The Voice of the Valley/Introduction
Ever since my first visit to the Yosemite Valley, nearly thirty years ago, I have believed that no verbal description can give the reader an adequate idea of its marvelous and manifold features; that the ordinary forms of verse cannot compass it; that at most the poet can only suggest; and that, after all, the mere suggestion is sufficient—the imagination supplying what is lacking in form, color, and detail. But the suggestion must be offered by one singularly gifted, and possessed of a temperament as picturesque, as variable, as unique as the Valley itself.
He must also be a word-builder, if he would conjure the echoes from that valley of the shadow, where heaven and earth meet, where there is no horizon save the cloud-rack and the storm.
When I heard that Yone Noguchi was in the Yosemite with his exalted muse, it seemed to me that this unconventional child of nature, this boy whose heart and soul lie naked and bare, must strike a chord that all the voices of nature shall respond to—and for these reasons:—
Noguchi is a word-builder of startling originality and power; inspired by the charming audacity of innocence, he is unfaltering in his flights; the sensuous imagination of the Oriental has lost nothing of its fire and splendor, though the new medium of expression is the most literal English that ever was uttered: his lines are charged with primitive eloquence; his is the spontaneous song of a heart that is overflowing with melody—of a soul that would set all the world to music. There are passages in his poems as lofty and abrupt as the precipitous walls of the Valley he adores; there are shadows, also, where the imagery is vague—as imagery should be where overshadowed; there are heights dazzling with frost and sunshine; and over all is the fathomless and alluring sky, into which he soars like that aspiring soul of song that rests not this side the Gate of Heaven.
If he is sometimes obscure, it is because he has flown into cloud-land, where obscurity is a virtue; haunted by a memory of Yosemite, an occasional extravagance is surely permissible.
With the passionate enthusiasm of youth, this unspoiled poet has fluttered the eagles on their star-crowned peaks, and I glory in the almost frenzied daring with which he has chanted The Song of Songs which is Noguchi's!
Chas. Warren Stoddard.
St. Anthony's Rest,
The Bungalow,
No. 300 M Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.