{"id":87,"date":"2025-06-18T19:13:44","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T19:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=87"},"modified":"2025-07-10T18:09:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T18:09:13","slug":"the-legend-of-hartford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=87","title":{"rendered":"The Legend of Hartford"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Legend of Hartford<\/strong>
\nby Eleanor O\u2019Rourke Koenig<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

With overtones to what he said,<\/em>
\nThis man may he believed:<\/em><\/p>\n

Go into the Cities and Towns, and there you
\nshall find many compassed about with the chains
\nof captivity, and every man bemoaning himself.<\/p>\n

Thomas Hooker.<\/p>\n

THE LEGEND OF HARTFORD<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Their legend of the Seed, a glistening thing,<\/em>
\nThey planted, even if under a king.<\/em><\/p>\n

LISTEN, and hear their Legend rise in song;
\nIn homespun, silver now, they flow along
\nThese streets; we see and hear and feel
\nThem pass, their skirts, their steps, we feel them as one of three
\n                in the light leaves’ quiver;
\nSo do we hear turning still
\nThe wheel of Matthew Allyn’s mill,
\nAs we stand on the bridge over the Little River.<\/p>\n

Or, in a rich amazement of the mind,
\nNo wilderness, but a choosing place we find;
\nAs esculent country, waiting to give of its all;
\nProlific thrice over the earth; running riot from spring until fall
\nThe medicinal herb, bittersweet, ginseng, angelica, bloodroot;
\nThe large trees loaded with fruit;
\nOpulent nuts, wild vegetables, artichokes, wild onions, plantain,
\n                wild pease;
\nThese, and more wild berries than these:
\nThe black, the blue, the bil-, the mul-, the elder-, the strawberry;
\nIn the groves ran the furry
\nRound fat red bear, the moose like its speaking name, the deer;
\nAnd here
\nLong ago through the trees might be seen great turkeys strutting
\n                sideways;
\nThe squirrel abounded, the raccoon\u2013the wildcat, the wolf, the
\n                fox, black, blue and grey:
\nThe otter fished in the stream, the beaver built his dam:
\nThere were quails, ducks, geese, partridges, and plenteous other
\n                wild game;
\nPigeons so numerous they would obscure the light;
\nOf which it has been written: “It passeth credit, but the truth
\n                were written right. . .”
\nIn the Great River lamprey eels, salmon, sturgeon, in the
\n                Great River shoals of fish of silver gleam. . .
\nSay this in a dream,
\nThen stitch it straightly and precisely in a sampler’s seam. . .
\nThe blur of the sky-bloom trees, the wild vegetation, the pleasant
\n                banks of the river, the paint of the crimson bush. .
\nSilence is over this country, hush. .
\nThen, as through a parting in the trees, into this charming country,
\n                strange with his spell unwild,
\nComes the white man,
\nThe Puritan,
\nHis spouse, the staid and Biblical child. . .
\nFaded the colors and stitches, yet fresh as a flower with the rain
\n                on. . .
\nChildren of Israel into the Land of Canaan.<\/p>\n

So it would seem, they wish to leave their story,
\nRested and wise, too inherent for glory;
\nLeaving sparse books to tell of their bodies’ and souls’ consecration;
\nAs if to say one and all fervidly entered into this town’s creation;
\nThey come back now wistful, as on tiptoe,
\nTo see again the places they used to love and know;
\nFinding them whatever change, speaking with the self-same gesture:
\nHere is Soldiers’ Field, Sentinel Hill, the Middle Ox Pasture. . .<\/p>\n

Yet here at first they nearly broke their hearts \u2013
\nWinter comes down fierce in these Western parts;
\nThink how it must have been with them here, with winter over all.
\nIt was in the fall
\nWhen they first came here – those men of 1635;
\nSomehow we know they stayed, somehow they kept alive
\nThrough that winter. Even with time so short,
\nThey built dugouts, cattle shelter, a rude palisade, their fort.
\nWith minds scantily given to ponder,
\nThey prayed all would be well \u2013
\nOn November fifteenth the Great River was frozen under \u2013
\nAnd winter fell.<\/p>\n

The winter fell and the Indians in the swamp,
\nPaled in their wigwam snow or moved to a further camp;
\nCorn in their barns of earth to weave through the winter gold,
\nCured meat from the hunting \u2013 or they could starve in the cold
\nLike an Indian \u2013
\nNot so with the white man.
\nInside his smoke-filled hut he heard loud the wind, and the
\n                wind’s recoil,
\nHe looked at the pot swinging over the blaze
\nWith nothing under it to boil. . .
\nIt snowed days on days;
\nThe woman’s face blanched, the little children cried;
\nThe wind blew
\nAnd he knew
\nAs he listened stricken dumb,
\nWinter come,
\nLoud with the wind it had quaffed \u2013
\nThe white man plunged into the forest to find game, but the forest
\n                laughed,
\nAs he ludicrously stumbled and bled;
\nThe forest laughed, the boughs laughed, the beasts laughed \u2013 or
\n                were dead;
\nHis children cried,
\nHis cattle knelt down and died;
\nThen he chopped down through the snow and ice and ate of the
\n                acrid acorn
\nAnd found it fit to eat;
\nThen the Indians came and dealt him out corn
\nAnd he ate it without any meat;
\nAnd he trembled to hear the wind, rousing the forest apart;
\nIn this winter he had come to know,
\nSpring must have been many times in his heart,
\nThen there must have seemed never a spring. . . but the
\n                ever falling snow. . .
\nHe has left us no written word of that winter when the wind surged
\nNight and day,
\nBut has left us his image, after the winter, too pallid, coming out of
\n                a door as if to say: “Just say
\nWe emerged.\u201d
\nOh this beautiful extreme country in Spring, over-coloured,
\n                over-heaped,
\nHow his sallow face must have shone, how his slow gone blood
\n                must have leaped
\nIn this primeval spring, as he stood at his door, or in the wood
\n                to see. . .
\nHe had heard the black ice crack and split on the Great River and
\n                make it free. . .<\/p>\n

Nathaniel Ely, Nicholas Clarke, William Butler,
\nRichard Webb, William Pantry, Stephen Hart, . . .
\nThey seem to step as from a waiting roll call,
\nAnd answer in silver: “Here we are . . .”<\/p>\n

Sheep’s Ridge,
\nGully Brook, Haynes’ Swamp . . .
\nNear the river. . .
\nOn the bridge, not strange, . . .
\nVenturers’ Field \u2013 where was the first highway from the Little
\n                River to the North Meadow . . .
\nLook and see, it is in silver now, and will not change. . .<\/em>
\nThose who look will know.<\/em><\/p>\n

John Talcott’s house?
\nJohn Talcott’s house. . .<\/em><\/p>\n

Westwood and Steele, Elder Goodwin and the others
\nWho, after winter, met on warm spring ground,
\nWhat thought was one’s was prudently another’s,
\nTo search for any clearing to be found;
\nSo, these men, who had been nearly broken-hearted,
\nWere planting now the seed, a glistening thing,
\nAnd when this wondrous soil was firstly parted,
\nIn the spring,
\nThe seed they dropped glistened
\nAll for itself, and yours, and for my sake,
\nBright rain pattered on it as they listened. . .
\nThink of the Puritan’s heart when he first buried
\nThe first of homely seed in Hartford soil;
\nThe winter in his mind, he must have hurried,
\nNot having spared himself the least in other toil
\nOf body or intellect \u2013 already were order, law, a presiding
\n                Commission;
\nThe shadow of the seed had been before;
\nWorn missionary, he performed his mission,
\nDropped a seed in the earth, then dropped one more. . .
\nThen he must have stood a little, with the winter still,
\nMingled with how he had felt the winter go,
\nAnd, covered always under ice and snow,
\nHis need
\nThe Seed
\nThat winter could not kill \u2013
\nOh never think of him as poor and forlorn,
\nPlanting in spring a seed for its own sake \u2013
\nIt had survived the sword, the lurid stake;
\nSoaked salt in sea,
\nHad been torn
\nFrom dead men’s hearts alive.
\n                                                                He
\nMust have given thought to this,
\nCowed, humble and half-grieving
\nFor men who had died and never would come back,
\nThen he was visionary and believing,
\nThat their hand was his
\nDelving him seed from a silver hempen sack. . .
\nCumbered by myriads of silvery men
\nFree \u2013
\nThose who had been and those who would be \u2013
\nAnd he cried as these men cried
\nThen
\nPlanted Liberty!<\/p>\n

SWARTH promise of the country gave them reason
\nTo scan what native elements it had;
\nSalt marsh grass going to the river, and at this season
\nThe river crowded with lamprey eels and shad;
\nThe Indian rows of beans and maize
\nIn the good weather’s
\nHeat sent shoots from the ground. . .
\nThe sun spread a copper haze. . .
\nAll day birds of colored feathers
\nSang and flew around. . .<\/p>\n

They rose to landscapes, many tree leaves gleaming
\nWith moisture in the mystic forest spell;
\nThe wilderness was summer dreaming,
\nBut they were not dreaming,
\nA field was hoed, a post was put as well. . .
\nAn Indian youth, lithe as spring, came running,
\nLipped with the inland woods, to them one day,
\nAnd told them, while they dared to stand there sunning,
\nA caravan was in the woods on its way. . .
\nThey watched the rain on their seed, the spring showers,
\nThen over the field they saw the rainbow’s arch
\nOn them, on their plantation, on the trees and flowers. . .
\nAs they were hearing Thomas Hooker march.<\/p>\n

And now they listened more, and, almost reaching
\nTo him, they listened as he stood
\nIn their midst, and comforted with preaching
\nHis flock on that first sweet Sabbath in the wood;
\nThey sensed when his body was most aching
\nAnd lifted him on the tangled path he took;
\nAnd every footstep that his feet were taking
\nThey heard; at Longmeadow Gate; they could hear his footsteps
\n                ring;
\nAnd at Namerick Brook,
\nAnd at Pilgrims’ Spring. . .
\nOver the river on rafts at Bissell’s Ferry \u2013
\nHooker, Crusader, Utopian Dreamer, Puritan Divine,
\nLeading his people into their very
\nCountry, men, women and children, with their cattle, goats and
\n                swine.
\nThey were
\nAt Windsor;
\nAt Captain Holmes’ trading house now \u2013
\nIf the men at Hartford were not there to meet him, they heard the
\n                bivouac, they knew how
\nThe men at Windsor heartened Hooker, after the woods’
\n                Shadow. . .
\nHooker, at fifty, leading his flock into the North Meadow. . .<\/p>\n

Those men, enthused to settle a plantation \u2013
\nTheir voices must have matched a mutual cheer,
\nAnd times when they were met in stern elation,
\nThey must have thought: \u201cThomas Hooker will come here;”
\nAnd from the first he must have seemed beside them,
\nNewtown and Hartford not such space apart;
\nAnd when they prayed he was there to guide them,
\nHimself so given to others in his heart;
\nHis presence was there, above
\nMost men in height . . like when, sea dangers passed,
\nHe cried to the welcoming faces, moved by their love,
\n\u201cNow I will live if in the Lord you stand fast!”<\/p>\n

A wilderness, to them a town their own \u2013
\nThey knew they were ordained to clear the ground,
\nAnd from the first no merest doubt was shown,
\nFor giants walked these streets and strode around;
\nHooker and Haynes and other great men were here;
\nAll bending at their work to build a town,
\nWith noise and sweat and friendly Indians near,
\nSailing canoes in the river up and down;
\nLots were parcelled and workmen’s wages set,
\nThe swales were filled, new paths were smoothed away,
\nHouses sprang up each side of the Riveret;
\nThey built a meeting-house of logs and clay,
\nWhere Hooker preached \u2013 think what it must have been
\nTo have seen this man, to have heard this orator,
\nProphet, half-sad for future time and men,
\nYet Pastor of the folk he labored for.
\nThey loved him as the guardian of their flock;
\nHe loved them so, but far more it would seem;
\nAs ever bringing flowers from a rock \u2013
\nOne would have served to illustrate his dream
\nOf men made simple as they were meant to be \u2013
\nFree \u2013
\nOh, to have seen him hold a crowd entranced,
\nHis sermons for the people, not the shelf,
\nWith simple truth echoingly enhanced,
\nGiving to each one his Individual Self \u2013
\nOh, to have seen him mirror the sinner’s soul
\nMade whole \u2013
\nOh, to have seen him shake it \u2013
\nOr to have heard him shout: \u201cSince God has given you liberty\u2014
\n                take it\u201d<\/p>\n

They built this town from liking it too much,
\nFrom detriments with which they had to cope;
\nThey built it, too, from quarreling with the Dutch
\nColors flying from the House of Good Hope;
\nThey built this town of purpose hungered for;
\nOf heart and brain, and something more profound;
\nThey built it, too, of fire from the Pequot War,
\nWhen Mason burned the wigwams to the ground.
\nThey went to war too spare of men, too tired,
\nTo measure depth beyond expediency,
\nOr think if latent hatred was inspired
\nBy deeper hurts and brooded enmity. T
\nThey went as ready warriors to shield
\nTheir growing hamlet, free it of torment,
\nThe tomahawk, the child snatched from the field \u2013
\nThey could illy afford to go \u2013 but they went. . .<\/p>\n

Sometimes in red-banked evening we aspire,
\nWhen voices speak, almost to speak a name :
\nThe Indians who must go, went up in fire\u00ad \u2013<\/em>
\nBut Captainship and Chieftancy still flame\u00ad \u2013
\nKnotted eye to eye, we see them stand \u2013
\nIt was the worsting of the white or red!
\nThen Mason, in a corner, lit the brand. . .
\nThe white man came. . .
\nThe Indian fire burned low . . . and a proud Chief was dead. . .<\/p>\n

We see them when they returned, as with faint cheers,
\nNor time for them, their jealous thought the land’s;
\nThey turned to it with heroic hands. . .
\nWith scarred hands, blistering with tears. . .<\/p>\n

What of the Seed, dark-buried, glistening, what?
\nWhile men were clutched in war, with dreams it cried.
\nIt lived through war, through famine, harvest rot,
\nWhile men with wasted sobs and cattle died.
\nWhen Hooker, a gaunt Prophet on the shore,
\nSaw spirit-men, such as the Lord would choose,
\nWhen Indians came from Deerfield in canoes
\nLaden with corn, and a strange vessel came to moor, \u2013
\nThe Master, the Merchant, the provisions as if decreed,
\nBut Hooker preached it was of spirit-men. . .
\nSo the Seed
\nFound dew and light . . . they rose up then. . .<\/p>\n

NOW in this place, in this community,
\nOne rule was followed, one strict commandment theirs:
\nEach brought with him his premise to be free
\nAnd from the first took a part in the town’s affairs.
\nOn looking next door, he found his neighbor likewise;
\nThis Truth stayed rampart under a rough coat;
\nAnd from the first they practiced the franchise, \u2013
\nThe right of every citizen to vote!
\nWar could not stop nor famine unexplain
\nThe purpose they had planted and would guard;
\nMen gathered to think and talk with heart and brain
\nWith Hooker and Ludlow and Haynes in the Meeting-House yard;
\nAnd, being on enchanted ground, yet simple men,
\nAs greatness will usurp itself for cause,
\nThey seem to wish to leave no diary then
\nOf just who wrote the Fundamental Laws,
\nBut as if to say, as if speaking out loud,
\nThe People made them of sinew and heart and might . . .
\nAnd then they seem encompassed in a cloud,
\nThen there is Light! . . .<\/p>\n

Three hundred years . . . their tombstones in the mist
\nSeem looking on the square for lonely eyes,
\nAnd when they seem like somber amethyst,
\nWe look and find them there with no surprise,
\nAs if to see them standing, kind and tall,
\nOr coming down the steps inclined to roam,
\nAnd, listening curiously, we hear them call
\nLudlow home. . .<\/p>\n

THREE hundred years . . . they come back spirit-wise;
\nWe show them how their Light has traveled far;
\nTo ships in air, Olympias in the skies;
\nWe link it now to Arcturus, a Star:
\nWe see the planets through a lake of glass \u2013
\nThat man is not yet free must seem absurd \u2013
\nWhy, when we look through the telescope must we see pass
\nAnd near to us, a ghost, a winged threat, a monstrous bird\u00ad \u2013
\nWe cannot brush off from us those gnashing wings,
\nWe think we live our ordinary lives,
\nMen, women, husbands and wives,
\nWe laugh through the day or frown at petty things, \u2013
\nAnd yet we do not meet each others’ eyes,
\nAnd like a band that threatens on our throats,
\nWhen ships are congregating in our skies,
\nWe look for a silver ship and hear grating notes \u2013
\nScience introverted \u2013 genius must we abhor? \u2013
\nOur heritage to our children – shall it be War? \u2013
\nWho now shall answer these inhibited fears?\u00ad \u2013
\nThe Pioneers.
\nThey have wrung a soul; they know this country best;
\nThey are not mute, tame phantoms of desire.
\nLet Hooker rise and answer for the rest,
\nAs of old, a leader to inspire.
\nWhat fitter sign for us than his retort,
\nWhen he pleaded he might go and build this town,
\nThat day in Boston before the General Court.
\nHe pleaded too magnificently, then he sat down, . . .
\nHis plea was denied, but he looked like one possessed;
\nWith prophecy. He saw as light brings
\nHis voice rings,
\nWe may hear him still.
\nAsk of him today as in that narrow room,
\nBefore the body of those august men;
\nLike to the Court, and the listeners he addressed,
\nOr at his tomb. . .
\nListen again. . .<\/p>\n

So shall his words bring to us peace as wide,
\nFaith, vision-blent, sure as the rainbow’s arch\u00ad \u2013
\nIf his heart failed him, his soul cried,
\nAs he marched in a vision \u2013 as we shall march
\nForward, by his side,
\n                Whither?<\/em>
\n                The strong bent of our spirits move us thither.<\/em><\/p>\n

[Awaiting copyright permission]<\/p>\n

[END OF SELECTION]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Legend of Hartford by Eleanor O\u2019Rourke Koenig   With overtones to what he said, This man may he believed: Go into the Cities and Towns, and there you shall find many compassed about with the chains of captivity, and every man bemoaning himself. Thomas Hooker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[36,13,35,32,31],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eleanor-orourke-koenig","tag-colonial-history","tag-constitution","tag-hartford-history","tag-poem","tag-poetry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}