The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-12-19
JAMES WHITOOMB RILEY'S CHILD
WORLD"
BY THOMAS WENTWORTH GRAY.

WERE it in accordance with the
usages of Parnassus, James Whit
comb Riley might have taken these
lines of Whittier for the motto of his
latest volume:
The hills are dearest which our childish
feet
Have climbed the earliest, and the streams
most sweet
Are ever those at which our young lips
drank,
STOPPED to their waters o'er the messy
bank.
1t is of this early world, arched by
the soaring sky of childhood and of
dreams, that Riley tells us in ga
Child World" The poet tells us in
the poetical preface or proem of what
he sings:
The Child -World-long and long since lost
to view
A Fairy Paradise!
How always fair it was and fresh and
new
How every af1uent hour heaped heart
and eyes
With treasures of surprise!
Such foreword would entice any
reader whose childhood was happy
to turn the following pages in glad
anticipation. The theme is an am
bilious one, and it is not too much to
say that Riley is about the only
singer of today who could come any
where near a realization of the fresh
ness of Iife's morning landscape on
which the dew still sparkles in mem
ory, and trace without disillusion, the
first voyagings of imagination into
the great wonder-world of childhood
shut in by the distant blue sky's
azure rim. That Mr.. Riley has
succeeded as we'll as he has is a
matter for congratulation, not only
to himself but to everyone whose
thoughts gladly turn back to ''the
lost Atlantis of our youth"
The writer of this, like Mr.. Riley,
lived in his youth by the great old
national road, familiarly called 'the
pike" which beginning somewhere
near Cumberland, Maryland, passed
through Ohio and terminated at or
near Indianapolis; and also remem-
bers seeing white covered wagons,
such as is pictured in the frontis-
piece to Mr.. Riley's volume before
the house in which the poet was born,
passing along in the road to the
West, then, much more than now,
the land of promise.
The old milestones at which the
boys threw stones simply because
they happened to be good marks,
usually stood in the fence row cor
ners and recorded the exact distance
from Cumberland, Md. The latter
town had, therefore, somewhat ex-
aggerated value to most boys whose
youth was spent on ''the pike" and it
was, perhaps, vaguely thought of in
some way as the beginning of things,
an impression that came wildly back
to mind, when, for the first time in
later life, the writer first passed
through that town sacred to the
memory of childhood. Mr.. Riley
does not tell of these milestones and
the part they played in bis youth as
measuring the distances to the near
est town and the ends of the earth,
but every reader, whether familiar
with the pike or not.in youth, will be
glad to have the poets own picture
of his birthplace, as .given in these
lines:
The ChiId-worId.
A Child World, yet wondrous world no
less,
To those who knew its boundless happi-
ness.
A simple old frame -house-eight rooms in
all
Set just one side.the.center of a-small
But very hopeful Indiana town,
The upper story locking squarely down
Upon the main street, and the main high
way
From East to st,-historic in.its day,
Known as The National Road-old- timers,
all
Who linger yet, will happily recall
1t as the scheme and handiwork, as-well
AS property, of "Uncle Sam and tell
OF it's Importance, ''long and long afore
Railroads wuz ever dreamp' of!"-Fur-
thermore,
The reminiscent first inhabitants
Will make that old road bios SON. with ro-
nance
OF snowy caravans, in long parade
OF covered vehicles, of every grade,
From ox-cart of most primitive design,
To Conestoga wagons, with their fine
Deep-chested six-horse teams, in heavy
gear,
High names and Ginning bells-to child
ish ear
And eye enhancing as the glittering train
OF some sun n-smitten pageant of old Spain.
And, in like spirit, haply they will tell
You of the roadside forests. and tie yell