down forever in the breast we lean upon. 
 
 "You have given us a shepherd you have given us a guide, 
 And the light of Heaven grew dimmer when You sent him 
 
 from Your side, 
 But he comes to lead Thy children where the gates will open 
 
 wide 
 To welcome his returning when his works are glorified." 
 
 The birth of Jesus Christ is the greatest event in 
 the annals of time. The historical facts of His life 
 are as well authenticated as are the facts concerning
 
 Julius Caesar, Socrates, or any of the other great 
 ones of history. His birth marks the boundary line 
 between B. C. and A. D., and the infidel who to-day 
 writes a letter, setting down the date on it, unwit 
 tingly acknowledges the fact that nineteen hundred 
 and twenty years ago Jesus Christ was born. 
 
 When the poet says, "the light of Heaven grew 
 dimmer when You sent him from Your side," it is 
 only another way of saying what Saint Paul had 
 said long before concerning "Christ Jesus : who, ex 
 isting in the form of God counted not the being on 
 an equality w r ith God a thing to be grasped, but 
 emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being 
 made in the likeness of men." The Incarnation is 
 not a division of God; it is rather a new self-expres 
 sion of God made possible because of the kinship 
 between God and man, and yet possible because of 
 the greatness which belongs to God alone. 
 
 "You have given us a shepherd you have given us a guide," 
 
 that is the twenty-third Psalm, plus the tenth chap 
 ter of St. John. 
 
 "... he comes to lead Thy children where the gates will 
 
 open wide 
 To welcome his returning when his works are glorified."
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 139 
 
 That is the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel accord 
 ing to Saint John. 
 
 The last Christmas before his death, Mr. Riley 
 sent me as a greeting the second verse of the fol 
 lowing "Child's Christmas Carol" : 
 
 "Christ used to be like you and me, 
 When just a lad in Galilee, 
 So when we pray, on Christmas Day, 
 He favors first the prayers we say; 
 Then waste no tear, but pray with cheer, 
 This gladdest day of all the year: 
 
 "O Brother mine of birth Divine, 
 Upon this natal day of thine 
 Bear with our stress of happiness 
 Nor count our reverence less 
 Because with glee and jubilee 
 Our hearts go singing up to Thee." 
 
 The teaching of that is plain : "Christ used to be 
 like you and me." He lived a genuine human life; 
 He increased in wisdom and in stature ; He worked ; 
 He grew weary; He suffered the pangs of hunger; 
 nothing that belongs to normal human life was for 
 eign to Him. But that is not all : He was "of birth 
 divine." Under ordinary circumstances it would be 
 difficult to believe in a miraculous birth ; but Christ's 
 divine life justifies belief in His miraculous concep 
 tion. It would be just as difficult to explain away
 
 140 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 the life that He lived as to explain away His birth. 
 Since His whole life was a wonder, w r hy should it not 
 have begun as a wonder ? As we move along in this 
 thought, we feel that our intelligence will reel with 
 the stupendous confusion of the mystery of God be 
 coming a child, when we turn to "A Hymb of 
 Faith," which was written by our gentle poet in the 
 Hoosier dialect, and was first published as a "Ben 
 jamin F. Johnson of Boone" poem a pseudonym 
 under which Riley published his earlier dialect 
 verses, in order to create more perfectly for them 
 the air of perfect reality. "A Hymb of Faith" was 
 not written on the subject we are now considering; 
 but out of the heart of it we take the following 
 stanzas: 
 
 "Ef storms and tempusts dred to see 
 
 Makes black the heavens ore, 
 They done the same in Galilee 
 
 Two thousand years before. 
 
 "But after all, the golden sun 
 
 Poured out its flood on them 
 That watched and waited f er the One 
 
 Then borned in Bethlyham. 
 
 "Also, the star of holy writ 
 
 Made noonday of the night, 
 Whiles other stars that looked at it 
 
 Was envious with delight.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 141 
 
 "The sages then in wurship bowed, 
 
 From ev'ry clime so fare; 
 O, sinner, think of that glad crowd 
 
 That congergated thare ! 
 
 "They was content to fall in ranks 
 
 With one that knowed the way 
 From good old Jurden's stormy banks 
 
 Clean up to Jedgmunt Day." 
 
 That explains why Christmas Day is the birthday 
 of the best hopes in man. Nothing that can be said 
 about man's rights and powers and prerogatives ap 
 proaches even remotely to this : "The Word became 
 flesh, and dwelt among us." The eternal God took 
 our human nature upon Himself that He might ap 
 proach us in our own language and suffer tempta 
 tion in all points like as we do, and wear this human 
 nature as our Representative before the throne of 
 God ; and thus He becomes our Shepherd and Guide, 
 for He knows the way 
 
 "From good old Jurden's stormy banks 
 Clean up to Jedgmunt Day." 
 
 The Person resulting from the Incarnation, truly 
 human and truly divine, was a genuine person, pos 
 sessed of a consciousness and a will, w r ho saw things 
 as they are. Is not this the teaching of the chorus
 
 142 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 in the "Plantation Hymn" one of the few poems 
 which Riley has written in the negro dialect which 
 runs as follows : 
 
 "Mahster ! Jesus 
 
 You done come down to please us, 
 And dahs de good Lord sees us, 
 As he goes walkin' by 1" 
 
 Truly, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin 
 ners. 
 
 In "A Song for Christmas," our national bard 
 asks that we chant for him a jovial song, filled with 
 laughter, and the echo of childish voices, and the 
 blare of tasseled bugles, and the throb of the toy 
 drum ; but his tone sweetens, as with his eyes on the 
 spiritual meaning of the day, he says : 
 
 "But O let your voice fall fainter, 
 
 Till, blent with a minor tone, 
 You temper your song with the beauty 
 
 Of the pity Christ hath shown." 
 
 That is right fine; for Christ's whole life was a min 
 istry of usefulness. He went about doing good. He 
 was moved with compassion for the people who 
 were distressed and scattered as sheep not having a 
 shepherd. His hands were always reached out in 
 help to those who stood in need. He grew foot-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 143 
 
 sore and weary as He tramped earth's dusty high 
 ways on His mission of immeasurable mercy. And 
 just because James Whitcomb Riley was touched 
 with the pity which Jesus showed, he exhorts : 
 
 "And sing one verse for the voiceless ; 
 
 And yet, ere the song be done, 
 A verse for the ears that hear not, 
 
 And a verse for the sightless one: 
 
 "For though it be time for singing 
 
 A merry Christmas glee, 
 Let a slow sweet voice of pathos 
 
 Run through the melody." 
 
 Our typical American poet never questions the 
 miracles of Christ. Poets have always been truer 
 teachers than the logicians. They are seers. Poetry 
 is the celestial garment of truth. That is why the 
 poet has no difficulty over the "violation of the laws 
 of nature." He knows that a law of nature can not 
 compel God; for all the potency a law has is the 
 potency of the person it expresses. Mr. Riley seems 
 to take it for granted that given such a Christ as the 
 Gospel writers have drawn, and it would be just as 
 natural for Him to perform miracles as for a skilled 
 pilot to guide a ship. Call the ship "nature," and 
 the pilot supernatural, and you have the whole story.
 
 144 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Hence, when Riley was asked to write a poem for 
 a G. A. R. Encampment, he wrote "A Peace-Hymn 
 of the Republic," in which he described the Ship <* 
 State as having groped its way through the blinding 
 smoke of our Civil War, and then these words : 
 
 "As One who spake the dead awake, with life-blood leaping 
 
 warm 
 Who walked the troubled waters, all unscathed, in mortal 
 
 form, 
 
 We felt our Pilot's presence with His hand upon the storm, 
 As we went sailing on." 
 
 It is all there : a belief in Christ's miracles of long 
 ago, and a belief in his overruling Presence with us 
 to-day. Is this not a good place to close this Christ 
 mas meditation? For the Ship of our Ideals this 
 Christmas-tide is creaking and groaning and trem 
 bling under the terrible storm of world-unrest. To 
 feel the Presence of the Miracle- Worker of old as 
 our Pilot, and to believe that somehow or other He 
 has His hand upon the storm ; it is enough.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CROSS IN RILEY'S RHYMES : A PASSION WEEK 
 MEDITATION 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY is not commonly 
 thought of as a religious poet. He is famous 
 for his child rhymes, his nature poems and his hu 
 morous poems in the Hoosier dialect. Yet in a very 
 real sense he is a religious poet; not because of the 
 recurrence of holy phrases in his work ; but because 
 of the spirit which permeates the whole, as an in 
 candescent light shines through an alabaster vase. 
 His heart is often hushed in reverence and in his un 
 derstanding is a temple upon whose altar burns the 
 celestial fire of poetry. 
 
 Can I find in him, then, this Passion Week, any 
 thing to minister to the mood of the season? If so, 
 it must have to do with the Cross. The Cross is 
 the key-word that expresses the whole of this week's 
 significance at once. It is the master-word of our 
 religion. The Cross of Christ is the most wonder- 
 
 145
 
 146 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 ful subject that ever appealed to the intellect, the 
 conscience and the imagination of mankind. I do 
 not refer merely to the Roman gallows. I mean 
 rather the "Cross" which was fashioned in eternity, 
 and whose shadow falls on the disk of the whole 
 scheme of things. I pass from the sign to the thing 
 signified, meaning nothing less than the atoning 
 death of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Do we find mention of this fact in Riley ? I have 
 read every one of the eleven hundred and three 
 poems which he has written, and in only five of 
 them do I find this subject mentioned. And how is 
 it expressed in these ? 
 
 One of Mr. Riley's earlier poems, entitled "The 
 Vision of Rabbi Ben Isaac," opens with these 
 words : 
 
 "For three score years my wandering feet have strayed 
 
 Along a path wherein no footprint lay 
 Of Him, who of the cross a guide-board made 
 
 To point me out the way." 
 
 What is that ? The Cross of Christ is a guide- 
 board pointing us the way in which to walk ? It is 
 even so. And to what does the Cross point us? 
 Tell us, dear Riley; for I am allowing you to give 
 direction to this meditation.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 147 
 
 First of all, it condemns a spirit of self-righteous 
 ness. This is the teaching of the poem from which 
 I have just quoted. In glowing imagery Rabbi Ben 
 Isaac is made to relate how he dreamed that he was 
 dead to all outward semblance, but with a scrap of 
 unfading reason still in his head. He saw his float 
 ing spirit plume its wings for its upward flight, yet 
 with a look of awe hesitating. Then 
 
 " 'Go on !' I called to it. 'Leap into space, 
 And sweep a way to glory with thy wings !' " 
 
 But though the wings were crimson-dyed with hues 
 of Paradise, his spirit was troubled because they 
 were "such trembling things !" 
 
 " 'Nay, glorious things are they,' I cried amazed, 
 
 And veiled my vision from their dazzling light 
 'So, get thee gone their maker must be praised.'" 
 
 That is the common character and disposition of 
 those who walk 
 
 "Along a path where no footprint lay 
 
 Of Him who of the cross a guide-board made" 
 
 they are self-righteous self-made, and "their 
 maker must be praised." Obedient to Ben Isaac's 
 command, his spirit sailed across the gulf of dark-
 
 148 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 ness until it seemed no larger than a flake of star 
 light, but when it saw the heavens bloom and the 
 angels at the door swarming out and in: 
 
 "Then suddenly the voice in quaverings 
 
 Fell wailingly 'Alas ! for I alone 
 Of all the glorious throng have tarnished wings 
 
 That Heaven will not own. 
 
 " 'The angel Truth has pityingly said 
 That every plume impure Christ will condemn, 
 
 And that the stain self-righteousness is red 
 As blood on all of them.'" 
 
 Then he called to his soul to return that he might 
 bow his head in holier prayer, and earn a recom 
 pense of good. But it was not until the angel Faith 
 had inspired him to look above, and the angel Love 
 had baptized him with her tears, and he beheld 
 Christ "with sorrow on His lips," that his soul was 
 cleansed of the stain of self-righteousness. 
 
 This much is plain: the Cross is a guide-board, 
 pointing us to Christ's righteousness. To what else 
 does it point us, Mr. Riley? I turn now to one of 
 the "Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone" poems (one 
 of the early Hoosier dialect poems which secured 
 for our bard national attention), entitled "The 
 Hoss." It is permeated with a delicious whimsical
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 149 
 
 humor. The whole thing is a panegyric on the 
 horse, and is in no sense meant to be a religious 
 poem ; yet one verse of it runs as follows : 
 
 "Some calls the hoss 'a pore dumb brute,' 
 
 And yit, like Him who died fer you, 
 I say, as I theyr charge refute, 
 
 'Fergive ; they know not what they do !' " 
 
 The way is pointed there unmistakably plainly: 
 forgiveness of injuries. That is what Christ had 
 preached in His life: "Bless them that curse you; 
 pray for them that despitefully use you." And 
 when the malice of His enemies had compassed what 
 it sought, when they were nailing His left hand fast 
 to the Cross, He pushed His right hand up among 
 His murderers and prayed : "Father, forgive them ; 
 for they know not what they do." His example has 
 made His teaching forever luminous. He has 
 shown me how to suffer, even when I suffer through 
 the fault of others. When His cup of agony was 
 so full that it drowned the brim, he made an excuse 
 for the cruel malice of His enemies. 
 
 The man who prays for his enemies will have the 
 enmity taken out of his own heart; they may hate 
 him still; but he will have no spitefulness in his 
 heart for them. Lord, help us, for Thy sake, for the
 
 150 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 sake of those we seek to win, and for the sake of 
 these poor wandering souls of ours, to pay more 
 heed to this way to which the guide-board of the 
 Cross points. For "if ye forgive not men their tres 
 passes, neither will your Father forgive your tres 
 passes." 
 
 Further, the Cross points out the way of sacrifice 
 for the sake of others. Thus in Riley's dialect 
 Christmas poem "Them Old Cheery Words," a 
 poem in which subtle humor and pathos are blent 
 like bells of sweet accord, we have the children 
 gathering home for Christmas, and "Mother" com 
 forting and helping "Pap," dressing the wound he 
 received in the war, and reading to him the news 
 papers put on file while he was with Sherman : 
 
 "Sometimes he'd git het up some. 
 'Boys,' he'd say, 'and you girls, too, 
 
 Chris'mus is about to come ; 
 So, as you've a right to do, 
 
 Celebrate it! Lots has died, 
 
 Same as Him they crucified, 
 
 That you might be happy here.' " 
 
 Sacrifice for others that is the key-note of the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ. As one life-cell is lost that 
 another may live and grow; as the blossom is sac 
 rificed for the coming fruit; as the mountains are
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 151 
 
 made poor to enrich the valleys ; as the soldier gives 
 himself for a principle, and a reformer for a cause, 
 and a mother for her child, so the Cross of Christ 
 points out to us the great truth that we also ought 
 to lay down our lives for others not in the degree 
 and way in which Jesus laid down His as an expia 
 tion, but as a service, a devotion, a consecration. 
 
 ". . . Lots has died, 
 
 Sama as Him they crucified, 
 
 That you might be happy here." 
 
 The same thought is expressed, no less emphatically 
 because incidentally, in one of the poems which Mr. 
 Riley wrote on Abraham Lincoln. He always had 
 a great love for Lincoln, and the burden of this 
 poem is to describe the great Emancipator's life as 
 a peaceful one. What a life that was! He desired 
 to toil and rest, and read loved books beside the 
 cabin fire, and listen to the low of pastured herds 
 and the rhythmic blows of woodman's ax, and 
 dream his heroic dreams. Ah, 
 
 "A peaceful life ! . . . They haled him even 
 
 As One was haled 
 
 Whose open palms were nailed toward Heaven 
 
 When prayers nor aught availed.
 
 152 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 And lo, he paid the selfsame price 
 
 To lull a nation's awful strife 
 And will us, through the sacrifice 
 
 Of self, his peaceful life." 
 
 This points me to two different facts: First, the 
 awfulness of human sin. An ancient idealist said : 
 "O Virtue, if thou wert to become incarnate, all men 
 would worship thee." Yet, history shows that the 
 world has never had anything better than contumely 
 and scorn and hate and torment for its redeemers. 
 Every reform has had to fight its way. Every move 
 ment for the amelioration of human conditions has 
 been stained with blood. And when Virtue became 
 incarnate, men hounded Him to Calvary. That was 
 sin at its climax. And the virus which at its fullest 
 development hailed Him 
 
 "Whose open palms were nailed toward Heaven 
 When prayers nor aught availed," 
 
 is in the heart of every man. The Cross is a terrible 
 manifestation of human sin. 
 
 But the other thing which I had in mind is hinted 
 at in these words : 
 
 "And will us, through the sacrifice 
 Of self, his peaceful life." 
 
 Though Christ's life outwardly was a troubled one,
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 153 
 
 with tempestuous waves breaking over it all the 
 time, yet His inner life was a sea of glass the great 
 calm always there. Even when He was dogged 
 through the streets of Jerusalem by the bloodhounds 
 of pharisaic hate, their tongues thirsting for His 
 blood, He turned to His disciples and offered them, 
 as a last legacy, His peace : "Peace I leave with you; 
 my peace I give unto you." That which He pos 
 sessed He was able to bestow. The peace of recon 
 ciliation with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and the peace of conscious fellowship with God re 
 sulting from a living union with Christ the Savior, 
 I claim as mine this Passion Week. 
 
 The Cross has been mentioned only incidentally in 
 all the poems from which I have quoted up to this 
 time. I now turn to one of which it is the theme. 
 This one is called "The Christ," and consists of only 
 eight lines with a single rhyme throughout, as fol 
 lows: 
 
 "'Father!' (so The Word) He cried,-* 
 'Son of Thine, and yet denied; 
 By my brothers dragged and tried, 
 Scoffed and scourged, and crucified, 
 With a thief on either side 
 Brothers mine, alike belied, 
 Arms of mercy open wide, 
 Father ! Father !' So He died."
 
 154 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Nimbly do we follow this pointing of the guide- 
 board of the Cross, for three times in the eight lines 
 of this poem is the word "Father" used. In His 
 speech and in His life Christ was constantly trying 
 to make men understand the Fatherhood of God. 
 But it is in His death that we reach the very sun- 
 kissed summit of His mountain revelation of God. 
 When men ask me how I can believe that God is 
 good in spite of all the stress and strife and strug 
 gle and bloodshed in this cruel old world of ours, my 
 answer always is couched in one word: "Jesus!" 
 His sensitive soul felt the jar and jangle and discord 
 as I can never feel it. He saw suffering innocence, 
 and Himself, being innocent, was 
 
 ". . . dragged and tried, 
 Scoffed and scourged, and crucified," 
 
 yet He knew that love lived in it all, even as the rain 
 bow lives in the rain, and 
 
 "'Father! Father!' So He died." 
 
 This also is the crowning revelation of the love of 
 God ; for, as Saint Paul says, "God commendeth His 
 own love toward us, in that Christ died for us." 
 
 So ends Riley's doctrine concerning the Cross. 
 Not very much, is it? And yet, what more is there
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 155 
 
 to be said ? He has preached no doctrine of finality 
 concerning the full meaning of the Cross and no 
 man can do that. Some people have insisted on 
 analyzing the Cross until they have made infidels by 
 the thousands ; they seem not to know, that some 
 things have to be felt. And some others have, with 
 their "clear views," hacked the Cross into splinters. 
 But, oh, the Cross is God's heart! We bend our in 
 tellects in lowliest reverence and worship before it; 
 we accept its inspiration, we feel its passion, we lay 
 our aching lives upon its infinite mystery, and find 
 blessed rest and peace. We thank God for the old, 
 old truth which Riley expresses in his quaint, 
 homely way : 
 
 "Christ 'died fer you.'"
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SIN 
 
 GREAT literature deals with great themes. As 
 nothing can be greater in the annals of bat 
 tles than Waterloo or the Marne, so nothing can fur 
 nish a greater theme for masters in literature than 
 the defeat of humanity; and humanity's Waterloo 
 is sin. Sin opens wide to our gaze the ruin of man ; 
 and, beholding the ruin, we get an idea of his great 
 ness. Sin reveals the highest and deepest relations 
 of human life. Sin gives birth to tragedy, and trag 
 edy holds evermore the unwavering gaze of man 
 kind. And since sin is the greatest theme, the great 
 writers always gravitate to it. You hear the wail of 
 this disaster through all the writings of Sophocles. 
 Juvenal's caustic satire discloses the festering sore 
 of Roman life. Shakespeare and Goethe could find 
 no theme adequate to their genius but sin. Dante 
 built his Inferno upon it. Milton could not justify 
 his genius, except as he dealt with "Man's first dis 
 obedience." The art of Hawthorne and Hugo and 
 
 156
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 157 
 
 George Eliot deals fundamentally with this haunt 
 ing mystery of the human soul. All literature that 
 is profoundly true pays attention to this deep reality. 
 The reason why great poets, novelists and drama 
 tists always strike down into the sinfulness of 
 man to find material for an ever-young appeal is be 
 cause the moral' judgment of men recognizes man as 
 a sinful being. There is a general and deep-rooted 
 feeling that man is failing to fulfill his destiny. If 
 this is true in general, it is intensified manyfold 
 when it becomes personal. Conscience is always 
 alarming us about sin. Even when the individual 
 laughs at the Church's earnestness about it, and 
 smilingly speaks of his own sin as a sort of imma 
 turity or huge joke, still his conscience condemns 
 his wrong deeds and the character from which the 
 wrong deeds spring. This is the teaching of Riley's 
 poem "We Are Not Always Glad When We Smile." 
 Though we may deceive the world into believing 
 that we could not laugh in a happier way, yet down 
 in the depths of the soul there is an ache and a moan 
 that no one knows of save ourselves. And as the 
 rainbow may live in the rain, so also there may be 
 a smile in the eyes while a tempest of pain rages in 
 the heart. But the inaudible, accusing voice of con-
 
 158 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 science convinces us that while we may hide our sin 
 from the knowledge of our fellows, yet it is plain 
 in the sight of the Lord. Therefore, the poem con 
 cludes with these words: 
 
 "We are not always glad when we smile ! 
 But the conscience is quick to record, 
 All the sorrow and sin 
 We are hiding within 
 Is plain in the sight of the Lord : 
 And ever, O ever, till pride 
 And evasion shall cease to defile 
 The sacred recess 
 Of the soul, we confess 
 We are not always glad when we smile." 
 
 This common moral judgment of men which con 
 veys a positive implication as to the general sinful- 
 ness finds expression through many mediums. 
 Philosophy has always grappled it with ungloved 
 earnestness. The religions of the world have all be 
 held it as a black cloud; and because no Sun of 
 Righteousness has risen upon their horizon with 
 healing in his beams sufficient to scatter the cloud, 
 it has not only interposed itself between them and 
 heaven, but has also cast a dark, dank shadow over 
 the earth. The governments of mankind unite in 
 testifying that sin is an ancient and ever-present 
 fact. Experience has taught them that they must
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 159 
 
 reckon on the commission of crime, and they have 
 provided penalties and created reformatory institu 
 tions accordingly. 
 
 Observations by any one, anywhere, anytime, will 
 confirm this verdict handed down by the common 
 moral judgment of men. In "A Song of the New 
 Year," James Whitcomb Riley expresses the convic 
 tion that sin is the implacable foe of peace. He says 
 that as he listened to the bells at midnight ring in 
 the New Year, above the clanging chorus he seemed 
 to hear a band of angels singing : 
 
 '"Ring out the shame and sorrow, 
 
 And the misery and sin, 
 That the dawning of the morrow 
 
 May in peace be ushered in.' " 
 
 And thinking of the trials of the departed years, and 
 of the pleasures and hopes that had blossomed but 
 now were withered and dead, he lifted his eyes to 
 ward Heaven; and while he prayed with trembling 
 lips he received assurance that if sin and shame were 
 rung out, the New Year would be ushered in in 
 peace: 
 
 "And like a ghost of music 
 
 Slowly whispered lowly sung 
 
 Came the echo pure and holy 
 In the happy angel tongue :
 
 *Ring out the shame and sorrow, 
 
 And the misery and sin, 
 And the dawn of every morrow 
 
 Will in peace be ushered in.' " 
 
 Riley is right again. It is sin that banishes peace, 
 and fills the world with wars and bloodshed, and 
 causes the history of mankind to be written as it 
 were with the point of the sword rather than with 
 the point of the pen. It is sin that is the cause of 
 injustice, inequality, oppression and "man's inhu 
 manity to man.'* It is sin that withers youthhood 
 and maidenhood. It is sin that breaks up former 
 happy homes, and tramples God's holy thoughts of 
 fraternity into the mire of hell. 
 
 But 
 
 "Sinners allus suffers some," 
 
 as Riley says in his quaint, homely style in his rather 
 long and subtly humorous dialect poem, "Fessler's 
 Bees." 
 
 "Sinners allus suffers some, 
 And old Fessler's reck'nin' cornel 
 That-air man to-day is jes' 
 Like the grass 'at Scriptur* says 
 Cometh up, and then turns in 
 And jes' gits cut down ag'inl"
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 161 
 
 That poem has humor in it, but not those six lines. 
 They are too tragically true to be funny. Sinners 
 must be warned. God is not to be mocked. We 
 shall reap what we sow. In the order which God 
 has established, penalty for wrong-doing is self- 
 executing. It is natural for retribution to follow 
 sin. Both the nature of man and the world, as well 
 as the Holy Scriptures emphasize and re-emphasize 
 the doctrine that God has appointed various evils 
 for the sinner to follow his sin. 
 
 "Sinners allus suffers some." 
 
 Sometimes the penalty is so apparent to the world 
 that it resembles 
 
 ". . . the grass 'at Scriptur' says 
 Cometh up, and then turns in 
 And jes' gits cut down ag'in." 
 
 But with all the sense of guilt, the condemnation of 
 conscience, remorse, is by no means the least ele 
 ment in penalty that follows in the wake of sin. It 
 may be that the sinner is too shallow, or his heart 
 too hardened, to permit of the presence of remorse 
 as an element in his punishment for sin. Never 
 theless that it is normal for man to pronounce
 
 162 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 judgment upon his own conduct, and for the wilful 
 sinner to be "dogged by that blood-hound Remorse- 
 fulness," is the plain teaching of that interesting 
 narrative poem of Riley's entitled "George Mullen's 
 Confession," a poem so full of pathos that you can 
 squeeze the tears out of it with one hand. Our poet 
 makes George Mullen start his confession by saying : 
 
 "For the sake of guilty conscience, and the heart that ticks the 
 
 time 
 
 Of the clockworks of my nature, I desire to say that I'm 
 A weak and sinful creature, as regards my daily walk 
 The last five years and better." 
 
 And he goes on to say that he always was hard, and 
 full of pride, and "onry," and stiff, and stubborn, 
 and had an awful temper. But he fell in love with 
 a dear gentle girl, who in a marvelous way tamed 
 the wild animal of his nature. When he asked her 
 to marry him, her parents strenuously objected, on 
 the ground that he was not their idea of a son-in- 
 law. But when, in intense anger, he started away 
 from their home, the daughter, his sweetheart, went 
 with him, though her father yelled like a madman 
 that henceforth she was no child of his. They lived 
 happily together for some months and years, and 
 their happiness was intensified when little Grace
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 163 
 
 came to brighten their home with her winning ways 
 and sweet baby language. 
 
 Then one day his wife's father wrote her a mes 
 sage, and all that he said in it was : "Annie Mullen, 
 come and see your mother die." In his "Confes 
 sion," George says : 
 
 "I saw the slur intended why I fancied I could see 
 The old man shoot that insult like a poison dart at me ; 
 And in that heat of passion I swore an inward oath 
 That if Annie pleased her father she could never please us 
 both. 
 
 "I watched her dark and sullen as she hurried on her 
 shawl ; 
 
 I watched her calm and cruel, though I saw her tear-drops 
 fall; 
 
 I watched her cold and heartless, though I heard her moan 
 ing call 
 
 For mercy from high Heaven and I smiled throughout it all. 
 
 * r Why even when she kissed me, and her tears were on my 
 
 brow, 
 As she murmured, 'George, forgive me I must go to mother 
 
 now!' 
 
 Such hate there was within me that I answered not at all, 
 But calm, and cold and cruel, I smiled throughout it all." 
 
 But when little Grace came and kissed him good- 
 by, and told him to kiss her "Muwer" too, he sort 
 of relented. Yet when they had driven away, and
 
 164 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 he was left alone to ponder that last insult the old 
 man had given him, he mouthed his wrongs 
 
 "Till the wild beast in my nature was raging in the den 
 With no one now to quell it, and I wrote a letter then 
 Full of hissing things, and heated with so hot a heat of hate 
 That my pen flashed out black lightning at a most terrific rate. 
 
 "I wrote that 'she had wronged me when she went away from. 
 
 me 
 
 Though to see her dying mother 'twas her father's victory, 
 And a woman that could waver when her husband's pride was 
 
 rent 
 Was no longer worthy of it.' And I shut the house and went" 
 
 He had an awful exile. He wandered to California, 
 and lived a wild and vicious life. He wandered 
 over trackless plains and mountains, and suffered 
 tortures at the hands of Indians. He says : 
 
 "I could tell of gloomy forests howling wild with threats of 
 
 death; 
 I could tell of fiery deserts that have scorched me with their 
 
 breath ; 
 I could tell of wretched outcasts by the hundreds, great and 
 
 small, 
 And could claim the nasty honor of the greatest of them alL 
 
 "I could tell of toil and hardship ; and of sickness and disease, 
 And hollow-eyed starvation, but I tell you, friend, that these 
 Are trifles in comparison with what a fellow feels 
 With that bloodhound, Remorsefulness, forever at his heels." 
 
 Truly life is hell when conscience gives place to
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 165 
 
 remorse. Riley rightly calls it a "blood-hound." 
 The great Luther once described it as "a barking 
 hell-hound, a monster vomiting fire, a raging fury, 
 a tormenting devil." 
 
 Riley has an eery poem that he calls "The Lost 
 Kiss" in which he represents a poet so absorbed in 
 his writing that one day when his dear little girl 
 came romping to him for a kiss, 
 
 "Come rowdying up from her mother, 
 And clamoring there at my knee 
 
 For 'One 'ittle kiss for my dolly, 
 And one 'ittle uzzer for me !' " 
 
 he impatiently scolded her, and sent her away. Time 
 passes, but he can not forget. He stops a half-writ 
 ten poem to pray : 
 
 "God, pity the heart that repelled her, 
 
 And the cold hand that turned her away, 
 And take, from the lips that denied her, 
 
 This answerless prayer of to-day ! 
 Take, Lord, from my mem'ry forever 
 
 That pitiful sob of despair, 
 And the patter and trip of the little bare feet, 
 
 And the one piercing cry on the stair 1" 
 
 O the inaudible accusing voice of conscience ! O 
 the face drenched with a pitiless storm of tears or 
 flushed with shame when no one is near to see ! O
 
 166 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 the bitter memories of the past! Cain heard the 
 blood of Abel crying from the earth, and though 
 no criminal law threatened death to murderers, yet 
 his guilty conscience told him that men would like 
 to kill him if they could. In his rugged Hoosier 
 style Mr. Riley has written a poem which he calls 
 "My Conscience." It is permeated with a delicious 
 whimsical humor, but is absolutely true psychology : 
 
 "Sometimes my Conscience says, says he, 
 
 'Don't you know me?' 
 
 And I, says I, skeered through and through, 
 
 'Of course I do. 
 
 You air a nice chap ever* way, 
 
 I'm here to say! 
 
 You make me cry you make me pray, 
 
 And all them good things thataway 
 
 That is, at night. Where do you stay 
 
 Durin' the day?' 
 
 "And then my Conscience says, onc't more, 
 
 *You know me shore?' 
 
 'Oh, yes,' says I, a-trimblin' faint, 
 
 'You're jes' a saint! 
 
 Your ways is all so holy-right, 
 
 I love you better ever' night 
 
 You come around, tel plum daylight, 
 
 When you air out o' sight !' 
 
 "And then my Conscience sort o' grits 
 His teeth, and spits 
 On his hands and grabs, of course, 
 Some old remorse,
 
 THE FAiTif OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 167, 
 
 And beats me with the big butt-end 
 O' that thing tel my clostest friend 
 'Ud hardly know me. 'Now,' says he, 
 'Be keerful as you'd orto be 
 And allus think o' me !' " 
 
 .Who of us has not gone through precisely that ex 
 perience ? Have we not been remorseful in the dark 
 night, and forgetful of our vows in the daylight? 
 And have we not seen Conscience spit on his hands, 
 grit his teeth, and grab up some old remorse with 
 which to club us? 
 
 But the most serious element in penalty for sin is 
 the fact that God knows and cares and disapproves. 
 God is unalterably opposed to sin. The sinner 
 
 "Insults his God," 
 
 as Riley puts it in that bloodcurdling description of 
 "An Assassin" : 
 
 "Catlike he creeps along where ways are dim, 
 
 From covert unto covert's secrecy; 
 His shadow in the moonlight shrinks from him 
 
 And crouches warily. 
 
 He hugs strange envies to his breast, and nurses 
 Wild hatreds, till the murderous hand he grips 
 
 Falls, quivering with the tension of the curses 
 He launches from his lips.
 
 168 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Drenched in his victim's blood he holds high revel ; 
 
 He mocks at justice, and in all men's eyes 
 Insults his God and no one but the devil 
 
 Is sorry when he dies." 
 
 There is the natural history of sin: the microbe 
 of sin is harbored in the heart before it breaks out 
 in the deed of the hand. Murder is traced back to 
 it's birthplace ; the heart that hugs strange envies and 
 nurses wild hatreds. And when his devilish deed is 
 done, bad as it all is, the worst thing about it is 
 that he 
 
 "Insults his God." 
 
 Sometimes God's opposition to sin is spoken of as 
 "indignation," "wrath," "hatred." But we must be 
 careful not to invest them with the meaning which 
 we give them when we use them to describe our 
 human passion. For while God hates sin He still 
 loves the sinner, and yearns to save him. In His 
 disapproving love there is a grief, a sadness, a heart 
 break. Thus in "The Vision of Rabbi Ben Isaac" 
 which our poet records, when he became alarmed at 
 the stain of self-righteousness which he beholds 
 upon his spirit as it approaches Heaven, he calls out 
 for it to return to him :
 
 169 
 
 " 'Not so.' It answered, as in some surprise 
 'The angel Faith has whispered "Look Above," 
 
 And shading with her wings my dazzled eyes, 
 Points out the angel Love, 
 
 " 'Who, weeping, bends above me, and her tears 
 
 Baptize me, and her sister Mercy trips 
 Along the golden clouds, and Christ appears 
 
 With sorrow on His lips.'" 
 
 Oh yes, dear poet, that is it : Divine love is wounded, 
 weeping. Christ is sorrow-stricken when souls go 
 astray. And surely there is no greater element in 
 the punishment that comes upon the sinner than the 
 disapproval of the God of Love. 
 
 There. is still another element in penalty for sin: 
 and that is that there are sufferings and losses which 
 follow the sinner even after God has forgiven his 
 sin. This is a lesson which our age needs to learn. 
 The prodigal son went into the far country, and 
 spent his substance in riotous living, and when he 
 came back his father freely forgave him. But that 
 prodigal son left with the swine in the far country 
 some of the richest and highest possibilities of his 
 life and he never possessed them again. God will 
 pardon all transgression and will cleanse from all 
 sin; but He does not suspend the law of cause and 
 effect, of seed and harvest. "He that soweth to the
 
 170 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." For ex 
 ample, witness the life of Luther Benson, the fa 
 mous temperance orator. He was greatly admired by 
 James Whitcomb Riley, who after reading his auto 
 biography, wrote a poem on his life. And though 
 he rejoices that his sins are now forgiven and a 
 strength divine encircles him, yet since he had squan 
 dered so much of his life and usefulness in drunken 
 ness, Mr. Riley speaks of him as a 
 
 "Poor victim of that vulture curse 
 That hovers o'er the universe, 
 With ready talons quick to strike 
 In every human heart alike, 
 And cruel beak to stab and tear 
 In virtue's vitals everywhere." 
 
 His iniquity has been forgiven, yet our poet says 
 that looking through the open door of his sad life he 
 can see only a broad landscape of misery; he sees 
 the ruins of his younger years ; he sees the father's 
 shielding arm struck down. He goes on with the 
 
 sad recital : 
 
 "I see a happy home grow dark 
 And desolate the latest spark 
 Of hope is passing in eclipse 
 The prayer upon a mother's lips 
 Has fallen with her latest breath 
 In ashes on the lips of death."
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 171 
 
 And no amount of agonizing prayer can ever re 
 cover those wasted years and that heart-broken 
 mother. We must tell our generation that the man 
 who is away from God for a single year or a single 
 day must suffer an irreparable loss. How much bet 
 ter it would have been for Luther Benson and for all 
 drunkards had they heeded the words of the Scrip 
 ture: "Wine is a mocker," and if they had allowed 
 it to "stagnate in the bowl" as Riley sang in that 
 very early poem of his, "Job Work," when he was 
 asked to "write a rhyme of the present time," and 
 among other things he 
 
 ". . . sang the joy that a noble boy 
 
 Brings to a father's soul, 
 Who lets the wine as a mocker shine 
 
 Stagnated in the bowl." 
 
 There is another poem which he calls "A Simple 
 Recipe," showing how "the right kind of a man can 
 be made out of the right kind of a boy," which con 
 tains this straightforward exhortation to clean liv 
 ing and strict obedience to conscience : 
 
 "Be clean outside and in, and sweep 
 Both hearth and heart and hold them bright ; 
 
 Wear snowy linen aye, and keep 
 Your conscience snowy-white."
 
 172 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 The fact which gives to the idea of sin its most 
 terrible significance is the tendency to permanence 
 in its issues. There is a cumulative effect of sin in 
 any sinning man or woman. There is a progression 
 in sinfulness as there is in holiness. There is an in 
 creasing hardness of heart and an increasing dead- 
 ness of conscience. And the awfully alarming thing 
 about it is that by continued unwillingness to walk 
 in the way of God the sinner may bring himself into 
 that spiritual attitude, that fixed and permanent and 
 final condition of soul where a change in his manner 
 of life is impossible, because by his own choice he 
 has made repentance impossible. But all sin, as 
 such, necessarily involves the idea of suffering to the 
 person who commits it; hence punishment, or suf 
 fering, as the natural consequence of selfishness, 
 must exist as long as sin exists. Unless the grace of 
 God, which is the only power effective in the over 
 throw of sin, is allowed to operate, punishment for 
 sin will continue beyond the grave. That there will 
 be a judgment in which each one will stand on his 
 own personality and must answer to his own deeds 
 is the thought which is set forth in Riley's "His 
 Mother," where a mother is wailing for her boy 
 whom she charges the "Law" with having killed.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 173 
 
 Declaring that God did not apologize when He gave 
 the boy to her, she warns those to whom she is talk 
 ing to prepare for God's verdict at the final judg 
 ment: 
 
 "Simply, I make ready now 
 For His verdict. You prepare 
 
 You have killed us both and how 
 Will you face us There?" 
 
 But suppose a man repents of his sin, as the prod 
 igal son did of his that is, he becomes conscious of 
 sin, is heartily sorry for it, is conscious of better 
 things, forms a resolution of repentance, abandons 
 his life of sin, returns to God, confesses to Him 
 without palliation and unreservedly consecrates him 
 self to His service what then? Suppose he offers 
 Riley's "A Mortul Prayer" : 
 
 "Oh ! with the hand that tames the flood 
 
 And smooths the storm to rest, 
 Make ba'mmy dews of all the blood 
 
 That stormeth in my brest, 
 And so refresh my hart to bud 
 
 And bloom the loveliest. 
 Lull all the clammer of my soul 
 
 To silunce; bring release 
 Unto the brane still in controle 
 
 Of doubts ; bid sin to cease, 
 And let the waves of pashun roll 
 
 And kiss the shores of peace."
 
 174 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Will God give heed to that repentance and to that 
 "Mortul Prayer"? Yes, thank God. He will. A 
 little while ago we quoted from Riley's poem on 
 Luther Benson, showing the havoc wrought by sin ; 
 but we did not quote it all. Through the poet's eyes 
 let us see the end : 
 
 "I see a penitent who reels, 
 
 And writhes, and clasps his hands, and kneels, 
 
 And moans for mercy for the sake 
 
 Of that fond heart he dared to break. 
 
 "And lo ! as when in Galilee 
 A voice above the troubled sea 
 Commanded "Peace; be still!" the flood 
 That rolled in tempest-waves of blood 
 Within you, fell in calm so sweet 
 It ripples round the Saviour's feet: 
 And all your noble nature thrilled 
 With brightest hope and faith, and filled 
 Your thirsty soul with joy and peace 
 And praise to Him who gave release." 
 
 Yes, yes; it is Christ who gives release. Sin 
 makes the fellowship with God for which we were 
 created impossible. It does not change God ; but it 
 alters the relationship which exists between Him 
 and us. But God stands ready to forgive us when 
 ever in true repentance we seek His forgiveness. He 
 does not absolutely wipe out the effects and results
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 175 
 
 of sin in the human life ; but He does deliver the sin 
 ner from having his destiny decided by his guilt ; He 
 lifts the burden from the sinner's conscience; He re 
 moves the condemnation, and gives the sinner a new 
 start in life under His own blessed influence. In 
 "The Rainy Morning" Riley describes a dreary 
 morning, with weeping clouds, and sighing winds, 
 and writhing leaves. And then he tells how, as he 
 stood bowed in a shower of tear drops, the splendor 
 of the sun bent over him, and his tears, like the rain 
 of morning, melted in mists of light. The whole 
 poem is beautiful; but to my mind the stanza which 
 originally concluded it is the best of all ; for in it 
 he says : 
 
 "I do not know that the sermon 
 
 Was meant for me alone, 
 Tho' it seemed to me God spoke it 
 
 In the faintest undertone. 
 Yet this I know: when the spirit 
 
 Is draped in the gloom of sin, 
 That only the hand of the Master 
 
 Can let the sunshine in." 
 
 Sin like a black cloud shuts the light of God's free 
 grace out of man's life ; but forgiveness banishes the 
 cloud, and opens to the sinner the free action of 
 God's grace.
 
 176 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "Only the hand of the Master 
 Can let the sunshine in." 
 
 When our conscience has aroused us, and clubbed 
 us, and "that bloodhound, Remorse fulness," has 
 dogged us, and we have been alarmed with the 
 tragical consequences of sin, and especially so since 
 we have "insulted God," and our "spirit is draped in 
 the gloom of sin," and we have grown weak trying 
 to find a way out of sin to salvation, and then we 
 learn that the Cross of Christ points the way, how 
 jubilantly do we take up "The Chant of the Cross- 
 Bearing Child" (one of our bard's few negro 
 dialect poems) : 
 
 "I's nigh Tbout weak ez I mos' kin be, 
 Yit de Marstah call an' He say, 'You's free 
 Fo' ter 'cept dis cross, an' ter cringe yo' knee 
 To no n'er man in de worl' but Me !' " 
 
 Since we are free to accept the Cross, and with it 
 salvation, joyfully do we accept it, and with deep 
 contrition do we pray the opening line in "Kneeling 
 with Herrick" : 
 
 "Dear Lord, to Thee my knee is bent."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 RILEY'S DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY: AN EASTER 
 MEDITATION 
 
 "TTF a man die, shall he live again ?" is the way an 
 J| ancient poet expressed the question that pounds 
 with an insistency and a persistency at more human 
 hearts than any other question ever asked. It is the 
 preacher's most popular theme. When I was pastor 
 of Sewickley Church a few years ago, I submitted to 
 the morning and evening congregations one Sunday 
 a list of ten subjects for sermons, covering a wide 
 range of interest; one was the alliterative slogan of 
 the Sewickley Board of Trade, "Sewickley, Start 
 Something" that was sensational, at least latently 
 so; another was "The Uses of Money" that was 
 practical ; another was Dante's "Divine Comedy" 
 that was cultural ; another was "What Do We Mean 
 by Conversion?" that was doctrinal. These are 
 only samples. There were ten subjects given and 
 unostentatiously mixed in with the others was the 
 
 177
 
 178 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 question of Job: "If a man die, shall he live again?" 
 The people were instructed to mark the five in which 
 they were most interested. The membership of the 
 church then numbered nearly a thousand. It was 
 the last Sunday of May. The attendance was excel 
 lent. The congregation included all kinds of people ; 
 young and old, rich and poor, educated and unedu 
 cated. The referendum vote was scattered over the 
 whole ten subjects. The one receiving the smallest 
 vote was, "John Knox, the Reformer," securing 
 only twenty-one per cent, of the votes cast. They 
 ranged from that over nine of the subjects up to 
 the "Amusement Question," which got sixty-nine 
 per cent, of the votes the largest of all with one 
 single exception. And that exception was, "If a 
 man die, shall he live again?" seventy-six out of ev 
 ery hundred people declaring more interest in that 
 than in any other question asked. 
 
 That congregation is typical of the human race. 
 Does death end all? Shall we see our loved ones 
 again? Eternity comes on; after death, what? 
 These are ubiquitous, irrepressible questions. Death 
 compels man to think of what follows, for it will 
 not leave man alone. Sooner or later each one feels 
 that James Whitcomb Riley, in his "Lines on the
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 179 
 
 Death of Little Mahala Ashcraft," has given expres 
 sion to the sorrow we feel when the grim messen 
 ger has invaded our home : 
 
 '"Little Haly! Little Haly!' cheeps the robin in the tree; 
 'Little Haly !' sighs the clover, 'Little Haly !' moans the bee ; 
 'Little Haly ! Little Haly !' calls the killdeer at twilight ; 
 And the katydids and crickets hollers 'Haly !' all the night." 
 
 And so it sobs through the whole of this irresistible 
 elegy. The sorrowing pulse of nature bids the poet 
 voice his emotion, and ours, in accordant rhythm. 
 The result is an exquisite blending of the homespun 
 phrase and the lyric feeling, possessed of a simple 
 directness approaching the feeling of Greek poetry. 
 For the delicacy and sentiment of Riley perfectly 
 match the naturalness and charm of the honey- 
 lipped Theocritus. Why? Because nothing human 
 is alien to Riley. His humanity is not modeled after 
 the fashion-plate standards; it is spacious, robust, 
 somewhat Elizabethan. 
 
 But not only does he give voice to humanity's 
 sorrow at the havoc wrought by death. He changes 
 Job's question into an affirmation, and sings of the 
 immortal life beyond the grave. Take that rather 
 long narrative poem, "He Called Her In." It is a 
 story of sustained interest which our gentle Hoosier
 
 180 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 poet puts into the mouth of a motherless little girl, 
 sad, dark, eery. He makes her say that one day 
 while she was lying 
 
 ". . . shut all alone in grasses high, 
 
 Looking straight up in God's great lonesome sky 
 
 And coaxing Mother to smile back on me," 
 
 another little girl also motherless, came out from a 
 near-by pleasant-seeming home, and by winsome 
 sweetness won her confidence and love : 
 
 "At once I loved her as the leaves love dew 
 In midmost summer when the days are new." 
 
 They played together in perfect happiness, mingling 
 as the shine and shade, 
 
 ". . . till a harsh voice broke upon 
 
 Our happiness. She, startled as a fawn, 
 
 Cried, 'Oh, 'tis Father!' all the blossoms gone 
 
 From out her cheeks as those from out her grasp. 
 
 Harsher the voice came : She could only gasp 
 
 Affrightedly, 'Good-by I good-by ! good-by !' " 
 
 And the little girl stood alone, with wet eyes, repeat 
 ing over and over : 
 
 ** *He called her in from me and shut the door !' " 
 
 She was so very lonely. She thought that "no little 
 sallow star, alone in all a world of twilight, e'er had 
 known such utter loneliness."
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 181 
 
 " 'He called her in from me and shut the door !' " 
 
 Then one day she went out again among the green 
 grasses, and gathered up and kissed the blossoms 
 that her little friend had tossed aside. Creeping up 
 to her home, she saw no sign of her, nor heard her 
 rippling laugh; but she found the window-blinds 
 drawn, and caught 
 
 "A sound as though a strong man bowed his head 
 
 And sobbed alone unloved uncomforted! 
 
 And then straightway before 
 
 My tearless eyes, all vividly, was wrought 
 
 A vision that is with me evermore : 
 
 A little girl that lies asleep, nor hears 
 
 Nor heeds not any voice nor fall of tears. ; 
 
 And I sit singing o'er and o'er and o'er, 
 
 'God called her in from him and shut the door P " 
 
 So ends this narrative poem a story in which we 
 discern the image of a heightened and intenser 
 world. Is it not the interpretation of experience? 
 
 Not unlike this poem is the one which Mr. Riley 
 wrote upon the sudden death of "Little Marjorie," 
 the four-year-old daughter of his friend, William 
 C. Bobbs. "Where is little Marjorie?" is the sor 
 row-laden question which our bard hears in the 
 robin's call, and the bluebird's note, and the soft syl 
 lables of her old playmate, the rain, on the window-
 
 182 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 pane, and the spring voices everywhere : "Where is 
 little Marjorie?" And he answers with confidence: 
 
 "Oh, in high security 
 She is hidden from the reach 
 Of all voices that beseech : 
 She is where no troubled word, 
 Sob or sigh is ever heard, 
 Since God whispered tenderly 
 'Where is little Marjorie?"' 
 
 Once Mr. Riley saw in the New York Sun a poem 
 of three verses, entitled, "Doubt," by an unknown 
 author. In imitation of its style, and in reply to its 
 skepticism, he wrote one entitled, "Faith," which is 
 as follows: 
 
 "The sea was breaking at my feet, 
 And looking out across the tide, 
 
 Where placid waves and heaven meet, 
 I thought me of the Other Side, 
 
 "For on the beach on which I stood 
 Were wastes of sand, and wash, and roar, 
 
 Low clouds, and gloom, and solitude, 
 And wrecks and ruins nothing more, 
 
 "'O, tell me if beyond the sea 
 A heavenly port there is !' I cried, 
 
 And back the echoes laughingly 
 'There is ! there is I* replied." 
 
 When Myron W. Reed, a well-known preacher, 
 died, his intimate friend, James Whitcomb Riley,
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 183 
 
 subtly characterized his life, and affirmed his own 
 faith, in "The Onward Trail," the final stanza of 
 which reads : 
 
 "So, never parting word or cry : 
 We feel, with him, that by and by 
 Our onward trails will meet and then 
 Merge and be ever one again." 
 
 The same thought is expressed in the beautiful 
 sonnet which Mr. Riley wrote on the passing of his 
 "master-friend," the famous artist, Samuel Rich 
 ards, who died "At His Wintry Tent" (Denver, 
 Colorado). The closing lines describe the artist 
 thus : 
 
 "The laughing light of faith still in his eye 
 As, at his wintry tent, pitched at the end 
 Of life, he gaily called to me, 'Good night, 
 
 Old friend, good night for there is no good-by.' " 
 
 I remember once, after I had delivered my lec 
 ture-recital on "James Whitcomb Riley, the Typical 
 American Poet of This Generation," before the 
 Pittsburgh preachers' meeting, one of the ministers 
 said to me : "When my son met his tragic and un 
 timely death the one thing outside the Bible that 
 brought most comfort to my broken heart was James 
 Whitcomb Riley's poem, 'Away.' " Let me quote it
 
 184 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 in full here. It may bring comfort to other 
 ones: 
 
 "I can not say, and I will not say 
 That he is dead. He is just away! 
 
 "With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand, 
 He has wandered into an unknown land, 
 
 "And left us dreaming how very fair 
 
 It needs must be, since he lingers there. 
 
 "And you O you, who the wildest yearn 
 For the old-time step and glad return, 
 
 "Think of him faring on, as dear 
 
 In the love of There as the love of Here; 
 
 "And loyal still, as he gave the blows 
 
 Of his warrior-strength to his country's foesj 
 
 "Mild and gentle, as he was brave, 
 
 When the sweetest love of his life he gave 
 
 "To simple things : where the violets grew 
 Blue as the eyes they were likened to, 
 
 "The touches of his hands have strayed 
 As reverently as his lips have prayed : 
 
 "When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred 
 Was dear to him as the mocking-bird; 
 
 "And he pitied as much as a man in pain 
 A writhing honey-bee wet with rain. 
 
 "Think of him still as the same, I say: 
 He is not dead he is just away!"
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 185 
 
 What a rich union of mellow thought and melodious 
 verse that is ! 
 
 Though these poems embody what Mr. Riley has 
 thought and felt, yet he speaks for us all. His poetry 
 finds us because it phrases what we have ourselves 
 perceived and felt. He expresses the universal be 
 cause the universal is within him. 
 
 While he was still in his twenties and a sign- 
 painter James Whitcomb Riley wrote "Our Little 
 Girl." According to the "Notes" at the end of the 
 volume of his Complete Works (edited by Ed 
 mund Henry Eitel), the inspiration of this poem 
 was the following notice which appeared in The 
 Hancock Democrat: 
 
 "Died Minnie, infant daughter of William and 
 Catherine Crider, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 1876, at Frank 
 lin, Ind. In her last moments she said : 'O, Dod, I 
 tan't stan' dis.' " 
 
 It consists of three stanzas. The first one reads as 
 follows : 
 
 "Her heart knew naught of sorrow 
 
 Nor the vaguest taint of sin 
 'Twas an ever-blooming blossom 
 
 Of the purity within; 
 And her hands knew only touches 
 
 Of the mother's gentle care, 
 And the kisses and caresses 
 
 Through the interludes of prayer."
 
 186 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 As the poem now stands, Mr. Riley has written an 
 entirely new final stanza for it. But I like the one 
 which originally closed it, and which fits in with our 
 theme so well, that I am going to give it to you here : 
 
 "And yet she failed and faltered; 
 
 And though tears are in our eyes, 
 We smile to think her spirit 
 
 Went lisping to the skies ; 
 For we know in Christ believing 
 
 Lips are ripest for His kiss, 
 When in simplest faith they murmur, 
 
 'O, Dod, I tan't stan' dis.' " 
 
 [That is good reasoning. It is sound philosophy to 
 say that man's innate sense of justice, set over 
 against the sufferings, the cruelties, the inequalities, 
 the injustice of this present life, argues strongly for 
 immortality. Man so emphatically loves justice that 
 he can have no doubt concerning the justice of God. 
 Indeed we can not hold a true conception of God 
 without thinking of Him as just. Another life is 
 demanded that the unjustness of this life may be 
 straightened out. The innocent little child, whose 
 heart had never known "the vaguest taint of sin," 
 suffered so much that she told God she could not 
 stand it. But
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 187; 
 
 ". . . we know in Christ believing 
 
 Lips are ripest for His kiss, 
 When in simplest faith they murmur, 
 
 'Oh, Dod, I tan't stan' dis.' " 
 
 The same thought concludes "The Happy Little 
 Cripple." I shall not take the space here to tell the 
 story of the poem for well, everybody has read 
 that exquisitely cunning blend of wit and pathos and 
 philosophy. But the little cripple, who has had such 
 a hard time here on earth, closes his speech by talk 
 ing about Heaven : 
 
 " 'Cause all the little childerns there's so straight an' strong 
 
 an* fine, 
 They's nary angel *bout the place with 'Curv'ture of the 
 
 Spine!'" 
 
 Mr. Riley's verses have such a universality of ap 
 peal that we can hardly think of their having been 
 written to fit some individual case. "Little David" 
 was a crippled boy with big ambitions who lived 
 next door to our poet in Lockerbie Street, Indian 
 apolis. When the brave little fellow was gone, Mr. 
 Riley wrote to his mother the following lines : 
 
 "The mother of the little boy that sleeps 
 Has blest assurance, even as she weeps : 
 She knows her little boy now has no pain 
 No further ache, in body, heart or brain ;
 
 188 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 All sorrow is lulled for him all distress 
 Passed into utter peace and restfulness. 
 All health that heretofore has been denied 
 All happiness, all hope, and all beside 
 Of childish longing, now he clasps and keeps 
 In voiceless joy the little boy that sleeps." 
 
 Though God is just, how great the injustice and 
 inequality of this world ! Lowell spoke about truth 
 being forever on the scaffold and wrong forever on 
 the throne. There is far more than mere poetry in 
 Lowell's lines. Too often truth is on the scaffold, 
 or is crushed to earth ; and though another poet says 
 "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again," yet many 
 people have waited a whole lifetime and have not 
 seen her rise. Many a time we see Vice riding along 
 empurpled thoroughfares of royalty in a limousine 
 while Virtue, footsore and ragged, tramps the dusty 
 highways of life. It is only a belief in an eternity 
 where justice shall triumph over injustice and where 
 inequalities shall be straightened out that makes this 
 present life endurable. 
 
 ^This is "A Life Lesson," which Mr. Riley fain 
 would teach us. He assures the little girl whose 
 doll, and tea-set, and playhouses have been broken 
 that "childish troubles will soon pass by." And the 
 schoolgirl, whose slate has been broken, and whose
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 189 
 
 glad wild ways are gone he promises that "life and 
 love will soon come by." And then the final en 
 couragement : 
 
 "There ! little girl, don't cry ! 
 They have broken your heart, I know ; 
 
 And the rainbow gleams 
 
 Of your youthful dreams 
 Are things of the long ago; 
 
 But heaven holds all for which you sigh 
 
 There ! little girl ; don't cry !" 
 
 Upon the death of T. C. Philips, "an editor of 
 state-wide name and influence," Mr. Riley composed 
 a sonnet, in which he praised the noble and unselfish 
 work which his venerable friend had done, opposing 
 Wrong and cheering Right, yet always concealing 
 his own inward agony, 
 
 "Until the Master, leaning from His throne, 
 Heard some soul wailing in an undertone, 
 
 And bending lower down, discovered thee, 
 And clasped thy weary hand within His own 
 
 And lifted thee to rest eternally." 
 
 When Katie Beecher, "a bright and promising 
 child," died, Mr. Riley was moved to write 
 
 "Over the eyes of gladness 
 The lids of sorrow fall," 
 
 in which he depicted the sorrow of the parents on
 
 account of their loss. Katie was one of twin daugh 
 ters. See how our poet's unfathomable pathos, and 
 brotherly pity, and spontaneous sympathy express 
 themselves here : 
 
 "Two buds on the bough in the morning 
 
 Twin buds in the smiling sun, 
 But the frost of death has fallen 
 
 And blighted the bloom of one. 
 
 "One leaf of life still folded 
 
 Has fallen from the stem, 
 Leaving the symbol teaching 
 
 There still are two of 
 
 "For though through Time's gradations, 
 
 The living bud may burst, -s 
 The withered one is gathered, 
 
 And blooms in Heaven first." 
 
 How often, oh, how often "the frost of death" 
 blights the bloom of life! But Riley teaches that 
 the blighted bud shall bloom in Heaven. That is 
 sound philosophy. Another world is needed to 
 bring man's imperfections to perfection, and his in 
 completeness to completion. We feel that we are 
 just beginning to live when it is time to die. The 
 thinker has not got beneath the surface of the 
 profound problems that have engaged his attention. 
 statesman has not done a tithe of the construe-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 191 
 
 tive work for human brotherhood that he longs to 
 do. The scholar has not given expression to a thou 
 sandth part of the thoughts that surge within him 
 like the booming of the midnight sea upon the rocks. 
 The artist feels that the paintings he has produced 
 are only the prophecy of what he could do if he had 
 the time for the development of the powers within 
 him. The prophet still has his eye on the future, 
 and yearns like the mighty ocean tide to bring his 
 message to mankind, when the "frost of death" falls 
 on him. The saint keeps struggling up the steep 
 mountain of goodness, and struggling up, and strug 
 gling up, and no matter how good he may be when 
 the sun of his life's day is set, he still sees far above 
 his reach the snow-white peak of holiness of char 
 acter which his feet have never scaled. But, 
 
 "The -withered one is gathered, 
 And blooms in Heaven first" 
 
 Mr. Riley was a great admirer of John Boyle 
 O'Reilly, and on his death exclaimed : 
 
 "Dead? this peerless man of men 
 Patriot, Poet, Citizen! 
 Dead? and ye weep where he lies 
 Mute, with folded eyes!"
 
 192 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Further on in the poem he answers his own ques 
 tion: 
 
 " 'Tis promotion that has come 
 Thus upon him. Stricken dumb 
 Be your meanings dolorous 1 
 God knows what he does." 
 
 Eight years later, when writing on the passing of 
 Claude Matthews, he again voices this idea of death 
 as a promotion : 
 
 "Faith sees him raised still higher, through our tears, 
 By this divine promotion of his death." 
 
 I like that! Only promoted! What a kindling 
 thought it is ! It calls out the noblest, holiest activi 
 ties of which we are capable. It infuses new mo 
 tives into all our work. It exalts our thoughts, 
 strengthens our wills, wings our imaginations, re 
 fines our judgments. It widens the horizon of our 
 sympathies, and concentrates our purposes. It fires 
 our ambitions and stimulates us to project more co 
 lossal enterprises. It makes us more pure, more 
 patient, more powerful, more peaceful. It engen 
 ders generosity but not selfishness ; love but not lust ; 
 tenderness but not touchiness. It soothes the sor 
 rowing spirit and inflames the flagging ener,gies. It
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 193 
 
 teaches us that perfection is the end of persistent 
 personal life. Only promoted! 
 
 One more stanza shall I quote in this connection 
 the last one in the poem Mr. Riley wrote when he 
 lost to sight his choice friend, Charles H. Philips. 
 The stanza carries to a still higher level the thought 
 I have been developing here : 
 
 "So even thou hast gained 
 
 The victory God-given 
 Yea, as our cheeks are stained 
 With tears, and our souls pained 
 And mute, thou has attained 
 
 Thy high reward in Heaven." 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley has learned the secret of 
 endearing himself to a wider range of American 
 humanity than any other American poet. He is es 
 sentially the poet laureate of our common life. 
 Though he is best known as the master who sub 
 dued the Hoosier dialect to music, yet, as has been 
 seen in many of the quotations in this study, he has 
 written many poems in literary English which reveal 
 a subtle insight and generous sympathy. They are 
 never commonplace nor uninspired, but spirited and 
 full of the sap of life. He has woven some pieces of
 
 194 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 iridescent word-work, following the pattern made 
 visible to his inward eye, over which a Tennyson or 
 a Browning would have felt a thrill of joy. One 
 which is a perfect gem, both in substance and style, 
 is that "Hymn Exultant" of the lyric mood, written 
 "for Easter." It is as follows : 
 
 "Voice of Mankind, sing over land and sea 
 
 Sing, in this glorious morn ! 
 The long, long night is gone from Calvary 
 
 The cross, the thong and thorn ; 
 The sealed tomb yields up its saintly guest, 
 No longer to be burdened and oppressed. 
 
 "Heart of Mankind, thrill answer to His own, 
 
 So human, yet divine I 
 For earthly love He left His heavenly throne, 
 
 For love like thine and mine 
 For love of us, as one might kiss a bride, 
 His lifted lips touched death's, all satisfied. 
 
 "Soul of Mankind, He wakes He lives once more ! 
 
 O soul, with heart and voice 
 Sing ! sing ! the stone rolls chorus from the door 
 
 Our Lord stands forth. Rejoice! 
 Rejoice, O garden-land of song and flowers; 
 Our King returns to us, forever ours 1" 
 
 There is the final argument for the doctrine of 
 immortality. Jesus said there was a life beyond the 
 grave. He declared His own resurrection, and He
 
 FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 195 
 
 made good the prophecy. I remember when I was 
 a student in the University of Chicago Divinity 
 School, Dean Shailer Matthews one day said before 
 the class : "The resurrection of Jesus is a fact dem 
 onstrated by science." One of the students knit his 
 eyebrows, and took exception to the Dean's word 
 (and the Dean, by the way, had no special ambition 
 to be counted orthodox) . But in reply, Doctor Mat 
 thews said, in effect: "I do not mean that it is 
 proved by the science of chemistry, for chemistry 
 has nothing at all to do with it. I do not mean that 
 it is proved by the science of biology, for it is not a 
 biological question. But I do insist that the resur 
 rection of Jesus has been demonstrated by the only 
 science that has aught to do with it, that is, the 
 science of history !" And he was right 
 
 Take the testimony of Saint Paul, indisputable, 
 compact, convincing. I shall not take up the space 
 here by transcribing it; read it for yourself in the 
 first letter he wrote to the Corinthians, the fifteenth 
 chapter. Or take the fact of the Church ; it has been 
 built on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. 
 Or consider the fact that the apostles rather than 
 to deny the resurrection were willing to suffer the 
 most excruciating torture and die the most igno-
 
 196 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 minious death. Or look at the historic fact of a 
 change in the day of rest and worship; once it was 
 the seventh day, then something happened to change 
 it, all of a sudden, to the first day. Peter of Alex 
 andria (A. D. 300) sums it all up when he says: 
 "We keep the Lord's Day as a day of joy because of 
 Him who rose thereon." The resurrection of Jesus 
 holds as large a place in the Christian creed as the 
 creation of the world out of nothing held in the 
 Jewish belief. To the Jew the Sabbath commem 
 orated deliverance from Egyptian bondage. To the 
 Christian Sunday commemorates deliverance from 
 the bondage of sin and death. Thus every week has 
 its Easter. And Easter is the last historical fact I 
 shall mention, for something happened on a spring 
 Sunday about nineteen hundred years ago to cause 
 a group of people to celebrate the day iri succeeding 
 years. As a hymn is sung by a great outdoor con 
 gregation, first those around the leader singing it, 
 and then others taking it up farther out, and on, 
 until the whole grove resounds with its melody, so 
 the Easter "Hymn Exultant" was sung first in Pal 
 estine of Judea by a few; then others joined in; then 
 it leaped across the Hellespont, and reverberated
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 197 
 
 through Asia Minor; then it sung its way around 
 the Mediterranean Sea; then it became the march 
 ing anthem to which civilization kept step; soon its 
 swelling breath filled the sails of ships and drove 
 them across the Atlantic Ocean. And if one could 
 have been carried on the wings of the morning this 
 springtime he would have seen five hundred and 
 fifty millions of people celebrating this Easter that 
 reaches in an unbroken line from the resurrection 
 of Jesus. Why? Because 
 
 "The sealed tomb yields up its saintly guest, 
 No longer to be burdened and oppressed." 
 
 "Soul of Mankind, He wakes He lives once more ! 
 
 O soul, with heart and voice 
 Sing t sing ! the stone rolls chorus from the door 
 
 Our Lord stands forth. Rejoice I 
 Rejoice, O garden-land of song and flowers; 
 Our King returns to us, forever ours!" 
 
 Blessed relief! glorious joy! inestimable triumph! 
 What Cicero called "a mere conjecture" is made to 
 us an assured fact, a blessed divine reality by the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 
 
 Here is the answer to humanity's quest for "The 
 Beautiful City" of which Riley speaks. How mu 
 sical his verse, and as true as musical :
 
 198 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "The Beautiful City! Forever 
 
 Its rapturous praises resound; 
 We fain would behold it but never 
 
 A glimpse of its glory is found ; 
 i, We slacken our lips at the tender 
 
 White breasts of our mothers to hear 
 Of its marvelous beauty and splendor ; 
 
 We see but the gleam of a tear 1" 
 
 And then he goes on to tell us how we never grow 
 tired of the story that has been common to all na 
 tions "from the earliest lisp of the world." He re 
 cords our search everywhere for the Beautiful City 
 but it constantly evades us. We lean from the 
 mountain, looking for it, only to have our vision 
 blurred by the dust of earth. We lean from the 
 mast, only to have the glare of the ocean blur our 
 brain. "We kneel in dim fanes," but the tumul 
 tuous roll of the organ dies away, and looking aloft 
 our eyes reach only "where the painter has dabbled 
 a saint overhead." Must our quest always be in 
 vain? Nay; listen to the sure confidence of our 
 poet, based on the resurrection of Jesus : 
 
 "The Beautiful City! O mortal, 
 Fare hopefully on in thy quest, 
 
 Pass down through the green grassy portal 
 That leads to the Valley of Rest;
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 199 
 
 There first passed the One who, in pity 
 Of all thy great yearning, awaits 
 
 To point out the Beautiful City, 
 And loosen the trump at the gates." 
 
 That is why Easter is the second birthday of the 
 human race. It is the birthday of hope in the human 
 heart. For the opened tomb in the Garden has be 
 come the telescope through which we behold the 
 Elysian fields of our God. 
 
 Therefore, as our poet said when his old teacher 
 and friend, Captain Lee O. Harris, died, so we also 
 say concerning our departed loved one : 
 
 "O say not he is dead, 
 
 The friend we honored so; 
 Lift up a grateful voice instead 
 
 And say : He lives, we know 
 We know it by the light 
 
 Of his enduring love 
 Of honor, valor, truth and right, 
 
 And man, and God above." 
 
 "What will Heaven be like?" is an ever-recurring 
 question. Mr. Riley once wrote in prose as follows : 
 
 "Of course, one can speculate as to what Heaven 
 will be like. It doesn't do any harm to speculate 
 upon the sort of place that Heaven will be and the 
 sort of life that is lived there. The field isn't limited
 
 200 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 you can imagine that anything can take place 
 there ; anything, anything !" 
 
 Jesus has made one thing certain, namely, that 
 the natural craving of our heart shall be realized in 
 Heaven ; for when He was talking to His disciples, 
 about gathering them into the Father's house of 
 many mansions, He said : "If it were not so, I would 
 have told you." How many questions that simple 
 statement answers! Will it be like home? Home 
 at its best? when the children "gathered home" for 
 Christmas. Therefore Riley recalls "Them old 
 cheery words" that 
 
 "Pap he allus ust to say, 
 'Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!'* 
 
 And the poem ends by telling how "Pap" has 
 crossed over to the better land, and 
 
 "Allus Chris'mus There. And here 
 'Chris'mus comes but onc't a year !' " 
 
 In "Last Words" our poet assures us that : 
 
 "The sun that cheers our pathway here 
 Shall beam upon us there." 
 
 That is a thoroughly satisfying promise; for the 
 resurrection of Christ proclaims not simply that we
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 201 
 
 pass into another life, but that that life transcends 
 this life as light transcends gloom. When immor 
 tality was bestowed upon Achilles he sighed again 
 for earth. But Jesus Christ has made it "gain" 
 to die. 
 
 That is why Riley in the climax of his lines "On a 
 Dead Babe," exclaims in his familiar Hoosier style : 
 
 "I can not weep f er thee." 
 
 Why? Because, as he tells us in that other sweet 
 little poem, "Baby's Dying" : 
 
 "Baby's dying, 
 Do not stir 
 
 Let her pure life lightly swim 
 Through the sighing 
 Lips of her 
 
 Out from us and up to Him." 
 
 That is emphatically one of the differences the com 
 ing of Christ has made. The pagan world always 
 believed in immortality, and sometimes seems to 
 have had a vague notion that ultimately it should 
 come into the presence of the gods. But the change 
 wrought by Christ makes immortality become ulti 
 mate oneness with God even as Christ is one. The 
 saved shall see Christ face to face as Riley puts it 
 in the closing stanza of "When Bessie Died".:
 
 202 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "We writhed in prayer unsatisfied; 
 We begged of God, and He did smile 
 In silence on us all the while; 
 And we did see Him, through our tears, 
 Enfolding that fair form of hers, 
 She laughing back against His love 
 The kisses we had nothing of." 
 
 O that all bereaved parents might, with the eye of 
 faith, be able to see their own little children that 
 they have lost to sight so enfolded! 
 
 There is one other question that people ask every 
 time they talk of the Better Country, and that is: 
 "Shall we know each other there?" Well, let us 
 see : do you want to know your loved ones ? Is that 
 what your heart craves? Then again I invoke the 
 word of Jesus: "If it were not so, I would have 
 told you." Mr. Riley seems to entertain no doubt 
 about it. In that mellifluous poem of his, "Out of 
 the Hitherwhere," he speaks of recognizing his 
 friends and embracing his mother and laughing 
 again with his old schoolmates. Let me quote the 
 first two stanzas : 
 
 "Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon 
 The land that the Lord's love rests upon; 
 Where one may rely on the friends he meets, 
 And the smiles that greet him along the streets;
 
 203 
 
 Where the mother that left you years ago 
 Will lift the hands that were folded so, 
 And put them about you, with all the love 
 And tenderness you are dreaming of. 
 
 "Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon 
 
 Where all of the friends of your youth have gone, 
 
 Where the old schoolmate that laughed with you, 
 
 Will laugh again as he used to do, 
 
 Running to meet you, with such a face 
 
 As lights like a moon the wondrous place 
 
 Where God is living, and glad to live, 
 
 Since He is the Master and may forgive." 
 
 That is another difference which the resurrection 
 of Christ has made; in pre-Christian literature we 
 can read how some Ulysses in the dim woods of 
 Hades recognizes the pale shades of heroes. But 
 now immortality means that the faces of those we 
 have loved long 1 since and lost a while shall smile 
 again ; that the family is immortal as well as the in 
 dividual. 
 
 "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," 
 
 said Mr. Riley in his long poem on "The Silent Vic 
 tors," which he read at the Decoration Day exercises
 
 204 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 at Newcastle, Indiana, eleven years after the close 
 of our Civil War. In "Out of Reach" he says: 
 
 "You think them 'out of reach,' your dead? 
 
 Nay, by my own dead, I deny 
 Your 'out of reach.' Be comforted: 
 
 'Tis not so far to die. 
 
 "O by their dear remembered smiles 
 And outheld hands and welcoming speech, 
 
 They wait for us, thousands of miles 
 This side of 'out of reach.' " 
 
 And now, because I steadfastly believe that "if a 
 man die, he shall live again," I close this meditation 
 with the expression of a holy resolve which James 
 Whitcomb Riley puts into the mouth of "Tomps" in 
 "His Mother's Way" : 
 
 "Tomps 'ud allus haf to say 
 Somepin' Tjout Tiis Mother's way.'" 
 
 That seemed to dominate his life, and: 
 
 "Propped up on his dyin' bed, 1 
 'Shore as Heaven's overhead, 
 I'm a-goin' there,' he said 
 'It was Mother's way.' "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 PRACTICAL RELIGION : HUMBLE SERVICE 
 
 IN his poem entitled "My Philosofy," Riley de 
 clared 
 
 "No man is grate tel he can see 
 How less than little he would be 
 Ef stripped to self, and stark and bare 
 He hung his sign out anywhare." 
 
 In this instance his "Philosophy" squares with that 
 of other great thinkers. Confucius once said : "Hu 
 mility is the solid foundation of all the virtues." 
 John Ruskin said : "I believe that the first test of a 
 truly great man is humility." Whittier felt that 
 
 "The Lord's best interpreters 
 Are humble human souls." 
 
 Jesus Himself once gave an example of true great 
 ness when He washed the disciples' feet. This foot- 
 washing was not in the remotest sense of the word a 
 religious ceremony. It was a custom of the time 
 that when a stranger entered a home his sandals 
 were laid off at the door, and a servant, the most 
 
 205
 
 206 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 menial servant of the household, was assigned the 
 task of washing the dust and sand off his feet. On 
 this particular occasion, Jesus and His disciples had 
 entered into an "upper room" for supper. There 
 was no servant there to perform this ordinary lowly 
 task. While they were preparing for supper, Jesus 
 heard the ambitious disciples wrangling among 
 themselves as to who should be the greatest. Then, 
 determining to give them an object lesson, He laid 
 aside His outer garments, girded Himself with a 
 towel, filled a basin with water, and stooping down, 
 washed the disciples' feet. When He had finished, 
 He said : "If I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed 
 your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. 
 For I have given you an example." It would be in 
 teresting to go through the Gospels and pick out the 
 deeds of lowly service which Jesus performed. And 
 then to note this : that His dignity suffered no abate 
 ment in the doing of them. W T hy? Because He 
 was big enough to do the little task. It takes a big 
 man to do it. 
 
 Humility is indeed proof of a man's greatness. 
 True moral greatness is as fragrant as the trailing 
 arbutus, and like it seeks the shade. Humility is 
 not meanness of spirit; not cringing; not a low esti-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 207 
 
 mate of one's powers ; not an expression worn on the 
 countenance; not inverted pride; not self-depreciat 
 ing speech. It is a form and spirit of activity. It is 
 willingness to serve. It is the key to the highest 
 service. It brings high thoughts down to intense 
 work in the depths. It gives service its true dignity. 
 It glorifies all service. Humbling ourselves to the 
 cross of burden-bearing for others leads to the great 
 est usefulness. 
 
 Happy will the world be when all professed fol 
 lowers of the Man of Galilee overcome their bicker 
 ings and faultfindings and petty rivalries, and get 
 together on the great business of serving mankind. 
 The world will not long misunderstand such a re 
 ligion as that. And that was the kind for which Mr. 
 Riley longed. One of his very earliest poems he 
 entitled "Job Work," in which he set "the poet" 
 (himself) the task of writing "a rhyme of the pres 
 ent time." And so he sang of the Civil War that 
 had been recently ended, and of home, and of 
 monopoly's swift decay, and of temperance, but best 
 of all: 
 
 "He sang the lay of religion's sway, 
 Where a hundred creeds clasp hands 
 
 And shout in glee such a symphony 
 That the whole world understands."
 
 208 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "The Good, Old-Fashioned People" is a poem 
 written in the child dialect, where the child is speak 
 ing of the good old-fashioned people that Uncle Sid 
 ney tells about. "Uncle Sidney" is Mr. Riley him 
 self it was the name which his nephews and nieces 
 were wont to give him. These good old-fashioned 
 people, among other things, were unselfish and loved 
 their neighbors as themselves : 
 
 "They was God's people, Uncle says, 
 
 An' gloried in His name, 
 An' worked, without no selfishness, 
 
 An' loved their neighbors same 
 As they was kin." 
 
 Truly such folks are "God's people" who glory 
 in His name, and unselfishly work for others, loving 
 their neighbors as themselves. In such a spirit we 
 find the secret of all human progress; in the up- 
 reach to God and the outreach to man. There is not 
 a movement for the dignifying of manhood or the 
 sweeting of human life that has not had its inspira 
 tion in religion. It is a strange thing to us of this 
 day, for example, to read that there ever was a time 
 or section of the country when the institution of 
 human slavery was defended by ministers of the
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 209 
 
 Gospel, whose arguments were clinched by quota 
 tions from the Holy Word. And the day will come 
 when certain practises of to-day that are warmly de 
 fended by otherwise good people will be just as 
 surely outlawed and considered as diametrically op 
 posed to Christian living as is slavery. The church 
 must harness and direct the great social movements 
 of this day ; for without the goad, the spur, the push 
 of a great spiritual passion, all of our modern fine 
 spun theories of social justice, economic righteous 
 ness, and political purity will fall to the ground. 
 Since the devotional, worshiping spirit is the in 
 spiration of the ethical spirit, let the church keep 
 alive the spirit of worship. But if it reaches up 
 toward God in worship, let it not fail to reach out 
 toward man in service. It will not need to hunt 
 long for texts for sermons on every movement of 
 human betterment. Thus in the group of poems 
 called "A Child World" there is a tale told by "The 
 Noted Traveler," who tells the struggle of certain 
 slaves escaping from the inferno of slavery, and 
 working weary years and years to ransom their chil 
 dren. And when the parents returned with their 
 oldest boy the happiness spread everywhere until :
 
 210 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "It even reached 
 
 And thrilled the town till the Church was stirred 
 Into suspecting that wrong was wrong! 
 And it stayed awake as the preacher preached 
 A Real 'Love'-text that he had not long 
 To ransack for in the Holy Word." 
 
 Riley is right again. It is amazing what a large 
 place love occupies in the Holy Word. The epitome 
 of the Gospel is this: "God so loved the world, that 
 He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever be 
 lieve th on Him should not perish, but have eternal 
 life." "God is love," we are told, and "Love is of 
 God." Jesus was love incarnate, and the Cross was 
 the crowning revelation of the love of God. The 
 whole process of redemption is love coming from 
 heaven to earth to create and kindle love, and make 
 it triumph over human hearts and lives. That which 
 avails for salvation, we are taught, is not rites and 
 ceremonies, but "faith working through love." Love 
 is the presiding queen over all the Christian graces. 
 Love is the prime fruit of the spirit. 
 
 No wonder that another of Riley 's poems he en 
 titled "The Text," and wrote the following whole 
 some exhortation :
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 211 
 
 "The text: Love thou thy fellow man! 
 
 He may have sinned ; One proof indeed, 
 He is thy fellow, reach thy hand 
 
 And help him in his need! 
 
 "Love thou thy fellow man. He may 
 Have wronged thee then, the less excuse 
 
 Thou hast for wronging him. Obey 
 What he has dared refuse! 
 
 "Love thou thy fellow man for, be 
 
 His life a light or heavy load, 
 No less he needs the love of thee 
 
 To help him on his road." 
 
 Mere sham or pretense are not tolerated by the 
 Hoosier poet. He believes in prayers, but he be 
 lieves emphatically that man ought to work as he 
 prays; that a man's life ought to square with his 
 profession. His "As My Uncle Ust to Say" con 
 tains these emphatic words, which are as true as 
 gospel : 
 
 "I've thought a power on men and things* 
 
 As my uncle ust to say, 
 And ef folks don't work as they pray, i jingsl 
 
 W'y, they ain't no use to pray!" 
 
 It is astonishing how many of our prayers we can 
 help God to answer, if only we "work as we pray." 
 Riley's own heart-yearning is poured into "A Mor- 
 tul Prayer," the final petition of which is :
 
 212 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "Make me to love my feller man 
 
 Yea, though his bitterness 
 Doth bite as only adders can* 
 
 Let me the fault confess, 
 And go to him and clasp his hand 
 
 And love him none the less. 
 So keep me, Lord, ferever free 
 
 From vain concete er whim; 
 And he whose pius eyes can see 
 
 My faults, however dim,! 
 Oh! let him pray the least fer me, 
 
 And me the most fer him!" 
 
 In "Ansehno" the poet causes Father Anselmo 
 (which is only a characteristic name, not an historical 
 one) to speak of his seeking the Lord's grace, and 
 how hoping to please God he practised the most 
 rigid asceticism ; how he performed dread penance ; 
 knelt with bleeding knees; put ashes on his head; 
 scourged himself, and yet his prayers were all in 
 vain. And then awakening from a swoon he saw a 
 wretched outcast bathing his brow with many a pity 
 ing sigh, and he prayed God's grace to rest on this 
 outcast, and then he heard a gentle voice say : 
 
 " 'Thou shalt not sob in suppliance hereafter ; 
 Take up thy prayers and wring them dry of tears, 
 And lift them, white and pure with love and laughter.' 
 
 "So is it now for all men else I pray; 
 So is it I am blest and glad alway."
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 213 
 
 What a different world it would be if every Chris 
 tian worked as he prayed. And then suppose that 
 his constant prayer would be that Christ's will were 
 his own. This is the teaching of Mr. Riley in the 
 child poem "A Defective Santa Claus." He says 
 the little child on Christmas eve knelt down by his 
 bed and said the prayer that Uncle Sidney taught 
 him to say (Uncle Sidney was the name that the 
 nephews and nieces gave to the poet). And the 
 prayer is this : 
 
 "O Father mine, e'en as Thine own, 
 This child looks up to Thee alone; 
 Asleep or waking, give him still 
 His Elder Brother's wish and will." 
 
 He closed the poem which he wrote upon the 
 death of Mrs. Benjamin Harrison with the idea that 
 the supreme good is God's will, thus : 
 
 "We see her still, 
 Even as here she stood: 
 All that was pure and good 
 And sweet in womanhood 
 
 God's will her will." 
 
 How shall we reach "The Highest Good"? What 
 is "the summum bonum" of life? These are ques 
 tions that are iterated and reiterated by weary mor-
 
 214 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 tals every day in quest of the highest good. What 
 shall we do? If we ask our poet he tells us in simple 
 phrase just to do our honest best : 
 
 "To attain the highest good 
 Of true man and womanhood, 
 Simply do your honest best 
 God with joy will do the rest" 
 
 That is, character is a by-product of service. In 
 many of the poems of our sweet singer, especially 
 those on persons, this thought is developed. Thus 
 when Surgeon Smith died, he wrote a sonnet which 
 he called "The Noblest Service," in the center of 
 which stand these two lines : 
 
 "His steadfast step still found the pathway toward 
 The noblest service paid Humanity." 
 
 It was this same devotion to the service of Hu 
 manity that caused Mr. Riley to write as follows 
 concerning John Brown, the famous abolitionist : 
 
 "Writ in between the lines of his life-deed 
 We trace the sacred service of a heart 
 Answering the Divine command in every part 
 Bearing on human weal : His love did feed 
 The loveless ; and his gentle hands did lead 
 The blind, and lift the weak, and balm the smart 
 Of other wounds than rankled at the dart
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 215 
 
 In his own breast, that glorified thus to bleed. 
 He served the lowliest first nay, then alone 
 The most despised that e'er wreaked vain breath 
 
 In cries of suppliance in the reign whereat 
 Red Guilt sate squat upon her spattered throne. 
 For these doomed there it was he went to death. 
 God ! how the merest man loves one like that I" 
 
 Certainly "the merest man loves one like that." 
 Always and always such sacrificial service is the 
 highway to immortal renown. The man who lives 
 for others (and here is another by-product of un 
 selfish service) passes into an earthly immortality as 
 well as a heavenly. Upon the death of James A. 
 Mount, a farmer and an orator, and once governor 
 of the state of Indiana, Mr. Riley wrote "A Good 
 Man," and in this poem he describes a good man as 
 one 
 
 "Who lives for you and me 
 
 Lives for the world he tries 
 To help, he lives eternally. 
 
 A good man never dies. 
 
 "Who lives to bravely take 
 
 His share of toil and stress, 
 And, for his weaker fellows' sake, 
 
 Makes every burden less." 
 
 One of Riley 's most generally quoted poems is 
 "Our Kind of a Man." What a magnificent picture
 
 216 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 it is of the man whose faith works through love; of 
 the man who gives hands and feet to the Gospel. It 
 is the man who smites wrong with a knuckled faith ; 
 who lives what he preaches ; who is ears to the deaf 
 and eyes to the blind ; who helps the widow and the 
 sick; who gives full credit for honest effort how 
 ever little the results may be; who shares the pain 
 of the doubts that rack heart and brain; who looks 
 on sin with pitying eyes, even as the Lord, who has 
 promised that though our sins should glow as scar 
 let, they shall be as white as snow : 
 
 "And, feeling still, with a grief half glad, 
 That the bad are as good as the good are bad, 
 He strikes straight out for the Right and he 
 Is the kind of a man for you and me!" 
 
 But the service of Love must begin with our 
 thoughts concerning others. We ought to take 
 kindly views of doubtful actions. We ought to put 
 the best possible construction on another's word or 
 deed. If we think unkindly about others we can not 
 act otherwise in the end; for "thoughts winged with 
 feelings are springs of action." "As a man thinketh 
 in his heart, so is he," speaks he, does he in the end. 
 Therefore, it is a good thing for those who would 
 serve others to adopt as their own that most typical
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 217 
 
 expression of Riley's creed, that first appeared un 
 der the title "The Human Heart," but finally "As 
 Created" : 
 
 "There's a space for good to bloom in 
 Every heart of man or woman, 
 And however wild or human, 
 
 Or however brimmed with gall, 
 Never heart may beat without it; 
 And the darkest heart to doubt it 
 Has something good about it 
 
 After alll" 
 
 Thus does he proclaim a universal sympathy. It 
 is Christian to recognize the Neighborhood and 
 Brotherhood of man. The modern Jericho Road 
 stretches far away. It is filled with a vast polyglot 
 procession from every land under the sun. They 
 are a host of needy creatures. The halt and hurt, 
 the blind and orphan, the wounded and worsted, 
 yea, and those that sin are there. The true Chris 
 tian knows absolutely nothing of race prejudice, and 
 class hatred, and social distinctions, and denomi 
 national bigotry. But he loves folks because they 
 are world neighbors of his, world kinsmen, indeed, 
 brothers of his in mortality and sin, it is true, but 
 brothers also in immortality. This is the sentiment 
 with which Riley closes his poem on "Writin' Back 
 to the Home-Folks" :
 
 218 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "And ef we minded God, I guess 
 
 We'd all love one another 
 Jes' like one famb'ly, me and Pap 
 
 And Madaline and Mother." 
 
 It is this idea of the familyhood of the race that 
 moves through "My Ruthers," a "Benj. F. John 
 son" poem that purported to have been "Writ durin' 
 State Fair at Indanoplis, whilse visitin' a Son in law 
 then residin' thare," a part of which we give here 
 with: 
 
 "I'd ruther kindo' git the swing 
 O' what was needed, first, I jingl 
 Afore I swet at anything! 3 
 Ef I only had my ruthers; 
 In fact I'd aim to be the same 
 With all men as my brothers; 
 And they'd all be the same with m&-* 
 Ef I only had my ruthers. 
 
 "The pore 'ud git theyr dues .sometimes 
 
 Ef I only had my ruthers, 
 And be paid dollars 'stid o' dimes, 
 Fer childern, wives and mothers : 
 Theyr boy that slaves ; theyr girl that sews 
 Fer others not herself, God knows! 
 The grave's her only change of clothes ! 
 . . . Ef I only had my ruthers, 
 They'd all have 'stuff' and time enugh 
 
 To answer one-another's 
 Appealin' prayer fer 'lovin' care' 
 Ef I only had my ruthers.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 219 
 
 "They'd be few folks 'ud ast f er trust, 
 
 Ef I only had my ruthers, 
 And blame few business men to bu'st 
 Theyrselves, er harts of others: 
 Big Guns that come here durin' Fair- 
 Week could put up jest anywhere, 
 And find a full-and-plenty thare, 
 Ef I only had my ruthers : 
 The rich and great 'ud 'sociate 
 
 With all theyr lowly brothers, 
 Feelin' we done the honorun 
 Ef I only had my ruthers." 
 
 Riley always had a deep and tender sympathy 
 with the poor and lowly. He did not attempt to in 
 cite them, as did Burns and Shelley, to revolt against 
 their exploiters and despoilers. Nevertheless, he 
 had the profoundest respect for and sympathy with 
 honest toil. Without envying the rich, he loved the 
 poor. He had seen too often the effects of great 
 wealth upon its possessor; hence, one of the greatest 
 lines he ever wrote is : 
 
 "They's nothin' much patheticker'n jes* a-bein' rich." 
 
 Riley was acquainted with the corroding fret of 
 poverty. He had known by experience the fierce 
 and tragic struggle for existence. Though in his 
 later years he became rich from the ever-increasing
 
 220 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 royalty on his books, yet his simple, unostentatious 
 nature prayed "Ike Walton's Prayer" : 
 
 "I pray not that 
 
 Men tremble at 
 
 My power of place 
 
 And lordly sway, 
 I only pray for simple grace 
 To look my neighbor in the face 
 Full honestly from day to day 
 Yield me his horny palm to hold, 
 And I'll not pray 
 
 For gold; 
 
 The tanned face, garlanded with mirth, 
 It hath the kingliest smile on earth; 
 The swart brow, diamonded with sweat, 
 Hath never need of coronet." 
 
 While in such poems as "A Poor Man's Wealth" 
 and "Down to the Capital" he pities those who are 
 rich in purse but poor in spirit; rich in luxuriant 
 raiment and blazing with diamonds and precious 
 stones but poor in intellect ; crying out 
 
 "They's nothin* much patheticker'n jes* a-bein' rich," 
 
 yet it was of the common folk whom he knew so 
 well and loved with such intense fidelity and devo 
 tion that he usually sang. In "Little Mandy's 
 Christmas-Tree" we have in child style a most 
 pathetic description of a poverty-stricken home:
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 221 
 
 front step down, no door-knob, no window shutters, 
 brown paper pasted where the window glass was 
 broken, no fuel, no carpet, no food, nothing indeed 
 but want and sorrow. And then a committee was 
 sent from the Sunday-School to this home of little 
 Mandy to invite them to participate in the joys of 
 the Christmas-Tree at the Sunday-School ; and when 
 little Mandy did not know what a Christmas-Tree 
 was, it was planned to have a little tree hidden be 
 hind the larger one to present to her for her very 
 own. But when Christmas Eve came and the church 
 was full of happy children and their teachers and 
 parents, and the little tree was behind the big one, 
 and little Mandy's name was called, little Mandy did 
 not answer, for she was gone to be with Him, whose 
 birthday they were celebrating; and then the resolu 
 tion was formed that : hereafter the poor neglected 
 children of the town shall receive more considera 
 tion at the Christmas season, and the fortunate little 
 children who have abundance would give a tree to 
 those who lacked, and they would call this tree "Lit 
 tle Mandy's Tree" : 
 
 "Little Mandy, though, she don't 
 Answer and Ma says 'she won't 
 Never, though each year they'll be 
 "Little Mandy's Chris-mus-Tree"
 
 222 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 " 'Fer pore childern' my Ma says 
 And Committee say they guess 
 'Little Mandy's Tree' 'ull be 
 Bigger than the other Tree!" 
 
 The kindly poet would have Christians manifest 
 that form of sympathy known as philanthropy, and 
 he would have them do it in the name of the benefi 
 cent Christ. In the poem "The Curse of the Wan 
 dering Foot" he makes a tramp use these words : 
 
 "Give me to sup of your pity 
 
 Feast me on prayers ! O ye, 
 Met I your Christ in the city, 
 
 He would fare forth with me." 
 
 Such unselfish service, done in the name of Christ, 
 is the best credential for religion. We have not for 
 gotten how, when in perplexity John the Baptist sent 
 his disciples to Jesus inquiring if He really were 
 the Coming One, or whether they should look for 
 another, Jesus simply told them to go back and tell 
 John what they saw, how "the blind receive their 
 sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleaned, and 
 the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the 
 poor have good tidings preached to them." That was 
 enough. Any religion that carries out such a prac 
 tical program of the ministry of sympathy as that 
 will not have to argue long for its claim to Divinity.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 223 
 
 In "His Vigil" our beloved poet causes one who has 
 been comforted and helped by another to beg that 
 other to remain by him 
 
 "Just as God were sitting here." 
 
 Nothing finer was ever said about a person than 
 that: to remind one's fellows of God! That is an 
 ambition big enough for the best of us; so to serve 
 as to make others think of God. 
 
 But not only does such a spirit recommend God 
 to others, it also is well-pleasing to God Himself. 
 Once when Riley was in reminiscent mood he wrote 
 a poem which describes the lore of the shoe-shop at 
 Greenfield, his boyhood home. The subject of the 
 poem is a journeyman shoemaker by the name of 
 "Jim." He was a patient, honest, jovial man, with 
 a quick and serving sympathy for all who stood in 
 need of help, and just because he responded to every 
 appeal to help the needy, Mr. Riley concludes : 
 
 "When God made Jim, I bet you He didn't 
 
 Do anything else that day, but jes' set around and feel good." 
 
 We sometimes talk about right for right's sake 
 and duty for duty's sake, and we say that a man 
 ought to do right just because it is right, and not be 
 cause some one has told him to do right. Neverthe-
 
 224 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 less, it is impossible to get the race of mankind away 
 from the idea of rewards and punishments, and the 
 surest way to correct evils and to restrain individ 
 uals from doing that which is wrong, is to have im 
 planted within every one an unquestioning old-fash 
 ioned faith in the universal presence of God. If we 
 can get people to understand that "Thou God seest 
 me" is a sentiment just as fit to be used to-day as it 
 was in Hagar's time; if we can make the business 
 man understand that God notes every transaction of 
 his; if we can make the young man know that God 
 sees him in the darkness as in the daylight, abroad as 
 at home; and that God not only sees but that He 
 cares; then we have gone a long way not only in 
 bringing up a race of people who are masterpieces 
 of restraint, but we have also done much to develop 
 characters that are absolutely God-like in their posi 
 tive good. Now, that God does see and is pleased 
 when His children make heavy hearts light, is most 
 clearly expressed by Mr. Riley in "The Book of 
 Joyous Children," where he says : 
 
 "Front the Father's smiling face 
 Smiling, that you smile the brighter 
 For the heavy hearts made lighter, 
 
 Since you smile with Him."
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 225 
 
 Still another by-product of unselfish service is 
 happiness. The quest of happiness is the universal 
 quest of mankind. Making this quest men will 
 work for gold until they become as hard as the metal 
 they seek. They will follow learning until they be 
 come as lifeless as the pages they scan; they will 
 give themselves to sensual pleasures until they be 
 come reeking masses of corruption; but our kind 
 poet has the unfailing prescription for happiness. 
 In the "Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers," when some one 
 asked him for a prescription "fer bein' happy by," 
 Doc wrote on a piece of paper these words : 
 
 "Go he'p the sick, and putt your heart in it" 
 
 Riley wrote that this Doc Sifers did not need to 
 claim any creed, and that he did not raise loud, vain 
 glorious prayers in crowded marts or public ways 
 to be heard of men, but that his prayers rose from 
 way deep down in his heart, when he was out alone 
 at night facing the storm on his way to assuage 
 human suffering, when all the rest of the town was 
 comfortably at rest. He was always ready to an 
 swer any calls at any time of night or day and 
 whether folks were rich or poor. He could be found 
 at the bedside of anguish and when the patient was
 
 |>ast all human power, Doc would try to make it 
 easier for the patient to sing the triumphant words 
 of Saint Paul: "O death, where is thy sting! O 
 grave, where is thy victory !" 
 
 How many tragedies of evil temper there are in 
 the world, and the sad thing about it is that those 
 who have a touchy disposition, or a quick, or sullen, 
 or revengeful temper are rather proud of the fact. 
 Riley has the right idea when he insists that a man 
 ought to show his temper who is boss ; and that the 
 finest manhood is developed by overcoming the 
 temptations of a quick or sullen temper. He s'ays 
 that that is what man's temper is for, to hold back 
 out of view, and to teach it never to get ahead of 
 one. Thus in the "Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers" he says : 
 
 "Doc's got a temper; but, he says, he's learnt it which is boss, 
 Yit has to watch it, more er less. ... I never seen him cross 
 But onc't, enough to make him swear ; milch-cow stepped on 
 
 his toe, 
 And Doc ripped out 'I doggies!' There's the only case I know. 
 
 "Doc says that's what your temper's f er to hold back out o' 
 
 view, 
 
 And learn it never to occur on out ahead o* you. 
 'You lead the way,' says Sifers 'git your temper back in line 
 And furdest back the best, ef it's as mean a one as mine 1' " 
 
 And Doc hates contentions. He can't abide
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 227 
 
 wrangles or disputes of any kind. He will leave a 
 crowd and slip up some back alley as soon as a fight 
 begins or abusive terms are used. He says the side 
 that he generally takes is the one he never hears. 
 
 But practical religion does not exhaust itself in 
 doing; it expresses itself also in our speech. Here, 
 also, we have instruction from our bard in his poem 
 entitled "Let Something Good Be Said" : 
 
 "When over the fair fame of friend or foe 
 The Shadows of disgrace shall fall, instead 
 
 Of words of blame, or proof of thus and so, 
 Let something good be said. 
 
 "Forget not that no fellow-being yet 
 May fall so low but love may lift his head: 
 
 Even the cheek of shame with tears is wet, 
 If something good be said. 
 
 "No generous heart may vainly turn aside 
 In ways of sympathy; no soul so dead 
 
 But may awaken strong and glorified, 
 If something good be said. 
 
 "And so I charge ye, by the thorny crown, 
 And by the cross on which the Saviour bled, 
 
 And by your own soul's hope of fair renown, 
 Let something good be said 1" 
 
 Read those words over again and then again. 
 Most of us need the advice contained in them. How
 
 228 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 prone we are to hint a fault in another's character ; 
 to give our inferences as actual fact; to repeat our 
 suspicions for truth; to impute a false motive for 
 another's word or deed ; to tell a half-truth, which is 
 worse than a whole lie; to maintain a malignant 
 silence when another's character is traduced or vili 
 fied. Shame on us! Let us read over again and 
 live "Let Something Good Be Said." 
 
 Christ said, "Forgive your enemies; Bless them 
 that curse you. Pray for them that despite fully use 
 you." That is a mighty hard doctrine to live up to 
 always, but Mr. Riley was speaking in "My Foe" 
 to one who so named himself. Mr. Riley said that 
 he refused to designate his opponent by a term so 
 dark. He said that to him he was most kind and 
 true and that he was as grateful for him as the dusk 
 is for the dews. He urges that his "Foe" shall not 
 vex himself for any lack of moan or cry of his ; he 
 says that he is not afraid of any harm or bruise 
 reaching his soul through any stroke of his enemy's. 
 He would rather call the man who describes himself 
 as "foe" a helpless friend, thus : 
 
 "So, blessing you, with pitying countenance, 
 I wave a hand to you, my helpless friend."
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET . 229 
 
 So we have had our message of practical re 
 ligion. Thank you, dear Riley, for it. We can not 
 close this meditation in any better way than by quot 
 ing "A Simple Recipe" which our poet wrote to a 
 young friend", "Showing How to Make the Right 
 Kind of a Man Out of the Right Kind of a Boy." 
 The "Recipe" is not so hard to read (be honest, keep 
 clean, do your level best), but it is harder to take: 
 
 "Be honest both in word and act, 
 
 Be strictly truthful through and through : 
 
 Fact can not fail. You stick to fact, 
 And fact will stick to you. 
 
 "Be clean outside and in, and sweep 
 Both hearth and heart and hold them bright; 
 
 Wear snowy linen aye, and keep 
 Your conscience snowy-white. 
 
 "Do right, your utmost good must come 
 
 To you who do your level best 
 Your very hopes will help you some, 
 
 And work will do the rest."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PATRIOTISM IN RILEY'S RHYMES 
 
 IT should be set to some stirring, singable music > 
 James Whitcomb Riley's "America." It pos 
 sesses every qualification of a truly national an 
 them; it appeals to those two thoughts that most 
 profoundly stir our emotions : our country and our 
 God. It makes just sufficient allusion to our history, 
 and gives adequate expression to our ideals. It is 
 true poetry: the mellifluous consonants are used, 
 but not dragged in unnaturally; alliterations are 
 there, but not strained after; the rhythm is fault 
 less ; the rhyme is effective ; the repetition of "Amer 
 ica! America!" is most impressive. It is not too 
 long; there are just five stanzas of it ; let us give it in 
 full: 
 
 "In the need that bows us thus, 
 
 America ! 
 Shape a mighty song for us 
 
 America ! 
 
 Song to whelm a hundred years' 
 Roar of wars and rain of tears 
 'Neath a world's triumphant cheers: 
 
 America! America! 
 
 230
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 231 
 
 "Lift the trumpet to thy mouth, 
 
 America ! 
 East and West and North and South* 
 
 America ! 
 
 Call us round the dazzling shrine 
 Of the starry old ensign 
 New baptized in blood of thine, 
 
 America! America I 
 
 "Dying eyes through pitying mists, 
 
 America! 
 See the Assassin's shackled wrists, 
 
 America ! 
 
 Patient eyes that turn their sight 
 From all blackening crime and blight 
 Still toward Heaven's holy light 
 
 America ! America 1 
 
 "High o'erlooking sea and land, 
 
 America 1 
 Trustfully with outheld hand, 
 
 America ! 
 
 Thou dost welcome all in quest 
 Of thy freedom, peace and rest 
 Every exile is thy guest, 
 
 America ! America ! 
 
 "Thine a universal love, 
 
 America ! 
 Thine the cross and crown thereof, 
 
 America ! 
 
 Aid us, then, to sing thy worth; 
 God hath builded, from thy birth, 
 The first nation of the earth 
 
 America! America!"
 
 232 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 It was composed on September 14, 1901, the day 
 President McKinley died. To make a particular 
 event the occasion for speaking general truth is the 
 function of the prophet ; and to soar from some sol 
 emn solitude into the eternities is the prerogative of 
 the seer. Thus is the poet greater than the histo 
 rian; the poet expresses the universal because the 
 universal is within him. 
 
 The main title of the above poem is "America," 
 but its subtitle is "O Thou, America Messiah of 
 Nations." That is a mighty happy title. We won 
 der whether Riley got the idea from Lowell's lines : 
 
 "All nations have their message from on high, 
 Each the messiah of some central thought 
 For the fulfillment and delight of men," 
 
 or whether he got it straight from the Bible; for 
 the Old Testament is full of the messianic conscious 
 ness of the Jewish nation. The word "Messiah" 
 means anointed ; and the anointing was an inaugura 
 tion ritual used among the Jews to set one apart for 
 some special work. Priests and kings were anointed. 
 And in the thought of the Jews their whole nation 
 was anointed. Thus Habakkuk says : "Thou went- 
 est forth for the salvation of thy people, for the 
 salvation of thine anointed." And in Isaiah God
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 233 
 
 says to the nation : "It is too light a thing that thou 
 shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of 
 Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel : I will 
 also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou 
 mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." 
 
 This messianic conception, which is one of the 
 greatest miracles of the Bible, runs through it all. 
 That in the seed of Abraham all the nations of the 
 earth were to be blessed was the pivotal idea on 
 which the history of the patriarchs turned. They 
 felt that thev had a world-wide commission. The 
 prophets labored to get Israel to rise above a narrow 
 provincialism to the great task of carrying salvation 
 to the whole world. 
 
 This was why they were the "chosen people," 
 chosen to serve. Jesus was the Messiah because he 
 fulfilled in himself these words of the prophet : "The 
 Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed 
 me to preach good tidings to the poor ; he hath sent 
 me to proclaim release to the captives, and recover 
 ing of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that 
 are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the 
 Lord." 
 
 In the light of the messianic conception as hinted 
 at above, we get some idea of the great sermon that
 
 234 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Mr. Riley preaches by the subtle use he makes of it 
 in the subtitle of his poem: "O Thou, America 
 Messiah of Nations." 
 
 But if America has a messianic mission, what is 
 it? In another of Riley's poems, "The Quest of 
 the Fathers," it is set forth. He asks : 
 
 "What were our Forefathers trying to find 
 
 When they weighed anchor, that desperate hour 
 They turned from home, and the warning wind 
 Sighed in the sails of the old Mayflower?" 
 
 Could they find anything to compensate them for 
 what they were leaving behind their native land, 
 its history, its throne, its church, its gold, its cheer, 
 and the green mounds where their brave sires slum 
 bered ? They left their old home with pale, sternly- 
 set faces, close-locked lips, tearless eyes : 
 
 "But O, the light from the soul within, 
 As each spake each with a flashing mind 
 
 As the lightning speaks to its kith and kin 1 
 What were our Forefathers trying to find?" 
 
 The foot of their ship was set in a pathless sea. 
 They groped their way through storms and fogs, 
 and mists and blinding rain, and were unable to see 
 the skies, but
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 235 
 
 "The Lord's look found them ne'ertheless 
 Found them, yea, in their piteous lot, 
 
 As they in their faith from the first divined 
 Found them and favored them too. But what 
 
 What were our Forefathers trying to find ?" 
 
 At last they landed on a frozen shore, bleak and 
 dread; but they were so glad that as they knelt in 
 prayer the very snows seemed warm : 
 
 "For, lo ! they were close on the trail they sought : 
 
 In the sacred soil of the rights of men 
 They marked where the Master-hand had wrought ; 
 
 And there they garnered and sowed again. 
 Their land then ours, as to-day it is, 
 
 With its flag of heaven's own light designed, 
 And God's vast love o'er all. . . . And this 
 
 Is what our forefathers were trying to find." 
 
 The thing the Forefathers were trying to find was 
 more clearly described by the poet in "Liberty," a 
 poem written twenty-three years before "The Quest 
 of the Fathers." In "Liberty" he represents himself 
 as looking out on the "gulf of years," through the 
 lens of history and discerning the approaching May 
 flower as drifting through "the fogs of wrong." 
 He pictures their landing upon Plymouth Rock, and 
 tells of the days of toil, days of pain, days of despair 
 that followed. But they stayed, they conquered.
 
 236 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 Then the woodman shaped a song of Liberty, one 
 stanza of which is: 
 
 "Sing for the arms that fling 
 Their fetters in the dust 
 And lift their hands in higher trust 
 
 Unto the one Great King; 
 
 Sing for the patriot heart and hand ; 
 
 Sing for the country they have planned ; 
 
 Sing that the world may understand 
 This is Freedom's land!" 
 
 It is a most interesting narrative poem that goes on 
 to tell of the subduing of the forest, the nesting of 
 cabins, the fighting with Indians, the increasing 
 number of colonies that "like footprints in the sand 
 marked Freedom's pathway winding through the 
 land." And these footprints of Freedom led to 
 Lexington and Bunker Hill, and on to the Fourth 
 of July, when Independence Dell was charged to 
 
 "Ring in the gleaming dawn 
 
 Of Freedom Tofl the knell 
 Of Tyranny, and then ring on, 
 
 O Independence Belt" 
 
 Still on and on, through the Civil War, and still on, 
 until 
 
 "O Liberty, it is thy power 
 To gladden us in every hour."
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 237 
 
 This, then, is the special mission of America: to 
 furnish hospice for Freedom; to guard the idea of 
 Liberty as the never-sleeping dragon of mythology 
 guarded the gardens of the Hesperides. And if 
 America is the Messiah of Nations it is under divine 
 compulsion to make the world safe for Liberty. 
 
 Wherever our flag is unfurled to the breeze it is 
 a pledge of liberty and justice; a pledge that the 
 rights of the weakest will be respected. That is the 
 reason why we love 
 
 "The dear old Flag, whose faintest flutter flies 
 A stirring echo through each patriot breast," 
 
 as James Whitcomb Riley says in "The Silent Vic 
 tors." We call it "Old Glory." Why? Lots of 
 people want to know. Mr. Riley answers the ques 
 tion in "The Name of Old Glory." It is rather long 
 to quote the whole of it here; but it is so good, so 
 racy, so patriotic, so illustrative of Riley's love of 
 indulging in whimsical combinations, that we must 
 have it all. Note how the tone of it deepens as it 
 proceeds : 
 
 "Old Glory! say, who, 
 By the ships and the crew, 
 
 And the long, blended ranks of the gray and the blue, 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory?
 
 238 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 With such pride everywhere 
 As you cast yourself free to the rapturous air 
 And leap out full-length, as we're wanting you to? 
 Who gave you that name, with the ring of the same 
 And the honor and fame so becoming to you? 
 Your stripes stroked in ripples of white and of red, 
 With your stars at their glittering best overhead 
 By day or by night 
 Their delightfulest light 
 
 Laughing down from their little square heaven of blue!- 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory? say, who 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory? 
 
 "The old banner lifted, and faltering then 
 In vague lisps and whispers fell silent again. 
 
 "Old Glory, speak out! we are asking about 
 How you happened to "favor" a name, so to say, 
 That sounds so familiar and careless and gay 
 As we cheer it and shout in our wild breezy way 
 We the crowd, every man of us, calling you that 
 We Tom, Dick, and Harry each swinging his hat 
 And hurrahing "Old Glory !" like you were our kin, 
 When Lord! we all know we're as common as sinl 
 And yet it just seems like you humor us all 
 And waft us your thanks, as we hail you and fall 
 Into line, with you over us, waving us on 
 Where our glorified, sanctified betters have gone. 
 (And we're wanting it so! 
 
 Where our own fathers went we are willing to go.) ' 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory Oho! 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory? 
 
 "The old flag unfurled with a billowy thrill 
 
 For an instant, then wistfully sighed and was still.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 239 
 
 "Old Glory: the story we're wanting to hear 
 Is what the plain facts of your christening were,* 
 For your name just to hear it, 
 Repeat it, and cheer it, 's a tang to the spirit 
 As salt as a tear; 
 
 And seeing you fly, and the boys marching by, 
 There's a shout in the throat and a blur in the eye 
 And an aching to live for you always or die, 
 If, dying, we still keep you waving on high. 
 And so by our love 
 For you, floating above, 
 
 And the scars of all wars and the sorrows thereof, 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory and why 
 Are we thrilled at the name of Old Glory? 
 
 "Then the old banner leaped, like a sail in the blast, 
 And fluttered an audible answer at last. 
 
 "And it spake, with a shake of the voice, and it said : * 
 By the driven snow-white and the living blood-red 
 Of my bars, and their heaven of stars overhead 
 By the symbol conjoined of them all, skyward cast, 
 As I float from the steeple, or flap at the mast, 
 Or droop o'er the sod where the long grasses nod, 
 My name is as old as the glory of God. 
 .... So I came by the name of Old Glory." 
 
 There again you can hear the messianic call to 
 America. If it should ever fail to rise to its sub 
 lime opportunity of being the seed-plot of freedom 
 for the world, its failure would be the tragic scandal 
 of the ages. But it shall not fail; for did not Mr. 
 Riley only say what is in the heart of each one of us
 
 240 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 when he assured pur nation's hallowed emblem 
 there's 
 
 "... an aching to live for you always or die, 
 If, dying, we still keep you waving on high." 
 
 And many have died for Old Glory. Indeed our 
 bard sees "The Conqueror" crowned eternally 
 
 "And sheltered under a flag that shakes 
 Her silken stripes and her silver stars 
 Into a tangle of endless wars." 
 
 Mr. Riley's father was a soldier, a captain in the 
 Union Army during the Civil War. In many, very 
 many, of his poems reference to the war creeps in. 
 He was always quick to honor in exalted line the 
 glorious lineage of "The Soldier." 
 
 "The Soldier. Lo, he ever was and is 
 
 Our Country's high custodian, by right 
 Of patriot blood that brims that heart of his." 
 
 Within the Soldier's inviolate care "the Nation 
 takes repose." The Soldier is the guardian of her 
 inmost fane of Freedom. Our thoughts are blown 
 
 "Back where The Soldier battled 1 , nor refused 
 A grave all nameless in a clime unknown. 
 
 The Soldier though, perchance, worn, old and gray; 
 The Soldier though, perchance, the merest lad, 
 
 The Soldier though he gave his life away, 
 Hearing the shout of 'Victory,' was glad ;
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 241 
 
 "Ay, glad and grateful, that in such a cause 
 
 His veins were drained at Freedom's holy shrine 
 Rechristening the land as first it was, 
 
 His blood poured thus in sacramental sign 
 Of new baptism of the hallowed name 
 
 'My Country' now on every lip once more 
 And blest of God with still enduring fame. 
 
 This thought even then The Soldier gloried o'er." 
 
 But why so ready to die for "my Country" ? We 
 get our answer from "Liberty" (referred to 
 earlier) , and the answer carries us back to the mes 
 sianic conception of our nation : 
 
 "O Liberty the dearest word 
 A bleeding country ever heard,- 
 We lay our hopes upon thy shrine 
 And offer up our lives for thine." 
 
 One of Riley's earlier poems is "The Silent Vic 
 tors." He wrote it as a young man in his late 
 teens or early twenties, while he was trying to study 
 law in the office of his father, who was a lawyer 
 and an orator of more than ordinary ability. James 
 Whitcomb Riley never liked law. He said that for 
 the life of him he could not make Blackstone and 
 economics rhyme. Therefore, while his father 
 would be in the court room trying some case, this 
 young "case" whom he seemed unable fully to un 
 derstand, would be writing poetry. Among the
 
 242 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 poems of that period is "The Silent Victors." He 
 read it at a Decoration Day service in 1878. It is 
 in praise of the 
 
 "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 fatal wounds scarce healed, 
 Was torn from peaceful winds and flung again 
 
 To shudder in the storm of battle-field 
 The elements of men." 
 
 Six years after "The Silent Victors" was written 
 our poet wrote another Decoration Day poem, "Sol 
 diers Here To-day," in which he more plainly de 
 scribed the physical tortures which men were willing 
 >to undergo for the sake of Freedom. He greeted 
 them in chaste language, from spectral fortress 
 walls and from crumbling battlements and : 
 
 "From living tombs where every hope seemed lost 
 With famine quarantined by bristling guns 
 
 The prison-pens the guards the 'dead-line* crossed 
 By riddled skeletons ! 
 
 "From furrowed plains, sown thick with bursting shells ; 
 
 From mountain gorge, and toppling crags o'erhead 
 From wards of pestilential hospitals, 
 
 And trenches of the dead." 
 
 But the soldier who blazed with courage to de-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 243 
 
 fend the dear old Flag, "regardless of the shower of 
 shell and shot," who plunged with dauntless pride 
 into the crimson sea of carnage, was by no means 
 the only one who sacrificed for the cause of Free 
 dom : the mother who knelt in the empty night ; the 
 wife who wrote to her husband to tell of the babe 
 waiting for his caress, and her letter passed one that 
 was to tell her of his death ; the maiden who in fancy 
 pressed her lips upon the brow that once was dewy 
 with her kiss, but now held the dew of death : 
 
 "O Mother, you who 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 come, 
 
 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
 
 244 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "He had a father brave enough to stand I 
 
 Before the fire of Treason's blazing gun, 
 
 That, dying, he might will the rich old land 
 Of Freedom to his son. 
 
 "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. 
 
 "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" 
 
 Another illustration of the deeds of heroism, too 
 often unrecorded, performed for Liberty is "The 
 Old Man and Jim." This poem is a universal favor 
 ite. It is read and quoted by men who are not in 
 the habit of reading poetry who are so foolish as 
 to think it a sign of weakness to be caught in the 
 act of reading poetry of any kind, but who read 
 Riley and tolerate sentiment in him because he 
 makes it altogether natural and wraps a familiar 
 atmosphere of perfect reality around his poems. 
 YOU have to trap the average man into any display of 
 emotion and the Hoosier bard spreads for him many 
 a net from which there is no escape ; as in "The Old 
 Man and Jim/' where the subject is the loneliness
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 245 
 
 and heartache of the farmer who was too old to go 
 to the war but who permitted Jim, in whom he was 
 "jes' wrapped up," to go. A comrade tells the story. 
 He tells how the "old man never had much to say." 
 The first time he heard him speak was when Jim 
 joined the army: 
 
 "And all 'at I heerd the old man say 
 Was, jes' as we turned to start away,- 
 'Well, good-by, Jim : 
 
 Take keer of yourse'f !' " 
 
 The fond father appeared to be satisfied if he 
 could just look at Jim. Therefore, he followed him 
 to the drill ground and to the depot, and gave him 
 again the 
 
 " Well, good-by, Jim : 
 
 Take keer of yourse'f !' " 
 
 And was proud when "Cap. Biggler" wrote home of 
 the boy's exploits of bravery. You can feel the 
 touch of unutterable homesickness in the father's 
 heart for Jim, and his high faith in him in the fact 
 that he 
 
 "Tuk the papers, the old man did, 
 
 A-watchin' fer Jim 
 Fully believin' he'd make his mark 
 
 Some way jes' wrapped up in him I"
 
 246 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 And he was not disappointed either. Jim won hon 
 ors; he lost an arm; he became a lieutenant till 
 finally : 
 
 "Think of a private, now, perhaps, 
 
 We'll say like Jim, 
 'At's dumb clean up to the shoulder-straps 
 
 And the old man jes' wrapped up in him I 
 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 him 
 The surgeon turnin' away with tears 
 'At hadn'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 yourse'f !' " 
 
 As another instance of the common patriot's 
 worth, Mr. Riley has given us "Decoration Day on 
 the Place." It is one of his "Benj. F. Johnson" 
 Hoosier dialect poems. Again it is an old farmer 
 talking. It is Decoration Day. He and his wife see 
 their neighbors driving past to town. But this old 
 home-keeping couple have never attended this an 
 nual service. The old man is telling how lonesome 
 the day is to him and "Mother." They have heard 
 wonderful tales about the music and the flowers and 
 the orations in the town. But these sorrowing par-
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 247, 
 
 ents are wondering if there isn't some way to make 
 "The Boys" know that every day on earth is their 
 Decoration Day, and then: 
 
 "We've tried that me and Mother whare EHas takes his 
 
 rest, 
 
 In the orchurd in his uniform, and hands acrost his brest, 
 And the flag he died fer, smilin' and a-ripplin' in the breeze 
 Above his grave and over that, the robin in the freest 
 
 "And yit it's lonesome lonesome! It's a Sund'y-day to me, 
 It 'pears-like more'n any day I nearly ever see! 
 Still, with the Stars and Stripes above, a-flutterin* in the air, 
 On ev'ry soldier's grave I'd love to lay a lily thare." 
 
 Sometimes people say that a republic is ungrate 
 ful, and soon forgets those who have served it best. 
 But any one who has tramped over the battle-fields 
 of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, and has 
 seen the towering columns that mark the spots 
 where the sod soaked in the first blood spilt for 
 American independence, knows that the American 
 people remember the heroic deeds of the noble dead. 
 Any one who has stood in Independence Hall in the 
 City of Brotherly Love, where, Pallas-like, a new 
 born nation sprang into giant life, and notes how a 
 grateful people preserve the historic place intact, 
 knows the American people remember. Any one 
 who has seen at our nation's Capital the highest
 
 248 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 monument in the world, built by a loving people to 
 the memory of the majestic Washington, knows the 
 American people remember. Any one who has ob 
 served on Memorial Day the graves of our soldier- 
 dead become beds of flowers, their tombs thrones of 
 honor, knows the American people remember whose 
 forms are placed within their narrow walls. 
 
 So when the patriotic movement was started to 
 erect the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at Indian 
 apolis, Mr. Riley wrote a poem in sympathy with it. 
 It is all good ; but the first and last stanzas are suffi 
 cient to discover the underlying principle of all these 
 fit memorials. They read as follows : 
 
 "A monument for the Soldiers I 
 
 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? 
 
 "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 1"
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 249 
 
 But patriotism by no means exhausts itself in war. 
 There is good, rugged philosophy in the Hoosier 
 dialect verses entitled "Thoughts on the Late War." 
 The "Late War" to Riley at that time (1893) was, 
 of course, the Civil War. Though he confesses : 
 "I was for Union you ag'in' it," yet since the war 
 is "all done and ended," he pleads for "some pard- 
 nership forgittin'," and then this wholesome advice : 
 
 "Le' 's let up on this blame', infernal 
 Tongue-lashin' and lap-jacket vauntin', 
 And git back home to the eternal 
 Ca'm we're a-wantin'." 
 
 With like motive, but in more chaste language, 
 our poet laureate concluded his first Decoration 
 Day poem (referred to earlier in this study) in these 
 sweet words : 
 
 "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." 
 
 And at another time he rejoiced that :
 
 250 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "The angel, Peace, o'er all uplifts her hand, 
 Waving the olive, and with heavenly eyes 
 
 Shedding a light of love o'er sea and land 
 As sunshine from the skies." 
 
 But in peace as in war, America must remember 
 her messianic mission. Her peace must be a peace 
 founded upon righteousness, and a peace that is safe 
 for Liberty safe "from Occident to Orient." Thus 
 in the apostrophe to Independence Bell we have the 
 exhortation : 
 
 "Ring out the wounds of wrong 
 
 That rankle in the breast; 
 Your music like a slumber-song 
 
 Will lull revenge to rest. 
 
 "Ring out from Occident 
 
 To Orient, and peal 
 From continent to continent 
 
 The mighty joy you feel. 
 
 "Ring I Independence Bell! 
 
 Ring on till worlds to be 
 Shall listen to the tale you tell 
 
 Of love and Liberty 1" 
 
 Some of us think that the greatest battle hymn 
 ever written is Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn 
 of the Republic." It first rang out high above the 
 havoc of our Civil War. It is a wonderful thing.
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 251 
 
 Mrs. Howe certainly must have been divinely in 
 spired when she wrote it. Many feel that it should 
 be our national anthem. Indeed, it might fittingly 
 have been the hymn of the Entente Allies. As an 
 echo of that great hymn Mr. Riley wrote his "Peace 
 Hymn of the Republic" for the Twenty-ninth En 
 campment of the G. A. R., held at Louisville, Ken 
 tucky, in 1895. The figure of the ship upon the sea 
 is sustained throughout the ship of state that 
 groped through the awful midnight storm of war, 
 until the One who stilled the storm on Galilee 
 walked over our troubled waters, and put His hand 
 upon the storm. The imagery is glowing. Let us 
 sing the entire hymn : 
 
 "There's a Voice across the Nation like a mighty ocean-hail, 
 Borne up from out the Southward as the seas before the gale; 
 Its breath is in the streaming Flag and in the flying sail 
 As we go sailing on. 
 
 " 'Tis a Voice that we remember- ere its summons soothed as 
 
 now 
 When it rang in battle-challenge, and we answered vow with 
 
 vow 
 With a roar of gun and hiss of sword and crash of prow and 
 
 prow, 
 
 As we went sailing on.
 
 252 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "Our hope sank, even as we saw the sun sink faint and far, 
 The Ship of State went groping through the blinding smoke 
 
 of War 
 Through blackest midnight lurching, all uncheered of moon 
 
 or star, 
 
 Yet sailing sailing on. 
 
 "As One who spake the dead awake, with life-blood leaping 
 
 warm 
 Who walked the troubled waters, all unscathed, in mortal 
 
 form 
 
 We felt our Pilot's presence with His hand upon the storm, 
 As we went sailing on. 
 
 "O Voice of passion lulled to peace, this dawning of To-day, 
 O Voices twain now blent as one, ye sing all fears away, 
 Since foe and foe are friends, and lo 1 the Lord, as glad as 
 they, 
 
 He sends us sailing on." 
 
 Yea, verily, peace is greatly to be desired; a 
 peace "pedestaled on Freedom's soil." But we might 
 as well admit it one time as another, that we shall 
 have a permanent peace for our own blessed land 
 only when the reign of Christ, the Prince of Peace, 
 is universal. Therefore with our national bard we 
 pray: 
 
 "O blessed land of labor and reward ! 
 
 O gracious Ruler, let Thy reign endure; 
 In pruning-hook and plough-share beat the sword, 
 And reap the harvest sure !"
 
 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 253 
 
 But we must remind ourselves once more that 
 America is the "messiah of nations." At the lay 
 ing of the cornerstone of Bunker Hill monument, 
 that mountain-minded man, Daniel Webster, said: 
 "Our history hitherto proves that the popular form 
 of government is practicable, and that with wisdom 
 and knowledge men may govern themselves; and 
 the duty incumbent on us is, to preserve the consis 
 tency of this cheering example, and take care that 
 nothing may weaken its authority with the world. 
 If, in our case, the representative system ultimately 
 fail, popular governments must be pronounced im 
 possible. No combination of circumstances more 
 favorable to the experiment can ever be expected to 
 occur. The last hope of mankind therefore rests 
 with us." 
 
 We must make good. But while we live and 
 fight for our ideals of democracy we must not for 
 get God. Israel was an "elect race"; but Israel 
 fumbled its destiny in the "hour of visitation." We 
 must hold with tenacity to the forces which are eter 
 nal, spiritual. We must not forget God! So Mr. 
 Riley would teach us; for at the end of his long 
 poem in praise of Liberty, he says :
 
 254 THE FAITH OF THE PEOPLE'S POET 
 
 "And with Thy praise, we breathe a prayer 
 That God who leaves you in our care 
 May favor us from this day on 
 With Thy dear presence till the dawn 
 Of Heaven, breaking on thy face, 
 Lights up Thy first abiding-place." 
 
 THE END
 
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