Let conversation seek the Beautiful — Rhyming bird-wings, and that so-magic poise
Of nature’s flute-song, or cello music mellow,
Green-berried vines that edge a lapping pool
Where lily-stars are doubled, white and yellow :
And let me find the day’s own cadences —
Gay frocks, that flower upon a windy line,
That old-blue plate with cakes for tea: yes, these
Amenities that seem so wise and fine :
You see, my memory holds loveliness,
For I awoke among old forestries
Where trees were as endued with consciousness
Till, now, I find fresh grace when work is hard,
And learn to live the inner poetry. . . .
Of course, not as a known, exalted bard,
But from a spirit, tree-wise, lifted Thee !
Each season, now, there’s towering luxury
In “Ceremonial trips” among small hills :
About my place I plant, each year, some tree,
(Green foil for double-gold of daffodils) —
And, for each day, a ritual — some joy,
The crisp delight of this, so tiny lawn,
And curved flower-buds that well employ
Ecstatic tints from summer’s tenderest dawn ;
And yet it seems I scarcely paused until
I went afar for beauty — then I found
The very burgeoning from homey hill,
The self-same glory from my plot of ground;
From nuded winter’s boles to Spring’s small buds,
To summer’s windy leaves that dance and quiver,
I find The Beautiful — oh ! wide green floods, Niagara-of-the-year, from Him, the Giver ;
And, though I go each season to the Fall,
Discovering one great Beauty, find it all !
Source: Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier. New York: Dean & Company, 1929.
How long have people smiled concerning Spring And poets who make to her, an offering. . . .
As from the nascent mold, in thunder-riven
And water-tortured stone, a tree is given
So may my song be radiant — (for a season)
A shad-bush shining, its roots in earth’s old lesion,
Its bole, gray-brown, against the ice-blue sky,
Its fragrant festal torches swinging high. . .
So I ……………………………………. (if that I could, so I!)
And too, I’d give to you the water-song
Of surging streams that swiftly slip along
The silvered course, each rock a native gem,
But better, far, if that you visit them.
Oh, could I sketch, in fire, this ultimate
Outstanding loveliness, I’d hesitate
And with old reverence grow wisely mute
For Soul must see — there lives no substitute,
In words, for that first glossy green
Which garlands fairy twigs and springs between
Dark pads of moss, where even color smoulders
Like match-tip violets ‘mong ashen boulders
And here’s the flame of lingering snow, not wint’ry,
But evanescent crystals (gay and splint’ry
Encrustings) — vanishing in a rime of dew —
Those common beauties mind’s accustomed to.
Who claims we need more outer loveliness ?
We seek more poet-hearts, more consciousness
Of Inner Spring, till icy bonds must burst
And souls grow greatly with new hunger, thirst.
The early stars within their patterned fret,
The Dawn’s pastel from poplar minaret,
Have wrought, within, devout serenity
Yet stir me to a praying psalmody —
Where gray-cowled friar has chiseled deep
In rocks, the mystery of change and sleep
And death, one finds the sculptured esplanade
Brings near the warming sense of needed God.
And if it be the Day with jeweled light
Or that recurving dome of crystal night,
It seems not banal thus to pause to write
Of dusky folks who followed flowered trails
And ghostly paths where even twilight fails —
From legendary past they softly come
And pass to greet their own Elysium. But here is present heaven, here are we
Aware of Paradise, and Instancy ! Awakened, as by sight of one quick tree —
The future, vision-wise, unspells, unfolds,
As some closed bud must yield its pollen golds
At last — as meditative moments flower
In lifted torches — so Spring’s lighted hour
Is like Annunciation, a held flood,
Or new-veiled ecstacies within the bud.
The Virgin’s season, The Woman’s pregnant sign !
For wandering beams of beauty, fierce, divine,
Have stabbed earth vitally and she, the sheath
Of life’s triumphant sword, bears underneath
Her nuptial robes, so delicate and sheer,
The Living seed that justifies the year.
So now, the soul of Him seems even nearer
Than one’s own face within the curdled mirror
Of fretted water ; the lifted shad-flowers seem
To chord the melody of flame-blue stream
That chimes its silvery way among still rocks.
From fire-deep skies the migratory flocks
Of troubadors, those gay-winged messengers,
Now find cathedral lofts in oaks and firs,
And where June-berry censer sways and blows
They tell of Love in oratorios.
Delicate, wind-borne, is fragrance coming
To rhyme of wings, the hurrying and humming
Of insect life, in gossamer like elves,
Magicked from folded fronds on stony shelves.
And night, blue-velvet cloaked, and diamonded
But finds the clustered pearly shad-blooms hid
Against the moon’s serener, even pearl,
Or in an aureole of mist, a swirl
Of cloudy plumes that heavenly horsemen wear, Notes Boreal spears and hears the whispering prayer
Of Spring, the Maiden-Joan, (the youthful saint,
Who frees the ice-hard earth, without complaint,
Who buds and flowers while from a stricken pyre
Rekindles earth with that triumphant fire.)
Then as shad-flowers fall, and deep desire
Must fade in fruiting, so the poet dies
Shadowed by graces he’d apostrophize.
The poet rill would bubble small, swift rhymes
As shad flowers, dying, sway like silent chimes.
Better the quiet bloom among tall trees
Lyric with their own mute symphonies —
Better the fallow deer in solitude —
The dun hare and shadowy squirrel that elude
The note of man — better the fronds that push
‘Gainst sleeping roots of some sky-seeking bush, Than that I lift my tuneless voice to sing —
The world is right — to smile at songs of Spring.
Source: Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier. New York: Dean & Company, 1929.
The Artist Sketching Niagara from Goat Island by James Pattison Cockburn, 1827. Colour tint by Erna Jahnke. Courtesy Niagara Falls Public Library
I’ve seen a heavenly despair,
An artist wrestling in prayer,
To find right colors, nicely blent
To show Niagara’s firmament,
Star-stippled, with the evening air
Stilled as if from some divine content.
And when the moon’s clear milky mist
Fell down on shadows, amethyst
And silver-blue, I’ve heard his sighs
Because such paradox defies
The reason — seems to puzzle, twist
The prying sight of Man’s too mortal eyes,
(To show, then spirit-off, the dazzling prize.)
And when the Dawn Maid brightly lifts
Her wide prismatic cup there drifts
A rose-wine tint that’s deftly played
On folded hues of lambent jade —
I’ve heard him ask for finer gifts
To fix forever sweeping gold light sprayed
Among noon’s burning shadows, speak
Of great gray gulls with open beak
And flame-edged wings that flaunt the spray
And that dread Call from far away —
“Death, too, were mine if that I seek
To fully represent the lure of Day —
Let others picture Viewless Light who may.”
The challenge of changing hours he sees,
And seasons passing among the trees,
A Processional of living tone
As lyric colors have outshone
Historic jewels — for filigrees
Of radiance have come from Him alone.
To imitate Night’s mauve, Dawn’s rose
That from the Day’s raised goblet flows
To paint this sweep of surging white, That flowing green, this pouring light,
Is like the perilous way of those
Bewildered birds betrayed by careless sight,
Tempted too far in ecstasies of flight.
The moth that yearns the coaxing star,
Beats off its gold where gray winds are
Too grim, the teal on spray-drenched wings
Above the river, in spirallings,
Must heed, at last, that Call afar —
And so the foolish artist-heart that flings
Restraint aside and dreams to limn
Sheer color excellence — to him
Enough the tarnished-silver stone
Where tiny stars of mist are sown — The hand must waver, even mind grow dim —
Nor is this tragedy his own — alone.
Source: Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier. New York: Dean & Company, 1929.
Niagara Falls (From near Clifton House), 1837, by W.H. Bartlett engraving by J. Cousen. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
‡‡‡“My heart is fixed; therefore I sing.” ― Bible
Niagara, my singing heart is fixed;
I love the rich contentment of your wood,
Your wind-scourged cliffs and that calm sisterhood
Of islands. As man-birds crest the wind betwixt
The Falls and the farther skies, on azure highways,
So poets look from heights yet more sublime,
Inviting Nature-lovers from life’s byways
To experience beyond all touch of time,
Aware of rhythm in a heart that’s living
Become attuned to fuller consciousness
Exalting joys that consecrate and bless. . . Niagara, we join your song Thanksgiving.
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡II To the Public
Oh love the character of rocks, each tree
Along this course, each grot in solitude
With phantom—eerie ponds—the wind’s mood—
This thundering torrent in its majesty
With Nature’s attitude so grave and stern.
One feels the unity of truth and good
With beauty on life’s course—without return
Both condemnation and Beatitude.
Join now these staves of melody, the chording
Organ-tones with birds in blending choir—
And note heart-aching charms of misty fire: May Memory receive each jewel for hoarding.
Source: Evelyn M. Watson. Poems of the Niagara Frontier. New York: Dean & Company, 1929.
