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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WESTERN SPIRIT by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON

First Line: NO LANGUAGE CAN DEFINE IT
Last Line: FOR IT'S GOING, AND IT'S NEVER COMING BACK.
Subject(s): PATRIOTISM; SEATTLE, WASHINGTON; WAR;
No language can define it
And the miner cannot mine it—
'Tis illusive as the spirit of the wind.
No chemist can distill it,
To tame it is to kill it,
And it leaves the world's contestants all behind.

'Tis the spirit of Seattle,
And the hammers' hum and rattle
Of Portland as she pulsates in her power.
'Tis Willamette's growing pains,
As she clutches at the reins
Of Progress at a hundred miles an hour.

It's the tramp of herds of cattle
And the war whoop of the battle—
It's a sort of magic microbe in the blood.
It's the patriotic passion
Running wild in Western fashion,
And expanded with the wideness of the wood.

Why, listen, don't you hear it?
'Tis the Rooseveltian spirit,
And the bucking of the bronchos at Cheyenne.
'Tis the song of Forty-niner,
And the shout of Dawson miner,
With the hustle and the bustle of the glen.

'Tis the recklessness of youth
And the daring of Duluth,
In a medley and romance of the mind.
'Tis the spirit of adventure,
And you cannot catch or quench her
With an auto and an aëroplane combined.

'Tis the spirit of the mountain,
And old Ponce's fabled fountain,
Set to music in Multnomah's cataract.
It has struck the West to win it
And you'd better all be in it,
For it's going, and it's never coming back.



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