Legends of the Northwest

by Hanford Lennox Gordon

3d. I have increased the average number of syllables in the line to better adapt it to our super-abundance of short syllables.

4th. In Winona I have introduced a rhyme at the pivotal pause of the line, not because my Hexameter requires it, but because I think it increases the melody, and more emphatically marks the central pause.

I am not quite sure that, in a long poem, the rhyme is not detrimental. That depends greatly, however, upon the skill with which it is handled. Surely the same Hexameter can be written as smoothly and more vigorously without rhyme. Rhyme adds greatly to the labor of composition; it rarely assists, but often hinders, the expression of the sense which the author would convey. At times I have been on the point of abandoning it in despair, but after having been under the hammer and the file, at intervals for the last four years, Winona is at last done, if not finished.

It will be observed that I have slightly changed the length and the rhythm of the old Hexameter line, but it is still Hexameter, and, I think, improved. I am not afraid of intelligent criticism. I invoke it, and will endeavor to profit by it in the future as in the past.

The reception of my Pauline at home and abroad has been so flattering that I have been encouraged to attempt something better. That was my first real effort and full of crudities but if the Legends are received by our best critics as well as Pauline was received I shall be well pleased with my efforts.

After much thought I have decided to publish the first edition of my Legends here at home:

1st Because they pertain particularly to the lakes and rivers to the fair forests and fertile fields of our own Minnesota and ought to be appreciated here if anywhere.

2d Because many of our people are competent to judge whether my representations of Dakota customs, life, traditions, and superstitions are correct or not and at the same time the reading public of the North west is as intelligent and discriminating as that of any other portion of our country. If these Legends be appreciated and approved by our own people who are familiar with the scenery described and more or less, with the customs, traditions and superstitions of the Dakotas, and if beyond that these poems shall stand the test of candid criticism I may give them a wider publication.

H. L. GORDON.

MINNEAPOLIS. June 1, 1881.