Poetry from a 1940s Lyons teacher
Poets, authors, musicians, and artists have long been a part of Lyons’ history. Among the collection of books and artwork at the Lyons Redstone Museum is a slim volume of poetry by Evelyn V. Moore. Evelyn was involved in a number of civic groups in Lyons, including the Women’s Club and the Gardening Club. Evelyn painted as a hobby and was a member of the Longmont Artists Guild; several of her paintings are on display in the Lyons Redstone Museum.
In 1952 she published a book of poetry titled Verses from Colorado. The book, with its paper cover and individually hand colored Columbine flowers, contains eight poems extolling the virtues of living in Colorado.
Born in Beaver City, Nebraska in 1885, Evelyn graduated from the University of Colorado in 1907 with a teaching degree. In 1911 she received a master’s degree in biology. She was the head of the Biology Department at Boulder High School for 13 years. In 1942, Evelyn moved to Lyons, living at 218 High Street, and began teaching science at Lyons High School. She retired from teaching in 1948. She died at the age of 77 in 1962 and is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Longmont.
Here is one of Evelyn’s lyrical and painterly entries from Verses from Colorado.
A Song of the Mountains
Come, sing me a song of the far purple mountains
With their ice-peaks against the sky;
O, tell me tale of the wild Rocky Mountains
And their snow fields that never die!
Forget not the moorland, forget not the meadow,
Remember the path through the grove,
And sing of the fountains deep hid in the forest,
And the hillsides where oreads rove.
Ah, some may in eloquence sing of the prairie
With its billows of golden grain,
And others be warm in their praise of the ocean,
The river, the lakeside, or plain.
But give me the mountains! The high, rugged mountains,
With their pines, and their storms, and the war
Of the wind through the branches of wild singing treetops
And the tumult of cataracts’ roar!
O, give me the lakes of the stern alpine regions
With their rocky and rain beaten shore,
And give me the flowers from the edge of the snowdrifts
That clamber the precipice o’er!
Come, sing me a song of the far purple mountains
With their ice-peaks that cut the sky,
O, tell me a tale of the wild Rocky Mountains
And their snowfields that never die!
