Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-06

TNHERE are scenes so rich in color, so
l. flooded with sunlight, that the hand
hardly knows how to set them down.
They seem to yearn for expression in what
is called poetry, yet one fears to submit
them to the bending and twisting of rhyme.
For when one embarks on the ecstatic
search for words in tune with one another
he may find bright and jovial cadences, but
rarely does he say just what was in his
heart. How, then, may one order the mys-
terious mechanism that gears brain with
forefinger so that the least possible color
and contour be lost in transmission?
THE other day l rowed up Neshaminy
l. Creek. Every one, l suppose knows it:
a bright little river seventeen miles or so
from Philadelphia, STRIPPING of the great
hearted Delaware. Its wooded and meaded
banks are a favored pleasuring ground
for pavement-keeping souls, who set up
tent there in the summertime and cruise
those innocent waters in canoes. 1t Is
a happy stream beloved of picnic parties
Millions of hard boiled eggs and ice cream
cones have perished in the grove above
the DAM and long avenue of stately
poplar trees has grown up to commemo
rate them. The pcnicking point is known
as Neshaminy Falls, though the. falling
is done mostly by high-spirited fiappers on
the entertaining toboggan chute. down
which they launch themselves in cheer
ing line The river falls tamey enough
over small dam; Niagaras prestige is
nowhere menaced.
a.
L poration doing bustling traffic at the
little plank landing stage. The chief navi-
eating officer was toting a roll of bills
larger than I can face with comfort. From
him one hires a vessel of sorts, propelled
by bright red oars, and then one sets forth
up the stream. Most of the voyagers are
content after passing the island, for the
current though sluggish, is persistent.
But it is well to keep on. Neshaminy
shows her rarest charms to those who WOO
her stoutly.
ABOVE the island there is long strip
n of thick woodland on both banks The
treetops, rising steeply into the bright
air, keep tossing and trembling in the wind
but the stream itself is entirely still. Along
| the bank, where the great beached trunks
climb out of the water, there hangs the
peculiar moist earthly pungent smell of a
river that runs among woods. Every
| fresh-water bather must know that smell.
| 1t has in it dim taint as of decay, a sense
| of rotting vegetation. Yet it is a clean
| odor and a cool one. 1t is smell particu-
larly dear to me, for it recalls to my eager
nostril the exact scent of the old bathing
| place on the Cherwell at oxford, quantity
| known as Parsons Pleasure. How vividly
| remember that moist, cool corner of turf,
| the afternoon sunlight stabbing it with
slanting arrows of gold, the enigmatic
old Walt Whitman (called Cox handing
out damp towels from his dingy hutch and
the clean white bodies poised against green
willows! Would it hurt Neshaminy's feel
ings If l were to confess that the poign-
ance of its appeal TO me was partly due to
its kinship with the oxford Cher?
| A LITTLE farther up, the creek has the
"A good sense to throw off its mantle OF
woods. Wide meadows come to the waters
edge hills of a friendly sort are folded
down about it, showing a bare line. OF
upland against the sky. clean line OF
hill against the emptiness Of blue is q