Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CASCADE, by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CASCADE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Who saith that poetry is not in thee
Last Line: Thou wild cascade, bright, beautiful, and free!
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


WHO saith that Poetry is not in thee,
Thou wild cascade, bright, beautiful, and free?
Who saith that thine own sunny gleaming waters
Are not among 'sweet Poesie's' fair daughters?
No Poetry in thee? then tell, oh tell,
Where is the home where she delights to dwell?
But what is Poetry? Some aerial sprite,
Clothed in a dazzling robe of wavy light,
Whose magic touch unlocks the gates of joy
In dreamland to some vision-haunted boy?
Or is she but a breath from Eden-bowers,
Charged with the fragrance of their shining flowers,
Which, passing o'er the harp-strings of the soul,
Awakes new melody, whose echoes roll
In waves of spirit-music through the heart,
Till tears and smiles in mingling sweetness start?
It may be so, but still she seems to me
Most like a God-sent sunlight, rich and free,
Bathing the tiniest leaf in molten gold,
Bidding each flower some secret charm unfold,
Weaving a veil of loveliness for earth,
Calling all fairy forms to wondrous birth.

Our sweet soul-Artist! Many a fair surprise
Her color-treasures bring to waiting eyes;
Her pictures, sudden seen, oft seem to dwell
Like pearls within the rugged ocean shell;
They tell of something purer and more fair
Than earth can boast, and gleam forth everywhere,
Star-glimpses through the trees, or flashes bright
Of meteor glory in a northern night

Our sweet soul-Harpist! linking winds with sighs,
And blending both with spirit-melodies,
And adding chords that come we know not whence,
Dream-echoes mingling with the wakeful sense.
O strange, O beautiful! though all unknown,
The music-fount of every lovely tone,
The color-fount of ever lovely thought,
By this bright ministrant so freely brought,
Save that we own their true and soothing might,
One of His perfect gifts, whose names are Love and Light

Oh! she is often where we least surmise,
And scorns the dimness of our heavy eyes:
We catch the ruby sparkles of her wing,
And she is gone like the dewdrops of the spring;
Again, to glad us with her smile she stays,
And shows her brightness to our loving gaze.
No cave so dark but she may gain its porch,
And gild the shadows with her quenchless torch;
No dell so silent but her pealing voice
Can bid a leafy orchestra rejoice;
No waste so lonely but she there may hold
Her gorgeous court in splendor all untold.
And where those waters murmur as they leap,
A song of gentleness, and calm, and sleep,
Within the sounding music of their tone
I hear a voice, and know it is her own.

And where the fair fond sunbeams blithely play
Amid the hazy wreaths of dancing spray,
A form of fairy grace shines forth to me;
I hail the vision, for I know 'tis she.
She loves that changeful, yet unchanging foam,
Within its arching bowers she finds a home,
And reads beneath its roof of fleeting snow
The secrets of the shadowy depth below.
Then who shall say that she is not in thee,
Thou wild cascade, bright, beautiful, and free!





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