Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By HerbertBates

1590 Prairie

ACROSS the sombre prairie sea

The dark swells billow heavily.

Are the looming ridges near of far

That heave to the smooth horizon-bar?

The russet reach of grassy roll

Sickens the heart and numbs the soul;

The thin wind gives no air for breath;

The stillness is the pause of death.

This width was never shaped to be

The home of man’s mortality,

A breathless vacuum of peace,

Where life’s spent ripples spread and cease.

No end, no source, its spaces know;

Wide as the sea’s perpetual flow

Is its dead stand—dull wall on wall

Of sullen waves unspiritual.

God give me but in dream to come

Back to the pine-clad hills of home,

Back to the old eternity

Of placid, all-consoling sea.