Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE EAGLE RIDE; OR, SEE FIRST THY NATIVE LAND, by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE EAGLE RIDE; OR, SEE FIRST THY NATIVE LAND, by                    
First Line: The bell tolled 'ten'; then sang 'eleven' in glee
Last Line: "see first of all thy native land."
Subject(s): Mount Hood, Oregon; Native Americans - Reservations; Tourists; Travel; West (u.s.); Yellowstone National Park; Journeys; Trips; Southwest; Pacific States


"The eye may well be glad that looks
Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall,
But he who sees his native brooks
Laugh in the sun has seen them all."

I

The bell tolled "Ten"; then sang "Eleven" in glee
And yet I mused. Then rising restlessly
I gazed across the 'luring moonlit sea
Where siren voices ever call.
I held a "Tourist Guide" from lands afar,
Adorned with Alpine staff and jaunting car—
"I'll see earth's wonderland," I told a star,
"From Hammerfest to Aspinwall."

II

The "Wanderlust" still gnawing at my mind,
Upon my couch I carelessly reclined
And slept. But suddenly a bird unkind,
More weird than ever haunted Poe,
With flapping wing, against the window pressed—
Then bursting through, the wild, uncanny guest
Drew near, "Old Glory" floating from his crest,
His tawny feathers flecked with snow.

III

Erect, defiant, like an outraged king
He stood, as if a challenge he would bring,
And execute with cruel threat'ning wing,
Rude blood-stained claws and Roman beak.
His eye like liquid fire upon me gleamed,
And with the same imperial pose he screamed,
"See first thy native land," while proudly streamed
His banner with those words in Greek.

IV

One "solar plexus" then I seemed to be—
The earth spun round with such rapidity
That Stars and Stripes was all that I could see.
But, lo! at length I seemed to glide
Far inland from my cot beside the main,
O'er seas of evergreen, till from the plain
I saw Multnomah's cascades leap in vain
And tumble in Columbia's tide.

V

But towering specter-like above the scene,
Her glacier fields the earth and heaven between,
We spied Mount Hood, enthroned as Western Queen,
And near her stood her waiting maids,
The Sisters Three, all sweet in gowns of white.
But northward now my escort took his flight
Above Bach's fabled "Bridge"—uncanny sight
Of wild romance and Indian shades.

VI

Soon Puget's waters in the moonlight glare—
A sea ensnarled among the mountains there,
It lay a-dreaming of the Yukon Fair,
Earth's Mecca for the coming hour—
A world of beauty cast in magic mold!
Arena for the races young and old,
Where Eastern gem shall vie with Western gold
For world supremacy and power!

VII

The pale Olympics caught Boreas' beam,
And like a line of turbaned gods, they seem
To throw this legend on the night's wild dream:
"See fair Columbia first of all."
Soon Walla Walla's waving wheat I saw,
Then Yellowstone's enchanted ground, in awe
I viewed, and heard earth's hungry, hissing maw
Belch forth Plutonian rage, and fall.

VIII

Old Faithful played "America," I know,
And e'en the bear and elk and buffalo
All seemed to snort their protest, ere I go
Abroad in search of scenery.
And burnt in living letters on the flag
That backward bent like horns of flying stag,
And echoing from the beetling mountain crag
And borne by blizzards to the sea,

IX

I heard the same imperious command:
"See first—see first—thine own—thy native land"!
It rose and rolled like some celestial band
O'er inland seas and sweeping plain—
O'er Northern pines, and sighing cypress trees
Where freedmen chanted it upon the breeze,
Till old Niag'ra, striking all her keys,
Roared forth the same sublime refrain.

X

Above this liquid tempest, wheeling wild,
My wingèd steed disported like a child
And shrieked: "Can Rhine or Rhone, or Poe so mild
Exhibit one Niag'ra Falls?"
But eastward blown by some tremendous gust,
We looked on marble pile and noble bust
Where stately elms weep over Concord's dust—
Our own Westminster's classic halls.

XI

With southward sweep o'er many a hero's tomb,
We caught the breath of "Sweet Magnolias' bloom,"
And saw the Everglades awake from gloom
To burnish bright their southern star.
But seized by restless romance of the West,
O'er Houston's far-flung plains he pushed his breast—
Before "The Holy Cross" he bowed his crest,
And lightnings flashed the scene afar.

XII

Old "Eagle City" first his homage drew,
Then "Garden of the Gods" and "Manitou,"
And up the spiral road of Pike he flew—
That conquered monarch of the air—
And thrilled by kindred taste in building homes,
He flapped his pinions o'er the cliff-built domes
Where Toltec tribes have left their sphinxine gnomes
To guard their ancient glory there.

XIII

Low swooping where the Colorado curled,
With dipping wing, a hundred leagues he whirled
Adown the one great canyon of the world.
My heart was wild with native pride!
Six thousand feet below the wond'ring sky!
Six thousand feet of terraces on high!
As if by Titans plowed in years gone by,
The earth's bare breast lay open wide.

XIV

But soon "The City of the Angels" shone—
Where nature, art, and gold conspire in one
To fuse the fairest gem the world has known—
One wilderness of wealth and flowers.
The Golden Gate still guarded bay and brine,
Her goddess radiant from her vulcan shrine,
And over orange grove and mead and mine
We swept, where King Sequoi towers.

XV

Past wild Yosemite's gorge my bird sped on—
Old Shasta, like a white mirage was gone,
And Crater Lake lay smiling at the dawn
That crept across volcanic sand.
I next expected Yukon's golden shore,
But heard fair Bandon's breakers roar
And mingle with a parting cry above my door—
"See first of all thy native land."





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