The morning call., 1892-10-09

"And some Orient dawn had found me
KneeIing at the house OF fame"
Fame found Madge Morris Wagner in the
blazing Colorado Desert, her fingers ON the
pulse of Nature at fever heat. Or. at least,
thither sent Lippincotts of Philadelphia to
find her the other day and persuade her TO
speak through them to the world. Aud this
is what she said, like all who are truly great
teachers, making text Of the place and the
time:
TO THE COLORADO DESERT.
Thou brown bare-breasted, yoIceless mystery.
bot sphinx of nature. eactas-croWleo' "ha' n"''
thou done?
Unclothed and mute as when the groshs oi chaoS
turned
Thy naked burning bosom to the sun.
The mountain sences have speech. the rivers sing
Thou answerest never unto anything
Pink throated lizards pant wltlih me snaue'
The horned toad runs rnstling In the neat
The shadowy gray coyote. BORN AFRAID,
Steals to some brackish spring and laps ana pr9"s
Away, and howis and fowls and bowls and howls,
Untii the solitude is shaken with an ADDED ioheil
Thy sharp mescal shoots up giant stalk,
Its centuEy Of yearnng, to the sunburnE skies,
And drips rare honey from the lips
OF yellow waxen flowers. and dies.
Some engthwise sun-dried shapes with feet ana
hands
And thirsty mouths pressed the swetering sands,
Marx here aud there a gruesone grayeless spot
Where some drank thy scorching holiness. and
Is not
God must have made thee In his anger and forgot.
Not since l can remember have l heard a
voice SO true as this. 1t is like the sublime
and solemn bass of st. John. 1t is even
John the Baptist crying in the wilderness.
Indeed. doubt If you will find anything
more terribly truthful and fearfully sub
lime this side of Job than this one lone,
lorn cry from the desert. A photograph. even
were such thing possible. could not be
mo oh stlu apH OhasfIV exact. IL Ia tfIla
poetry, and therefore more really true than
the ordinary forms of truth. For truth
can only be told entirely by figures OF
speech-poetry. There are not words
enough in all the languages Of this world to
tell even the simplest truth exactly, even if
there were time enough in the world. We
must depend upon figures of speech, as did
the seers of the Orient, for the exact truth.
| But the figures must be true, stately, ma
| jestie, impressive. This is poetry; and true
! poetry is in this sense OF only the highest
| form Of truth, but 1t is the lily real truth
that is uttered. When the world comes to
| comprehend poetry it Will have a great deal
more truth, less clubbing about words.
| legal techl calites, legal lies.
Turn back and read this poem from Lip
| pincott's on the Colorado Desert again,
| please. You can read it with profit and A
certain sort of solemn pleasure dozen
| times. There are lines here that are texts,
| sermons.
| God must have made thee In his anger and forgot.
Madge Morris Wagner has been all her
| life with us out here On the great sea.
| bank 1 believe; born in Oregon | think. At
{ least | know her father was "a mighty hun
| ter" in Oregon; and her uncle, Bishop
| Morris, was a Virginian. Maybe, she. too.
| was a ViTginian. | neither know nor care.
We fill our books up with the dates and
place of birth, things that don't amount to
| peanut. and leave little room for deeds or
| utteranceS
What will we do when we come to have
"a coo years of history and biography be-
| hind us? Why. we will say as the Chinese
say, This poet lived in certain dynasty
| So l shall proceed to say what this
strange, strong woman of the desert has said
| from out her heart of hearts. For she is
q woman, very human, tender woman.
| And you will concede before you have done
| reading the little bits of her sweet soul
which | am permitted to give you
that it is great impertnence in
| me TO say much when she is
| singing. And / want you TO know dis
tjnetly that these next lines of hers are as
| exactly true in all respects as her lines on
| the Colorado Desert. Her only little baby
| had gone away from her, cut from the one
| narrow room and away TO beyond the dark
i ness; but in the next narrow room, a
stronger woman nursed and rocked and
Graded her stronger child, and kept rock.
ing on her heart And so there and then
out Of the awful agony and desolaton, she
sang, as she sang only the other day from
the desert: