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 set his place in order, and was ready
to go with you--anywhere.
There had been, on your arrival, a clamor to have
you Read that afternoon--but the Wizard
quietly slipped you away.
Out into the Open you drove, in an old Barouche,
behind a Pair of Good Horses.
It was a long Drive; it was a beautiful Drive.
It was driven in Silence.
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