OREGON POETRY
Verne Bright, state editor of t.he Oregon Writers
Project and oontr ibutor to
Th~ Oreg~ ~Soen~,
I
vras awarded
third prize in Tl~ SJ?ec~~~!.'~'?. first annual poetry contest
for his poem,
~lli~n[;
:mlf!l.els_.
The prize winning poems were
seleoted from the huudred poems which a.ppes.red on the maga.zine's poetry page during 1940.
My City, by Courtland MntthewG,
The other prize winners were,
sup~rvisor
of the WPA Newspaper
Index Projec'l:; fJ.nd formerly assooiatod with the Oregon Writers,
and
Ev~!~ing ~ ~
.Landin/:'i
Fiel~,
b~,r
Frances Holstrom.
Amollg
those recei vinb h()l1orable mont ion wore Lydia Littell and
Ch8.rlcs Olui' Olsen, also membors of the Projeot staff and
oontributors to the pO'3try issues of Oregon
OddHi~3..'
-1-
TIm OHEGOlT S GENE
Part 2
Per:nis3ion to reprint the poer.,s appearing in this and
the previous issue of The Orer;on Scene is grant8d by the authors
provided credi t; is givert t'c;-the- pub:Uca tions in which they appeared
previously. In the event no pre-'riol,lS publication is illdicated
credit should be given to Oregon Oddities.
PIonEER
He took himself an acrea3;e of land
And bunt a cedar cabin} clearod the trees
And blast6d out the s'cumps. Now scarlet frieze
Of applers weights his orchard. - Samal'l:and
Has nothing golde:1 as his field of whea tj
Roses red as blood of sur:rrner climb
His cabin wall; and leaping to the chime
Of brooks, he sees the flash of childrea's feet.
liis fields hold something more than yellow corn-When lilac long has vii therod and the musk
Of ma~)le breathes along the twilight streams,
Brother to Vfarm soil he wraps the dusk
About his hes.rt - he clar.1bers up the morn
On ladders of green light to mow his dreams.
Poetry
Verne Br'ight.
KLAMA 1'H FARJ\IIER
*
So;netimes, when the teeth ·01' the year narrow and close,
And the first stern frost is brittle in the ground,
He wakes like a guardsman from his quilt's repose,
Listens, and heo.rs no sound but water-sound
Drinking its cold way through the milkinG shed •••
Peace on his acres ••• he lies warm; not; hearing
A going; in the dark ••• sleeps comforted-Re:nerr.bering other nights ••• waking and fearing
The chjlling cry of Modocs like a flood
Pourine; through walls of darkness ••• :Peace is his:
Earves 'c to kernel, fl owe l' again to bud-So slow the blood regains its armistice;
So fearfully the plow puts in its share
In fields where arrows blossomed on the air.
New York
SUll
Howard McI\inley Corning
(*Note. Oregon's historic Modoc War ended in tTune 1873, after a
quarter of Fl. century of Indian difficulty, during which time immigrants
were molosted ft,nd settlers killed. The poem is illustra ti ve of the
slowly-declining: sense of .real' among the settlers, following the establishmont of peace.)
-2LOGS
Logs, logs~ Carloads, trainloads, endless processions of logsl
Lifeless as corpses they lie,
Ra vished of all that was theirs of beauty and charm;
One trait only remains to rer.lind us of what they once were·Their terrible, earnest, enduring patience.
Gone is their pride, their splendor of bearing,
Their pillar-like grace;
Vanished their moods, compelling, inspiring:
Their dripping freshness in the de.ws of dawn,
The stir of their boughs to the breath of the morning,
The sunglint on their trembling foliage,
Their glad murmur in the bree~e,
Their angry tossing and wailing in the tempest,
Their contempla ti ve calm in the quiet dusk; .
Their dazzling whi toness v{hen, weighted with snow,
Their branches bend to exquisite ourves,
Gleaming with a million jewels;
Their sHen t weeping in the rain,
Thoir moans of despair in the forest fire-All, all those they shall knOVI nO morel
Now is their purgatory;
Now they lie wai tine for tho mill of torment
Through which they must go to a rebirth;
Thoy shall bo endowed with man-made beauty,
That shall be to the beauty they have"lost
As the soul of the regenerat~d sinner
To its first state of innocence-Beauty of a kind, but not the lovelineas,
Flawless and divine,
They knew before the fall.
They shall become things of utility,
Created with man's groping perception of th:i,ngs splendid;
Grace they shall have,
But grace how hJ.fini teljY removed
From the soul-$t:i.rring splendor
Of trees
That knew God's OVID perfection.
American Forests
Washington, D. C.
CharleS Oluf Olsen
-3-
fI THE STAR OF OREGON It *
Eave you evel' heard the tale
6f the doughty Captain Gale
And his orew of five-.larid.lubbors
every one-\~O cO:"lcei ved a daring way
To out'.'Jit the Hudson's Bay,
And built and sailed the
"Star of Oregon?fI
Well, they went ahead. A stout
Blacksmith slowly hammered out
Nails and irons enough to hold her
beams together;
They had choson a great tree
Strong and··fi t to breast the sea,
To moet all kinds of wind and
"·'ornery" weather.
Well, 'twas 'way back in the forties,
When they made those little "sorties"
Acros s the Plains and down around
the Horn
To the Webfoot Terri. tCIDry-·When a Webfoot tells the story,
He's proud 'twas in that country
he was born.
It vms on a piece of dry land
Somewhere down along Swan Island;
"NOW, Wo' ro not vrha t learned folk
call paragons,
As ShipbUilders," chuckled one,
"But before the summer's done,
I 'low we'll hear a whole flock of
I swan's!"
A few young farmers had a scheme-Though folks thought it a wild dream-To be independent of the Company
Of the far-fa~med Hudson's Bay ••• ·
Yes, they really dared, they say-And it workedl--to break its stock
monoply.
Then against great odds they worked
As they could, and no one shirked;
But as months went by supplies were
running low,
And Shipbuilder Hathavvay,
(Doubtful he'd receive his pay)
And two more wi thdrew, whi ch left
but five to go.
How? By building of a ship
Which among them they'd equip,
And sail her dovm and sell her
in old ItFrisky;"
Then drive back in the spring
Cattle which her price would bring-Of course the venture was a little
riskyl
But in this outlandish task
There was one man they would ask
To take oharge of the business from
the start,
Pleasant Armstrong said, and he
Was Joe Gale--he'd been to sea,
And he Vias a valiant fellow and
right smart.
Gale approved, yet hesitated,
flIt's my duty " men" he stated·,
"To stick by the mountain folk who've
settled here;
But I ,rill help you to plan her-Hea ven knov1fs how you wi n. mun her 1
And 1111 give you some advice about
the gear."
But these five were still undaunted;
Time, it seemed, was ,,!hat they' wanted
And a "skipper;" so unskilled, and
spite of lack,
They fitted up the half-made boat
Well enough for her to float,
And sailed up the did vYillamette
to "The Crack."
There they said, "Gale, you must come;
Wind up your affairs at home,
For with you alone the IHtle Star
can make it;
No one Blse in all these diggin's
Who knows much about ship riggLn' s
Is equal to the job, and you mt~st
take it."
"Well, I'll Captain her," said a·ale;
"And the venture shall not fail-Though I am no master mariner, I tis
true-If you'll all agree to stand
By me when we leave the land •••
It's no puny bunch of trioks
we mean to do1"
And they cried, "Hoorayt We willl"
So they worked together till
They had a sound and no. tty 1i ttle
Cl'aft,
Cedar-floored, and built of fir
And oak; and all were proud of her,
And they didn't mind how many
though t them daft.
"Joseph Gale, sir--here's his letter;
We could hardly have a bt)tter
Leader; he has been to sea and he's
no dunoe."
Said Wilkes, "Well, if you're equal
To the rather dubious sequel
You C8.n say you got the bos t of
Hudson's once.
Thon said one, tilt's mighty certain
Hudson's Bay will not be flirtin'
Wi th us on the gear to fit her
with-We can get our muck-a-muck
'Ni th whoa t and fir; but 8ailin' truck
They'll refuse, I bet, as sure as
my name! s STIli thl"
"You shall have an ensign, anchor,
And a flag. I somehow honker
To see this tmdert8.kil1g a suocess;
And your 'Captain' seems
convinoing,
Not the kind who would he Wincing
If the ocean should cut up a bit,
I guess."
And so it vras. Those at Vo.ncouver
Scoffing said, tlThis strange maneuver
Is one tho.t only old Salts daro to
do."
(But they'd heard the saying often,
"Ye'ro but building of yer ooffin-It's o.n undertuking you are sure
to rue. tI )
So they launched without a shiver
Out upon Columbia River,
Overjoyed to be afloat; and
feeling merry,
They could not resist the sport
Of ir~quiring at the Fort
'Whether there were some dispatches
they could carry.
And Doctor <Tohn's improssivo brows
'Woro dro. 1foill close ..• :'1'11 lend ye cows,
And help ye as beforo, and that
yo kon;
Bu t if the s eo. ki cks up n. r1.J1npus,
Yo've but ono who l:novrs 0. oompass,
And yo're bound in this to loso
both ship and mon."
But when the~! were on the ooean,
:Neptune seemed to tal:e a notion
Tha t he'd tame these lalldsmen who
had scorned his powers;
Yet their Captain did not quail-Gale was eqtJal UlltO gale,
At the holm he stayed for six and
thirty hours.
Still doterminod, they applied
To Lioutonant Wilkes, allied
Wi th 'tho U.S.N. And ho 0. t onoo
agreod
Tha t sllCh persevering pluck
Deserved some help as well as luok,
And, said he, "My credit's good for
'what youlil.eed.
Though five stomaohs tU1'lled right over,
Five hearts longed again for clovor,
Feoling that they'd soon be only
fishes' bait;
Though they Vlore so soroly tossod,
Gale s tayod staunchl;>r a this pos t,
And s.t length they shot stl'aight
into Golden Gate.
tilt's a good cause, yet I fear
There's a littlo matter here
Needs attention first; I'll help
autfit 8.nd stock her,
But the navigator, please-lNho's to steer her on tho seas
And keep you all from Davy
Jones' lockor?"
Undernea.th the sunset glow,
Near the Old Presidio
They dropped anchor, and were 'glad
to touch the land;
A'ld they sold the little ship,
Unharmed by the troublous trip,
And in spring brought cattle baok
as they had planned.
-5So I thiw;. it should be famed-That small island that is named
Por the wild swans that onoe gathered thereupon;
And i:1 future 'Nhe:1 I hear it
Called, I silall salute in spirit
Those six who built the "Star of Oregon. 1f
Lydia 1.i tt ell
(*In 1840, eigh·t; pioneer farmei's 1mil t a sailing vessel on the
Willamette Ri Yer at S'wan Island, whi oh thoy named Star of Oregon,
and sailed to San Franoisoo. Joseph Gale, the only on8 who had
bee~1. to sea, 'l'JaS named oaptairu
The othel's learned seamanship
from a nautiol3.1 alwllnac. Combating fog, siokness and inexperience,
&e farmers reached San FranCisco, sold the ship, bought horses and
ot, ttle and drove them overland to Oregon.)
JOE WNrT* - 1843
Joe Watt,
Short a.nd squat,
Droamed a d I'eam of empi re;
Dreamed of sheep and a woolen mill-Of countless sheep on a high, green hill-And the factory-folk he'd hire.
Dr0amed of power from moun tain streams,
In di tohes dug by men and tea.:ns;
Dreamed of farms, and growing wheat
Of the sort that no one else could beat,
k1.d hi s 8hi ps from Ba th to Tyre.
JOG IVa tt,
.
Short and squat,
Helped to build an empire.
Sara Wrenn
(*Josoph Watt, of Scotch-Irish ancostry that came to Amerioa
in 1765, was born, 1817, in Ohio, from. whence in 1838, he
emigra.ted with his rarents to Missouri. In 1844 he came to
Ol'egon. Ho returned to Missouri in 1347, al1d the following year
0(,ptain0d the imruigl'an t traill that brought not only his family
to Oregon, but the largest herd of shoElp yet introduced into the
country. 'Watt promotod Oregon's first woolen mill; oharterod
the first ship for sending Orogon's wheat abroad, and is said to
ha"o planted Orogon's first oormneroial pear orchard.)
'Work Projects Administre.tio~
Oregon Writerst Project
409 Elks Bldg." 614 S. 'Ii. 11th Ave.,
_~ort~.ch.. Orego~
Official
Business
ORE G 0 N
ODD I TIE S
for private use to avoid
payment of postage, $300
P~palty