| Show the following poem by W D nesbit of the chicago tribune was read at the banquet given by the citizens of uri agton to the chicago fress club at bu langton iowa saturday batur day night june 10 1905 As a ribbon flung out from a generous hand till it loops in its leagues the fair heart of the land so the river the father of waters is flung S from the place where the pines by the north winds are swims from the stillness and peace of the whispering lakes to the shore where the sea in its majesty breaks and it murmurs for miles or it leaps in ts strength or it coils as a lariat coiled on its length and it stops for a space with its eddying whirls while its form spins about as a garland or pearls and it sings in the sun and it dreams in the moon As it races in joy from the falls to lagoon it has mirrored the banners of crimson and gold that were borne by adventurers dauntlessly bold who were winning new realms and were finding new ways through the green of the forest and gray of the haze that was spread on the prairie and wreathed on the hill when the courage of spain was at one with its will it has laughed with the lightly wrought lilies of france As the flag 1 ept the time to the lilt of the dance when the nobleman came and the beautiful maids sang the ballads of old in the bush of the glades and it knows of the days that were gentle and calm when the lilies of france nodded over the palm it has run with a red not a red of the dawn but the red flood of war in the days that are gone when its bosom was swept by the shot and the shell and the smoke of the war was the apor of that blew low on its surface and hid hulls and spars when the stars and the stripes met the stars and the bars but to day as majestic as ages ago from the hills of the north to the valleys below As a ribbon that binds the palmetto and pine As a bond that is set from the gulf to the line As an artery throbbed by the pulse of the land so the river flows on ever stately and grand and the centuries come and the centuries go but the river the father of waters shall flow As the ointment of old from the ewer was spilled on the place where the lord said the builders should build aye the great mississippi majestic and calm has endured shall endure as a blessing and balm |
