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.