| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
|
|||
|
PRAIRIE SONGS |
|||
|
|
|||
|
o |
PRAIRIE FIRE
VER the lonely prairie The autumn twilight dies; Quick, fitful winds through the hollows pass That moan and sigh in the long, dry grass,
And ever a kildee cries. The hovering darkness gathers;
But what is the rose tint there, That flushes the far horizon
Like a turbulent city's glare?
It gathers and grows and widens,
It swallows the southward sky And the timid wind, like a hunted deer, Makes pause to hearken, then leaps in fear
And wails as it hurries by. The heavens glow red to the zenith
In the ominous, fevered light, And the glimmering hilltops waver,
Sharp-drawn on the walls of night.
And now, as a wide-flung army.
Hurled hot on the foemen's spears, With plumes of smoke on its tossing head, With flaring banners and lances red,
The wavering flood appears. It runs like a wolf in hunger,
It roars like a mountain storm, And before it the fleeing creatures
Far over the prairie swarm.
Pigeon and grouse and plover,
The air is alive with wings, And the firm ground shakes with the pounding feet Of bellowing bison in mad retreat
And the panic of smaller things. Behind them the flames speed onward
O'er level and slope and swale, And the grass is melted to embers,
Whirled high on the parching gale. |
||
|
|
|||
|
73 |
|||
|
|
|||