WATERFALL

By Laurin Edmond
Lesson Objectives
◦ Read about the poet’s biography
◦ AO2
◦ Understand the meanings of literary texts and their contexts, and explore texts beyond
◦ surface meanings to show deeper awareness of ideas and attitudes.

◦ AO3
◦ Recognise and appreciate ways in which writers use language, structure and form to create
◦ and shape meanings and effects.
Her Life
◦ Edmond, Lauris (1924– 2000), came to prominence as a
poet unusually late, her first volume being published when
she was 51. Twenty-three years later she was established as
one of the most significant, assured and accessible of
contemporary poetic voices, and as a widely read
autobiographer and commentator.
◦ Lauris got a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of
Waikato in 1968. Then, in 1971, she got a Master of Arts
degree with honors from Victoria University of
Wellington.In 1988, Lauris received an honorary Doctor of
Letters degree from Massey University.
◦ Between 1967 and 1969, Edmond worked as a teacher at
Huntly College in Waikato. In the early 1970's, to be more
precise, from 1970 till 1971, she held a post of a teacher
and lecturer at Heretaunga College.
◦ Lauris married Trevor Charles Edmond on May 16, 1945.
Their marriage produced six children - Virginia Anne,
Frances Elizabeth, Martin John, Rachel Mary, Stephanie
Jane and Katherine Lindsay. Rachel Mary committed
suicide in 1975. Lauris' only son, Martin, is a writer. Lauris
and her husband parted in the mid-1980's. However, she
continued to see him after their divorce and nursed him
until his death.
Waterfall
◦ In New Zealand poet Lauris Edmond's
"Waterfall," a speaker muses on the way
that time and aging shape love and
relationships. The poem suggests that
the inevitability of death instils the
present moment with its intensity and
passion, and that people experience the
preciousness of life and love more
intensely as they age. "Waterfall" first
appeared in Edmond's 1975 collection In
Middle Air.
 Summary
◦ The speaker insists that she's not asking to be young again or to slow down time: she knows that time, like
a river, flows only one way. Time absorbs her life like a river absorbs a beautiful waterfall—a waterfall in
which the speaker can see all the events of her life rushing past like shining drops of water, always
vanishing.
◦ Nor, the speaker goes on, does she want her beloved to be young again, or to feel the young love they
shared again—back when love felt like a dark, bittersweet-smelling forest, and still pools of water seemed
to hold their reflections frozen in time.
◦ These days, the speaker says, all she wants is to see the comfortable love she and her partner share in her
partner's alert, trusting eyes and his worn face, aged by years of thought and judgement. She wants to sit
down and have everyday conversations with her partner, not constantly think back on the past.
◦ But when the speaker's partner leaves the room (looking cheerful and energetic, not because he's young
and lively, but because he's making an effort), she feels sudden passionate love for him. She remembers
in those moments that the waterfall of life, no matter how beautiful it is, is always rushing past, hurrying on
toward the deep waters of death.
“Waterfall” Themes
◦ Time, Aging, and Love
◦ “Waterfall” is about the ways time and aging affect love and
relationships. Like a waterfall that plummets into a river below, the
speaker sees her life moving inevitably towards death. There is no
stopping this process, and the speaker accepts the fact she will thus
never again experience the lush excitement of young love. Instead,
she appreciates what she has now: a relationship that is wiser for its
years. Yet, sometimes this very knowledge of time’s passage moves
her to feel a sudden and surprising passion. In this way, the poem
suggests that knowing love will all soon be gone can make it all the
more precious.
Symbolism- Water
◦ In this poem, the speaker uses a waterfall to symbolize life itself and its inevitable
movement. She describes her life and everything in it as "the jewelled arc of the
waterfall," and sees it falling "fast, fast" into the river below. In other words, with the
perspective of age, she is coming to appreciate both the brevity and the beauty of life.
◦ The river that this waterfall feeds is also symbolic, representing "time's irreversible"
flow. In other words, just as a river flows only in one direction, so does a person's time
on earth. The river "takes" the waterfall just as time will eventually swallow the speaker's
life. The speaker says that when she and her loved one were younger, it seemed as if
the water would hold their "reflections / motionless, as if for ever." This speaks to the
way youth cannot understand the way time will shape and change their love. But water,
the speaker says, "falls fast / and only once to the dark pool below." As she gets older,
the speaker realizes how little time she's always had, that almost all of it is already gone,
and that there's no getting it back.
 Stanza one
◦ The poem begins with a metaphor: the speaker says she isn't asking to be young again, or to
"delay / [...] time's irreversible river." In other words, the speaker understands time as a river
that flows in only one direction: toward old age and, eventually, death.
◦ The waterfall itself is a metaphor for the speaker's own life: both breathtaking and fleeting. The
imagery of the waterfall's "jewelled arc" immediately suggests that there is a trajectory to the
speaker's life: a beginning, middle, and end to the speaker's life.
◦ The poem's structure mirrors this bright flow. For instance, the speaker's enjambment across
lines 1-3 (and throughout much of the poem) imitates the ceaseless movement of time's
metaphorical waters, which cannot be "delay[ed]" and which eventually claim each and every
life.
◦ And the musicality of the consonance and assonance in these lines ("in the rising of time's
irreversible river / that takes the jewelled arc of the waterfall") helps to emphasize the speaker's
understanding of life's fleeting beauty.
◦ Juxtaposition is created on the third line, ‘I glimpse, minute by glinting minute’. A
glimpse is a partial view of something contrasting against the fact she is looking for
minutes. There is also alliteration created from ‘glimpse’ and ‘glinting’.
◦ The last line of the first stanza uses a very interesting technique of repeating words for
extra emphasis one after the other, ‘sunlight lights‘ and ‘fast, fast falling’. She is making
clear how the sun crystallizes the water falling. The sunlight could be regarded as
happiness as both are associated with being bright and positive. So, it is happiness and
the joyous moments in life that make clear how ‘fast’ the water is falling from the waterfall
– time flies by when you are having fun.

◦ Alliteration is created from repeating words and also continues the theme of time. By
repeating the word continues the flow of the poem.
 Stanza two
◦ Lauris refers to love as a ‘green darkness’. She emphasizes how the love is dark by mentioning it
twice. However, why is love dark? Does Lauris not enjoy the love since representing the love as
dark makes it sound negative? As well as this, the choice of color for love gives an impression
of natural love.
◦ The comma after ‘motionless’ creates a pause moment – this pause makes the poem almost
come to a standstill: motionless, contrasting against the flow the poem has had up to them in
parallel to how time flows.

◦ Lauris talks about water holding their reflections ‘motionless, as if for ever’. This creates a strong
juxtaposition against everything else in the poem since before she has been talking about time
as an ‘irreversible river’ that cannot be stopped etc. But, her reflection is ‘motionless, as if
forever’ – her love for her partner was enough to overpower time and stop it or moments will
come and go but memories are timeless.
 Stanza Three
◦ In the third stanza, she comes back to the reality, of Lauris and Trevor being in a room. She
doesn’t want to relive the past but it will simply be ‘enough now’ for her and her lover to sit in
a room, and make ‘mild conversation’.
◦ The ‘face chastened by years’ suggests they are both old so it is a progressive poem that is in
chronological order. The fact the poem continues the same path parallel to time emphasizes
how time is all empowering and, to some extent, has control over the structure of this poem.

◦ Lauris mentions ‘eyes that are shred’ – it seems the love for each other has been tested over
the years and is a strained love if they have made judgment upon one another be it ‘careful’.
The fact that one can make ‘mild conversation, without nostalgia’ suggests both Lauris and
Trevor did not feel the same love that once felt for each other, but still appreciate each other
with ‘kindness’.
 Stanza 4
◦ The last stanza is brilliant. She describes that it is only when her partner leaves her that she loves him the
most – it is when she has not got her lover that she misses him most – a theme about taking things for
granted possibly considering up to this point, the love for Trevor has not bee that strong.

◦ Lauris then finishes the poem talking about the water from the waterfall reflecting on the cruel mistress
which is time, ‘falls fast and only once to the dark pool below’. The water is time and the ‘dark pool’ could
suggest death, that her lover has lived then has fallen victim to time and death.

◦ Her potential point to this is that no matter how beautiful and amazing her love for her partner is, it will
not overpower time like she thought the ‘motionless, as if forever’ memory would. Time is always in
power and will always mean everything will not last forever. When Trevor leaves her and dies, she loves
him the most because she knows he will never be able to come back and misses him most when gone.
 Enjambment
◦ A combination of enjambed and end-stopped ◦ Lines 11-12: “reflections /
lines sets the pace of the poem. motionless”
◦ Where enjambment appears in the poem: ◦ Lines 13-14: “room / and”
◦ Lines 1-2: “delay / in” ◦ Lines 14-15: “other / — calling”
◦ Lines 15-16: “shrewd / but”
◦ Lines 2-3: “river / that”
◦ Lines 16-17: “years / of”
◦ Lines 3-4: “waterfall / in”
◦ Lines 17-18: “afternoons / in”
◦ Lines 5-6: “losing / as” ◦ Lines 19-20: “jauntiness / sinewed”
◦ Lines 8-9: “darkness / where” ◦ Lines 20-21: “strength / — suddenly”
◦ Lines 9-10: “air / moss” ◦ Lines 21-22: “quick / intensity”
◦ Lines 10-11: “sweetness / and” ◦ Lines 23-24: “fast / and”
FORM RHYME SCHEME

◦ The poem is written in free verse, ◦ "Waterfall" does not use a rhyme
meaning that it doesn't follow any scheme. The lack of rhyme helps the
specific metrical pattern. The lines here poem to feel straightforward and
have a natural, free-flowing, intimate; the speaker doesn't sound like
conversational rhythm that mirrors the someone performing, but like someone
symbolic waterfall the speaker describes. who is speaking directly and honestly to
herself and to the person that she loves.

◦ However, the poem does order its