n either your spoken Word.
or, your written, your printed Thought.
You were infinitely better than the
Very Best that you ever did!
High Praise, but True!
Your nature was strangely Complex:

There was the Man!
There was the Poet!
There was the Mystic!

The Man could be known--and was--of all men.
The Poet could be read--as he was--and he understood.
He could Sing--as he did--Songs
which caught the Hearts of the
People--from the Cradle to the Grave!
The Mystic!

O! James Whitcomb Riley!
That Mystic Element in your Nature!
It was held under a Strong Curb:
It was constantly held in Check:
But it was never Overcome!
It was a Mood--not a Madness.
It seldom made an Outward Sign.
Then, it was brief, spasmodic, eratic.
It was known to but few, even of those
who came with you, in constant contact.
To this Man, that Mystic Element in your Nature,
made a most wonderful Appeal, deep, strong.
To him, it was the _real_ James Whitcomb Riley!
You were a Mystic, but never a Reformer.
You cheerfully rendered unto Ceasar all things
that were his just due.
You had no desire to overturn Natural Law,
Human Regulation.
You accepted, without question, the Established
Order of Things.
But so strong was this touch of the Mystic
that, it you had desired, you could have,
quickly, thickly, populated some far off Smiling Isle,
of the Fair Summer Seas, with a Band of
Cultured Men, of Cultured Women, ready,
eager, to follow you--that Mystic You! into
the Creation of a New Cult, of a New Religion!
In your Poems there is but a trickle of the Mystic
--a flash a dash--as the falling of a Star!
That Edgar Allen Poe Episode, is the Answer.
You were unduly humiliated by that Incident--
--and it was but as Nothing
But your Super-Sensitiveness, made you Suffer!

O! James Whitcomb Riley!
Death, hath yet other Compensations!
It has placed you Beyond the Cloy of Fulsome Praise:
Beyond the Sting of Cruel Blame: the One,
may not help You the Other, cannot hurt You!

O! James Whitcomb Riley!
Once, when under the Spell of a Mystic Mood,
you sought--as you had often sought before--that
Wise Wizard of White River.
He met you, when you came into that Peaceful
Indiana Valley--where dwells this Wizard--by the
Flowing Fountain of those Healing Waters.
He knew your need; he spoke no unnecessary word;
he quickly se