The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems | Page 2

by the chiefs, in dealing out mini wakan (Devil-water) to the Dakota braves.
With open arms and generous hospitality they welcomed the first white men to their land, and were ever faithful in their friendship, till years of wrong and robbery, and want and insult, drove them to desperation and to war. They were barbarians, and their warfare was barbarous, but not more barbarous than the warfare of our Saxon, Celtic and Norman ancestors. They were ignorant and superstitious. Their condition closely resembled the condition of our British forefathers at the beginning of the Christian era. Macaulay says of Britain: "Her inhabitants, when first they became known to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the natives of the Sandwich Islands." And again: "While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Aries and Ravenna listened with reverence to the instructions of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touching the Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden."
The days of the Dakotas are done. The degenerate remnants of that once powerful and warlike people still linger around the forts and agencies of the Northwest, or chase the caribou and the elk on the banks of the Saskatchewan, but the Dakotas of old are no more. The brilliant defeat of Custer, by Sitting Bull and his braves, was their last grand rally against the resistless march of the sons of the Saxons. The plow-shares of a superior race are fast leveling the sacred mounds of their dead. But yesterday, the shores of our lakes and our rivers were dotted with their teepees, their light canoes glided over our waters, and their hunters chased the deer and the buffalo on the sites of our cities. To-day, they are not. Let us do justice to their memory, for there was much that was noble in their natures.
In the Dakota Legends, I have endeavored to faithfully present many of the customs and superstitions, and some of the traditions, of that people. I have taken very little 'poetic license' with their traditions; none, whatever, with their customs and superstitions. In my studies for these Legends I was greatly aided by the Rev. S.R. Riggs, author of the "Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language" "Tah-Koo Wah-Kan," &c., and for many years a missionary among the Dakotas. He patiently answered my numerous inquiries and gave me valuable information. I am also indebted to the late Gen. H.H. Sibley, one of the earliest American traders among them, and to Rev. S.W. Pond, of Shakopee, one of the first Protestant missionaries to these people, and himself the author of poetical versions of some of their principal legends; to Mrs. Eastman's "Dacotah," and last, but not least, to the Rev. E.D. Neill, whose admirable "History of Minnesota" so fully and faithfully presents almost all that is known of the history, traditions, customs, manners and superstitions of the Dakotas.
In Winona I have "tried my hand" on a new hexameter verse. With what success, I leave to those who are better able to judge than I. If I have failed, I have but added another failure to the numerous attempts to naturalize hexameter verse in the English language.
It will be observed that I have slightly changed the length and the rhythm of the old hexameter line; but it is still hexameter, and, I think, improved.
I have not written for profit nor published for fame. Fame is a coy goddess that rarely bestows her favors on him who seeks her--a phantom that many pursue and but few overtake.
She delights to hover for a time, like a ghost, over the graves of dead men who know not and care not: to the living she is a veritable _Ignis Fatuus_. But every man owes something to his fellowmen, and I owe much.
If my friends find half the pleasure in reading these poems that I have found in writing them, I shall have paid my debt and achieved success.
H.L. GORDON.
Minneapolis, November 1, 1891.
PRELUDE
THE MISSISSIPPI
The numerals refer to Notes in appendix.
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