Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
The Black Hawk War of the ArtistsVachel Lindsay
Written for Lorado Taft’s statue of Black Hawk at Oregon, Illinois.
H
Yours is our cause today.
Watching your foes
Here in our war array,
Young men we stand,
Wolves of the West at bay.
Comes from these trees divine;
Power from the boughs,
Boughs where the dew-beads shine,
Power from the cones—
Yea, from the breath of the pine!
All that the white hand mars.
See the dead east
Crushed with the iron cars—
Chimneys black
Blinding the sun and stars!
Hawk of the plain-winds fleet,
You shall be king
There in the iron street,
Factory and forge
Trodden beneath your feet.
Grow as they grow by streams.
There will proud thoughts
Walk as in warrior dreams.
There will proud deeds
Bloom as when battle gleams!
We will hold council there,
Hewing in stone
Things to the trapper fair,
Painting the gray
Veils that the spring moons wear.
This one tremendous change:
Making new towns,
Lit with a star-fire strange,
Wild as the dawn
Gilding the bison-range.
Chanting your cause that day,
Red-men, new-made
Out of the Saxon clay,
Strong and redeemed,
Bold in your war-array.
Comes from these trees divine;
Power from the boughs
Boughs where the dew-beads shine;
Power from the cones,
Yea, from the breath of the pine!