Poem of the Week
November 28, 2005
By easy slope to west as if it had
No thought, when first its soaring was begun,
Except to look devoutly to the sun,
It rises and has risen, until glad,
With light as with a garment, it is clad,
Each dawn, before the tardy plains have won
One ray ; and after day has long been done
For us, the light doth cling reluctant, sad to leave its
brow.
Beloved mountain, I
Thy worshiper as thou the sun's, each morn
My dawn, before the dawn, receive from thee ;
And think, as thy rose-tinted peaks I see
That thou wert great when Homer was not born.
And ere thou change all human song shall die !
-- H. H.
(Helen Hunt Jackson)
Reprinted from Poems by Helen Jackson, Boston, 1895.
In Colorado Springs, she wrote A Century of Dishonor, the landmark indictment of U.S. mistreatment of Native Americans. In it, her account of Colonel John Chivington and his troops at Sand Creek lost her many Colorado friends. The Sand Creek Massacre happened this week, November 29, 1864.
Of her Colorado poems, "Cheyenne Mountain" is the most-reprinted. She also wrote for children, and her poem Colorado Snow-Birds teaches moral values while it entertains.