But Riley’s simplicity is not always as artless as it seems. Time and again, one can see him trading wantonly on the emotions of his unsophisticated readers; he sees them about to smile—and broadens the point of his joke; he observes them on the point of tears—and pulls out the sobbing tremolo stop. In many respects, he is patently the most artificial of those poets who claim to give us the stuff of the soil. He is the poet of obtrusive sentiment rather than of quiet convictions; of lulling assurance, of philosophies that never disturb his readers, of sweet truisms rather than searching truths.
That work of his which may endure, will survive because of the personal flavor that Riley often fused into it. Such poems as “When the Frost is on the Punkin,” “The Raggedy Man,” “Our Hired Girl” are a part of American folk literature; “Little Orphant Annie” is read wherever there is a schoolhouse or, for that matter, a nursery. In 1912 the schools throughout the country observed his birthday.
Riley died in his little house in Lockerbie Street, Indianapolis, July 22, 1916.
“WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN”[[7]]
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,