The Swannanoa Files - Poetic Inspiration

 

Millions upon millions had never heard of Swannanoa until this week. But images of catastrophe don’t tell the whole story. That river in the Land of the Sky has captivated many a soul. Given my curiosity about toponymy AND obscure 19th century Southern writers, I’ve gathered a trove of poems about place, and a handful inspired by the Swannanoa.

I.

The first of today’s selections is the best known of the five. The identity of the poet has been an ongoing source of confusion, if not mystery, which I will explain by the end of this page. The poem was anthologized starting in the 1850s and was a textbook staple for generations of Tar Heel school children.

SWANNANOA.

[This beautiful stream rises in the Black Mountains and after a rollicking rapid, laughing course of about 20 miles, buries its beautiful form in the French Broad, two miles south of Asheville.]

Swannanoa, nymph of beauty,

I would woo thee in my rhyme ;

Wildest, brightest, loveliest river,

Of our sunny, Southern clime!

Swannanoa, well they named thee

In the mellow Indian tongue

Beautiful - thou art most truly,

And right worthy to be sung.

Through the laurels and the beeches,

Bright thy silvery current shines,

Sleeping now in granite basins,

Overhung by trailing vines;

And, anon, careering onward,

In the maddest, frolic mood,

Waking, with its sea-like voices,

Fairy echoes in the wood.

Peaceful sleep thy narrow valleys,

In the shadow of the hills;

And thy flower-enameled border

All the air with fragrance fills.

Wild luxuriance-generous tillage

Here alternate meet the view;

Every turn throughout the windings

Still revealing something new.

\Vhere, oh! graceful Swannanoa,

Are the warriors who of old

Sought thee at thy mountain sources,

Where the springs are icy cold-

\Vhere the dark-browed Indian maidens,

Who their limbs were wont to lave,

(Worthy bath for fairer beauty)

In thy cool and limpid wave?

Gone forever from thy borders,

But immortal in thy name

Are the red men of the forest !

Be thou keeper of their fame !

Paler faces dwell beside thee Celt and Saxon till thy lands,

Wedding use into thy beauty Linking over thee their hands.



II.

A Sardonic Parody

One local paper acknowledged receipt of a barbed re-working of the popular poem:

March 31, 1887

"Nymph of Beauty"

A letter writer, evidently more used to mud than rocks, better trained to wade through sands than climb the mountains, worn out, hungry, and ill humored, thus slanders the Swannanoa in the following parody. The letter is addressed to the Wilmington Review, and the maid of the mountain is thus travestied;

Swannanoa, Swannanoa, flush and ugly,

I would curse thee in my rhyme;

Nastiest, muddiest little river

In our sunny, southern clime.

Swannanoa, well they named thee,

In the cursed Indian tongue;

Treacherous thou art, most truly,

And unworthy to be sung.

[The editor of the newspaper added:] But we have seen the beauty in unamiable moods, as it is the right of beauty to be.

III

Around the turn of the 20th century, a gentler versification came from the pen of Marie Batterham Lindesay, English born Asheville resident and prolific writer.

--

By the placid Swanannoa

Lived the red man years gone by,

Fished and hunted, smoked and slumbered,

Sheltered by the mountains high.

In his wigwam, by the streamlet,

Dwelt his squaw of dusky face,

Reared his young ones, lithe and active,

For the field and for the chase.

Little reck'd he of the rumors

Of another day to be,

Of a strange and wondrous pale-face

Coming o'er the mighty sea. 

Fished and hunted, smoked and slumbered,

While the river murmured on,

Careless as its peaceful waters,

Till his fleeting day was gone.

By the placid Swanannoa

Lives another race to-day:

Red man, wigwam, squaw, and papoose

Into silence passed away.


IV.

The next poet, Mary Finch (1907- 2002) grew up in the historic Chinquapin Lodge, Montreat, NC, not far from the Swannanoa.

Photo of Mary Martin cottage, “Chinquapin”, c. 1916– Presbyterian Heritage Center at Montreat, PO Box 207, Montreat, NC 28757. Caption by Dale Slusser.

The Swannanoa

I've seen the Hudson River

And the Schulkill wandering by

So turgidly, forever

Beneath a northern sky.

I've seen the Mississippi

That rolls with gathering might.

The fount of Aganippi

Is not a fairer sight.

And yet my thoughts are turning

To one clear lovely stream

That through the vales is churning

Its silver falls to cream.

It is the Swannanoa

That winsome water nymph.

It flows where the Rhodora

Flames from the mountain's rift.

O crystal spring of water,

O maiden in full bloom

O lovely mountain daughter

Sprung from the mountain's womb

O, give back Swannanoa

The joys of yesterday

That wrought a mystic aura

About your winding way.

And not the Mississippi

In all its wild career

Nor fount of Aganippi

Can ever be your peer.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes


And for a splendid article on the architecture of the rustic Montreat cottages:

https://psabc.org/renewal-respite-and-the-rustic-style-the-early-cottages-and-cottagers-of-montreat/

V.


The authorship of today's first selection, Swannanoa (Nymph of Beauty) is a point of confusion, often ascribed to the respective editors of various poetry collections and textbooks. But that’s incorrect. I did follow one lead where the poet was described as a “gentleman from Charleston.” William Gilmore Simms  (1806-1870) seemed a likely candidate.  Simms was a novelist, poet and editor, famed for his role with the Southern Literary Messenger. I was almost on target with that guess.  The poet was actually Daniel Harrison Jacques (1825-1877) an aide and associate to Simms.  Jacques wrote numerous works that could be described as homesteading how-to  and self-help books, but his best known creation was that poem about the Swannanoa.  

Simms made his own contribution to the Swannanoa canon, albeit with a different spelling:

By the Swanannoa

by William Gilmore Simms

Is it not lovely, while the day flows on

Like some unnoticed water through the vale,

Sun-sprinkled, — and, across the fields, a gale,

Ausonian, murmurs out an idle tale,

Of groves deserted late, but lately won?

How calm the silent mountains, that, around,

Bend their blue summits, as if group'd to hear

Some high ambassador from foreign ground, —

To hearken, and, most probably, confound!

While, leaping onward, with a voice of cheer,

Glad as some schoolboy ever on the bound,

The lively Swanannoa sparkles near; —

A flash and murmur mark him as he roves,

Now foaming white o'er rocks, now glimpsing soft through groves.