Vintage Colorado Poetry Poem of the Week July 12, 2004
	Virginia Donaghe McClurg moved to Colorado Springs in 1877. She died 1931. An ardent preservationist of the Mesa Verde ruins, Mrs. McClurg is remembered in Marshall Sprague's Newport in the Rockies for her lost battle with  Manitou Springs speculators who allegedly raided the ruins, returning with wagon loads of artifacts -- today's Manitou Cliff Dwellings, which first opened 1907. The Denver Land Office ruled that Manitou's artifacts had been found on  private land. For present tastes, "The Yucca" is overwritten; just the same, it has its merits for detail and imagery.
								Photos:  Andrew M. Hemesath
	The Yucca      "The long blade-like leaves are stiff and pointed as rapiers.  From the centre of this 'chevaux de frise' rise the flower spikes set thick with creamy white cups." -- Helen Hunt Jackson        With bristling, horrent front, like men-at-arms,           The tall, stiff lances of yucca rise,      While twice the fleeting summer comes and dies ;           Twice winter the sere wold with snow embalms,      Ere the thorn-pointed spears secure from harms           A green-white shaft of blossoms, a rare prize,      A lone, proud queen in state, whose guard denies           To lovers all, her gleaming, waxen charms.      They called the flower the bayonet of Spain ---           A thought of knighthood, holding poised the lance      Of errant chivalry upon the plain,           To guard a hapless fair one from mischance ---      Valor and Beauty side by side again ;           One to defend --- the other to entrance.                                         Virginia Donaghe McClurg        From A Colorado Wreath by Virginia Donaghe McClurg, Colorado Springs, 1899. Home Table of Contents