A Spray of Kentucky Pine | Page 5

the Banks Of Wolf Run.
He is thinking of You!
Joyfully, not
Regretfully!
A Pastoral Scene stretches before him--
a Scene of
much Beauty!
The Cattle stand, not "knee-deep in June"
but well
into the pure rippling Waters of an August
Wolf Run, under the dense

shade overhead, where
arching branches inter-lock, casting a
net-work
of shifting Shadows on the bosom of the Peaceful
Waters,
which seem to murmer, as they
flow, your Name--Joyfully, not
Mournfully!
James Whitcomb Riley!
James Whitcomb Riley!
James Whitcomb Riley!
Smiling, undulating, across the Creek,
a Blue Grass Meadow gently
rolls away,
toward the White, the Winding Pike:
Each blade of Blue
Grass--Joyfully,
not Tearfully--seems to whisper your Name:
James Whitcomb Riley!
James Whitcomb Riley!
James Whitcomb Riley!
But Hark! The belated Song of a Mocking Bird--
its Vesper Song--to
its enraptured Mate!
This, the Glad Song:
To You James Whitcomb Riley!
The World was full of Roses!

Every Rose held hidden, within its Tremulous Heart, a
Slender
Crystal Chalice of Perfumed Dew, which,
overflowing, spilled its
Prodigal Sweetness,
onto the Earth, into the Air,
For You James Whitcomb Riley!
--For You, and for All Humanity!

And this, the Joyful Refrain:
--Joy, without Regret!
Joy, without Mourning!
Joy, without Tears!--
--A Refrain which readily, willingly,
finds
Grateful Echo in the Heart of
This Man From Down On The Farm!
O! James Whitcomb Riley!
All Is Well With You!
All Is Well With You!
O! James Whitcomb Riley!

All Is Well With You!
O! James Whitcomb Riley!
[Illustration]
Postlude
--Which ought to have been The Prelude to
this Spray of Kentucky
Pine.
Because it was written, published, a little more than a year
before the Death of the Poet.
Therefore, it was a Tribute to him,
Living!
A Promethean Poet was there. He had touched the
Heavenly flame;
he had lasted the Waters of
Inspiration: he had drained the Crystal
Cup of Fancy,
finding therein neither Lees nor Dregs, which
bite
the tongue, stifle the song, of lesser Men; he had
reverently kissed the
coy hand of Fame, when she had
crowned his Worthy Brow, with her
Wreath Immortal!
His Poems, homely, simple, sweet--springing from
the lap of Nature--had spread, like wild-fire of the Forest,
into the
Four Quarters of the Globe.
He came from the Land, across the River,
where, in
these latter days, the People quit the planting of the Potato,
to pen a Poem: pause in the cultivation of the Corn, to
compose a
Novel. Some of it is good, very good; Some
of it is bad, very bad: but
all of it produces
a princely Revenue far in excess of any return

from either the Potato or the Corn.
Long before the avalanche-like
advent of this Statewide
Literary Madness, the Star of this Poet had
risen--
risen before, and still shines beyond, and above them all. The
hand which wrote "Goodbye, Jim"--not classical
in either Greek or
Roman sense, yet a great
American Classic--with its pungent odor of
Blue Jeans, with its clean, sweet, clear-cut, fine smell, of its native
soil-- that hand may never again hold the Pen; the man
himself, may
crumble--God forbid!--back into the Dust--
that "Little Dust of
Harm"--out of which he came;
but his Poems will not, cannot die.

When those other Writers will have been forgotten;
when even the
gifted Maker of "Ben Hur" will be, but
as an empty name; even then,

this Poet,
and his Poems, will cleave to the Mind, cling to the
Heart,
of countless Generations, not yet born!
[Illustration]
Whatever Is--Is Best
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