Riley’s poetry is popular because it goes right to the feelings of the people. He could not have written as he does, but for the schooling of that wandering life, which gave him an insight into the struggle for existence among the great unnumbered multitude of his fellow men. He learned in his travels and journeys, in his hard experience as a strolling sign-painter and patent-medicine peddler, the freemasonry of poverty. His poems are natural; they are those of a man who feels as he writes. As Thoreau painted nature in the woods, and streams, and lakes, so Riley depicts the incidents of everyday life, and brightens each familiar lineament with that touch that makes all the world kin. One of his noblest poems is “Old Glory.” It speaks the homely, sterling patriotism of the common people.
“The Little Coat” illustrates his wonderful power to touch the heart.
THE LITTLE COAT.
Here’s his ragged “roundabout,”
Turn the pockets inside out;
See: his pen-knife, lost to use,
Rusted shut with apple-juice;
Here, with marbles, top and string,
Is his deadly “devil-sling,”