Classic Poem

TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION

There's a legend in Britain a thousand years old,
That King Arthur will come to his kingdom again,
To form a pure knighthood of Galahads bold,
And restore the Round-table once more among men;
That his spirit still hovers o'er land and o'er sea
In the guise of an eagle unfettered and free.

Through sunshine and tempest he keepeth his way;
Over cities and deserts his wanderings range;
While minsters and castles have gone to decay,
And England has witnessed vast cycles of change.
The years have grown dim, but the prophecy waits
For the eagle to perch upon Camelot's gates.

You smile at the story, yon call it absurd —
A tale that a mother might sing to her babe —
But what shall we say of Wisconsin's proud bird,
The Badger State eagle — yeleped " Old Abe? "
Why laugh at the legend of Albion's youth,
When stranger than legend or fiction is truth?

We live among wonders, and ask not the why.
God speaks in the present as well as the past;
The pillar of fire still flames in the sky,
For the Cromwells and Zwingles that triumph at last;
The stars in their courses still fight in the van
Of freedom and progress, the triumph of man.

When the fair Southern sky grew black, and the storm
Of dissension and strife its swift thunder-bolts hurled;
When the words of Calhoun took on logical form,
And the stars faded out from our banner unfurled —
Say, whose was the spirit embodied in thee,
" Old Abe " of Wisconsin, proud bird of the free?

I answer: A hero whose soul never swerved
From honesty, liberty, duty, and right;
Who knew but one creed — a Union preserved,
Enduring forever in glory and might;
I answer, with reason, that Eagle might be
The spirit of Jackson from old Tennessee.

For the fathers who nurtured Columbia's life,
And watched o'er the cradle when freedom was born,
In the darkness and clamor of envy and strife,
When realms o'er the sea pointed fingers of scorn,
Like the angels of Judah, our leaders inspired,
And the heart of the soldier with liberty fired.

Ay, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, and Rutledges came
To the senates and councils their children had spurned;
Took the old vacant seats, though called not by name,
And their pale, phantom cheeks with strange ecstasy burned;
Their presence helped mould the great national will,
Until Washington's hand steadied Abraham's quill.

Then the chief of New Orleans no longer could rest —
Devoted to country, and true to the core —
But came as an eagle — Wisconsin's own guest —
And " By the Eternal " Old Hickory swore;
The Father of Waters shall cease flowing south,
Or acknowledge one flag from its source to its mouth.

The record unfolds with its chronicle strange,
Too weird for belief, yet with every line true;
No annal like this through all history's range —
The warp and the woof of the story are new.
Who guesses the riddle? Ah, Jackson enshrined
Is the only solution the nation can find.

You remember at Corinth the eagle on high,
Careening and circling in sulphurous smoke,
When the Minie-balls followed his flight to the sky,
To the hour when the rebels retreated and broke,
How his notes stirred the hearts of our glorious band,
And his wing led to triumph that thrilled all the land.

We have heard from the lips of the boys of the Eighth
That he bore a charmed life in the van of the fight,
At the capture of Vicksburg, where Grant kept the faith,
And saluted the eagle that greeted his sight.
Perhaps the strange bird knew Ulysses would be
A leader revered from the lakes to the sea.

Proud eagle! Thy fame shall forever abide,
When the centuries float from the main-land of time;
Ay, live while the ages at anchorage ride,
Till the clocks of the world peal millennial chime.
Thy mission was noble, thy record is great,
Enshrined in the love of the bold Badger State.