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The Black Hawk War of the Artists

by Vachel Lindsay

Written for Lorado Taft's Statue of Black Hawk at Oregon, Illinois

To be given in the manner of the Indian Oration and the Indian War-Cry.

Hawk of the Rocks,

Yours is our cause to-day.

Watching your foes

Here in our war array,

Young men we stand,

Wolves of the West at bay.

Power, power for war

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!

Power to restore

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 pines,

Hawk of the plain-winds fleet,

You shall be king

There in the iron street,

Factory and forge

Trodden beneath your feet.

There will proud trees

Grow as they grow by streams.

There will proud thoughts

Walk as in warrior dreams.

There will proud deeds

Bloom as when battle gleams!

Warriors of Art,

We will hold council there,

Hewing in stone

Things to the trapper fair,

Painting the gray

Veils that the spring moons wear,

This our revenge,

This one tremendous change:

Making new towns,

Lit with a star-fire strange,

Wild as the dawn

Gilding the bison-range.

All the young men

Chanting your cause that day,

Red-men, new-made

Out of the Saxon clay,

Strong and redeemed,

Bold in your war-array!