| |
| THE SKIES are blue above my head, | |
| The prairie green below, | |
| And flickering o’er the tufted grass | |
| The shifting shadows go, | |
| Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds | 5 |
| Fleck white the tranquil skies, | |
| Black javelins darting where aloft | |
| The whirring pheasant flies. | |
| |
| A glimmering plain in drowsy trance | |
| The dim horizon bounds, | 10 |
| Where all the air is resonant | |
| With sleepy summer sounds,— | |
| The life that sings among the flowers, | |
| The lisping of the breeze, | |
| The hot cicala’s sultry cry, | 15 |
| The murmurous dream of bees. | |
| |
| The butterfly—a flying flower— | |
| Wheels swift in flashing rings, | |
| And flutters round his quiet kin, | |
| With brave flame-mottled wings. | 20 |
| The wild pinks burst in crimson fire, | |
| The phlox’ bright clusters shine, | |
| And prairie-cups are swinging free | |
| To spill their airy wine. | |
| |
| And lavishly beneath the sun, | 25 |
| In liberal splendor rolled, | |
| The fennel fills the dipping plain | |
| With floods of flowery gold; | |
| And widely weaves the iron-weed | |
| A woof of purple dyes | 30 |
| Where Autumn’s royal feet may tread | |
| When bankrupt Summer flies. | |
| |
| In verdurous tumult far away | |
| The prairie-billows gleam, | |
| Upon their crests in blessing rests | 35 |
| The noontide’s gracious beam. | |
| Low quivering vapors steaming dim | |
| The level splendors break | |
| Where languid lilies deck the rim | |
| Of some land-circled lake. | 40 |
| |
| Far in the east like low-hung clouds | |
| The waving woodlands lie; | |
| Far in the west the glowing plain | |
| Melts warmly in the sky. | |
| No accent wounds the reverent air, | 45 |
| No footprint dints the sod,— | |
| Lone in the light the prairie lies, | |
| Wrapt in a dream of God. | |
| |
