Hanford Lennox Gordon

Read at the Celebration of the Old Settlers of Hennepin County, at the Academy of Music, Minneapolis, July 4, 1879.


On the Spirit-Island [CH] sitting under midnight's misty moon,
Lo I see the spirits flitting o'er the waters one by one!
Slumber wraps the silent city, and the droning mills are dumb;
One lone whippowil's shrill ditty calls her mate that ne'er will    come.
Sadly moans the mighty river, foaming down the fettered falls,
Where of old he thundered ever o'er abrupt and lofty walls.
Great Unktéhee god of waters lifts no more his mighty head;
Fled he with the timid otters? lies he in the cavern dead?
Hark! the waters hush their sighing and the whippowil her call,
Through the moon-lit mists are flying dusky shadows silent all.
Lo from out the water...

"What hear I at the gateway ringing?
What bard upon the drawbridge singing?
Go bid him to repeat his song
Here, in the hall amid the throng,"
The monarch cried;
The little page hied;
As back he sped,
The monarch said
"Bring in the gray-haired minstrel."

"I greet you, noble lords and peers;
I greet you, lovely dames.
O heaven begemmed with golden spheres!
Who knows your noble names?
In hall of splendor so sublime,
Close ye, mine eyes 'tis not the time
To gaze in idle wonder."

The gray-haired minstrel closed his eyes;
He struck his wildest air;
Brave faces glowed like sunset skies;
Cast down their eyes the fair.
The king well pleased with the minstrel's song,
Sent the little page through the wondering throng
A chain of g...

Onward rolls the Royal River, proudly sweeping to the sea,
Dark and deep and grand, forever wrapt in myth and mystery.
Lo he laughs along the highlands, leaping o'er the granite walls;
Lo he sleeps among the islands, where the loon her lover calls.
Still like some huge monster winding downward through the prairied plains,
Seeking rest but never finding, till the tropic gulf he gains.
In his mighty arms he claspeth now an empire broad and grand;
In his left hand lo he graspeth leagues of fen and forest land;
In his right the mighty mountains, hoary with eternal snow,
Where a thousand foaming fountains singing seek the plains below.
Fields of corn and feet of cities lo the mighty river laves,
Where the Saxon sings his ditties o'er the swarthy warriors' graves.

Aye, before the...

Have ye heard of Fort Donelson's desperate fight,
Where the giant Northwest bared his arm for the right,
Where thousands so bravely went down in the slaughter,
And the blood of the West ran as freely as water;
Where the Rebel Flag fell and our banner arose
O'er an army of captured and suppliant foes?
Lo torn by the shot and begrimed by the powder,
The Old Flag is waving there prouder and prouder.

Heard ye of Shiloh, where fierce Beauregard
O'erwhelmed us with numbers and pressed us so hard,
Till our veteran supporters came up to our aid
And the tide of defeat and disaster was staid
Where like grain-sheaves the slaughtered were piled on the plain
And the brave rebel Johnston went down with the slain?
Lo torn by the shot and begrimed by the powder,
The Old Flag...

When Mollie and I were married from the dear old cottage-home,
In the vale between the hills of fir and pine,
I parted with a sigh in a stranger-land to roam,
And to seek a western home for me and mine.

By a grove-encircled lake in the wild and prairied West,
As the sun was sinking down one summer day,
I laid my knapsack down and my weary limbs to rest,
And resolved to build a cottage-home and stay.

I staked and marked my "corners," and I "filed" upon my claim,
And I built a cottage-home of "logs and shakes;"
And then I wrote a letter, and Mollie and baby came
Out to bless me and to bake my johnny-cakes.

When Mollie saw my "cottage" and the way that I had "bached",
She smiled, but I could see that she was "blue;"
Then she found my "Sunday-clothes" all ...

The day of truth is dawning. I behold
O'er darksome hills the trailing robes of gold
And silent footsteps of the gladsome dawn.
The morning breaks by sages long foretold;
Truth comes to set upon the world her throne.
Men lift their foreheads to the rising sun,
And lo the reign of Reason is begun.
Fantastic phantasms fly before the light
Pale, gibbering ghosts and ghouls and goblin fears:
Man who hath walked in sleep what thousands years?
Groping among the shadows of the night,
Moon-struck and in a weird somnambulism,
Mumbling some cunning cant or catechism,
Thrilled by the electric magic of the skies
Sun-touched by Truth awakes and rubs his eyes.

Old Superstition, mother of cruel creeds,
O'er all the earth hath sown her dragon-teeth.
Lo centuries on...

Monarch of Hannah's rocking-chair,
With unclipped beard and unkempt hair,
Sitting at ease by the kitchen fire,
Nor heeding the wind and the driving sleet,
Jo Lumpkin perused the Daily Liar
A leading and stanch Democratic sheet,
While Hannah, his wife, in her calico,
Sat knitting a pair of mittens for Jo.

"Hanner," he said, and he raised his eyes
And looked exceedingly grave and wise,
"The kentry's agoin, I guess, tu the dogs:
Them durned Republikins, they air hogs:
A dev'lish purty fix we air in;
They've gone un riz the teriff on tin."

"How's thet?" said Hannah, and turned her eyes
With a look of wonder and vague surprise.

"Why them confoundered Congriss chaps
Hez knocked the prices out uv our craps:
We can't sell butter ner ...

Lo the lights in the "Teepee-Wákan!"
'tis the night of the Wákan Wacépee.
Round and round walks the chief of the clan,
as he rattles the sacred Ta-shá-kay; [81]
Long and loud on the Chán-che-ga [81]
beat the drummers with magical drumsticks,
And the notes of the Chô-tánka [81]
greet like the murmur of winds on the waters.
By the friction of white-cedar wood
for the feast was a Virgin-fire [20] kindled.
They that enter the firm brotherhood
first must fast and be cleansed by E-neé-pee;[81]
And from foot-sole to crown of the head
must they paint with the favorite colors;
For Unktéhee likes bands of blood-red,
with the stripings of blue intermingled.
In the holl...

O Mollie, I would I possessed such a heart;
It enchants me so gentle and true;
I would I possessed all its magical art,
Then, Mollie, I would enchant you.

Those dear, rosy lips tho' I never caressed them(?)
Are as sweet as the wild honey-dew;
Your cheeks all the angels in Heaven have blessed them,
But not one is as lovely as you.

Then give me that heart, O that innocent heart!
For mine own is cold and perdu;
It enchants me, but give me its magical art,
Then, Mollie, I will enchant you.

I know thou art true, and I know thou art fair
As the rose-bud that blooms in thy beautiful hair;
Thou art far, but I feel the warm throb of thy heart;
Thou art far, but I love thee wherever thou art.

Wherever at noontide my spirit may be,
At evening it silently wanders to thee;
It seeks thee, my dear one, for comfort and rest,
As the weary-winged dove seeks at night-fall her nest.

Through the battle of life through its sorrow and care
Till the mortal sink down with its load of despair,
Till we meet at the feet of the Father and Son,
I'll love thee and cherish thee, beautiful one.

I am growing old and weary
Ere yet my locks are gray;
Before me lies eternity,
Behind me but a day.
How fast the years are vanishing!
They melt like April snow:
It seems to me but yesterday
Twenty years ago.

There's the school-house on the hill-side,
And the romping scholars all;
Where we used to con our daily tasks,
And play our games of ball.
They rise to me in visions
In sunny dreams and ho'
I sport among the boys and girls
Twenty years ago.

We played at ball in summer time
We boys with hearty will;
With merry shouts in winter time
We coasted on the hill.
We would choose our chiefs, divide in bands,
And build our forts of snow,
And storm those forts right gallantly
Twenty years ago.

Last year in June...

When madly raged religious war
O'er all the Magyar land
And royal archer and hussar
Met foemen hand to hand,
A princess fair in castle strong
The royal troops defied
And bravely held her fortress long
Though help was all denied.

Princess Maria was her name
Brave daughter nobly sired;
She caught her father's trusty sword
When bleeding he expired,
And bravely rallied warders all
To meet the storming foe,
And hurled them from the rampart-wall
Upon the crags below.

Prince Casimir her father built
Murana high and wide;
It sat among the mountain cliffs
The Magyars' boast and pride.
Bold Wesselenyi stalwart knight,
Young, famed and wondrous fair,
With a thousand men besieged the height,
And led the bravest there.

'Tis the moon of the sere, falling leaves.
From the heads of the maples the west-wind
Plucks the red-and-gold plumage and grieves
on the meads for the rose and the lily;
Their brown leaves the moaning oaks strew,
and the breezes that roam on the prairies,
Low-whistling and wanton pursue
the down of the silk-weed and thistle.
All sere are the prairies and brown
in the glimmer and haze of the Autumn;
From the far northern marshes flock down,
by thousands, the geese and the mallards.
From the meadows and wide-prairied plains,
for their long southward journey preparing.
In croaking flocks gather the cranes,
and choose with loud clamor their leaders.
The breath of the evening is cold,
and lurid along the horizon
The flames of the prairies are rolled,

'Twas sunrise; the spirits of mist
trailed their white robes on dewy savannas,
And the flowers raised their heads to be kissed
by the first golden beams of the morning.
The breeze was abroad with the breath
of the rose of the Isles of the Summer,
And the humming-bird hummed on the heath
from his home in the land of the rainbow.[AI]
'Twas the morn of departure. DuLuth
stood alone by the roar of the Ha-ha;
Tall and fair in the strength of his youth
stood the blue-eyed and fair-bearded Frenchman.
A rustle of robes on the grass broke his dream
as he mused by the waters,
And, turning, he looked on the face of Winona,
wild-rose of the prairies,
Half hid in her dark, flowing hair,
like the round, golden moon in the pine-tops.
Admiring he g...