Paradise Valley -- Noah White

He was known by the musical composer who added the notes, but there’s not any more known about a poet named Noah White than that one fact. Noah’s poetry was so compelling in “Paradise Valley” that one can imagine Virgil Stamps was pretty eager to add the music and make a memorable keepsake for themselves and future generations. Perhaps its most striking feature is the imagery the poem paints. (Maybe you might get a mental image something like this 1620 creation by Jan Bruegel, shown here.) Did that spur Stamps’ musical imagination, as he paired notes with the words that Noah provided? The paradise that was on Noah’s mind had beautiful, growing, and fragrant details that quickened his pace. Virgil Stamps has us practically skipping with exuberance in the accompanying music. See if you don’t feel upbeat and eager to find this place that Noah and Virgil describe!

Since no details of Noah White are known, we can surmise that “Paradise Valley” may have been one of a very few works – perhaps the only one – attributed to him. Published with words and music in 1935, Noah White’s and Virgil Stamps’ creation is a winner, perhaps the only one on which they collaborated. The association of what might otherwise have been a forgotten poem by Noah White with Virgil Stamps’ music was fortuitous, making its preservation more likely. Stamps had formed a music company in the 1920s and was soon joined by J.R. Baxter, Jr., creating one of the most well-known and successful hymn-publishing enterprises. Stamps-Baxter was well-established by the mid-1930s, when the author of “Paradise Valley” and Virgil Stamps must have decided to team up and conceive this buoyant picture of eternity. Noah wanted to ‘give cheer’ (v.1) to those who were downbeat about life, and he spends the following two verses describing what most of us probably think of when we imagine paradise – a garden, perhaps not unlike the original Eden. Beautiful fruit trees, flowers, a bubbling brook, all signs of life in a most bucolic and satisfying place that God wants us to inherit. It may sound restful, but Noah and Virgil were anything but content with a leisurely pace in their paradise. They want to bounce toward their destination, perhaps doing cartwheels! Get the picture?

Perhaps Noah and Virgil were reading the front and back ends of their bibles (Genesis and Revelation), where trees, rivers, and fruit are present to remind us of Him who creates. Is being in His presence, even if it’s in a place designed for eternal rest, made just for relaxation? It seems that the creative pair of White and Stamps looked at each other and answered ‘No!’ After all, it’s a ‘river of life’ in the paradise valley that these two thought provided nourishment for its inhabitants; this river and the valley through which it runs don’t put them to sleep, but rather stimulate their senses. Try singing what Noah and Virgil thought about paradise and see if you feel the same.   

See here for biography of the musical composer: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/t/a/stamps_vo.htm

See information here regarding the music company of the composer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamps-Baxter_Music_Company