Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79. | | | | Western States: Prairies, The | | Lost on the Prairie | | Rose Terry Cooke (1827–1892) |
| | | OH, my baby, my child, my darling! | |
| Lost and gone in the prairie wild; | |
| Mad gray wolves from the forest snarling, | |
| Snarling for thee, my little child! | |
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| Lost, lost! gone forever! | 5 |
| Gay snakes rattled and charmed and sung; | |
| On thy head the sun’s fierce fever, | |
| Dews of death on thy white lip hung! | |
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| Dead and pale in the moonlight’s glory, | |
| Cold and dead by the black oak-tree; | 10 |
| Only a small shoe, stained and gory, | |
| Blood-red, tattered,—comes home to me. | |
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| Over the grass that rolls, like ocean, | |
| On and on to the blue, bent sky, | |
| Something comes with a hurried motion, | 15 |
| Something calls with a choking cry,— | |
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| “Here, here! not dead, but living!” | |
| God! Thy goodness—what can I pray? | |
| Blessed more in this second giving, | |
| Laid in happier arms to-day. | 20 |
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| Oh, my baby, my child, my darling! | |
| Wolf and snake and the lonely tree | |
| Still are rustling, hissing, snarling; | |
| Here ’s my baby come back to me! | | | | |
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