Classic Poem

Give me the plains, — the barren and sun-beaten plains!
Free in the vague indeterminate murmur of winds,
High on the arched and tremendous back of the world,
Alone and close up under the skies,
Let me lie dark in the grass like an Indian,
Hearing loud footfalls afar in the rumbling sod,
And know that it knows me! — Up from the grass to the sky,
From the skies again back to the grass — I go to the plains!

Give me the plains — the lonely and rain-beaten plains!
There no escape, nor to hide from the all-seeing heavens, —
There no evasion, — open and wide and above;
No thought-guiding trails, — high up and flat under Heaven;
Free with fierce winds to follow the flicker of lightnings, —
Free with the soft-rustling rains that govern the grasses, —
Free with the long sandy rivers — I go to the plains!

Give me the plains — the solemn and sun-hallowed plains!
There the outcroppings of curious rock where the coulee
Breaks to the far-fading slant of the shallow-cut valley;
Away by the distant diminutive cottonwood groves
Run the wild-roaming bands of mustangs, their changeable colors
Passing in white-whirling dust — I go to the plains!

Give me the plains — the ancient mysterious plains!
Low to the grass-tufted world wheels the black-pinioned buzzard,
Skimming his shadow over endless undulations of prairie;
(So passes my soul's own shadow over the plains that it longs for!)
Dim in the grass leads the shadowy track of the Blackfeet;
Far are their camps, — they are lost along the blue wave of the mountains;
Dim are their smokes, receding, fading, a phantom, a ghost-song;
Memory-smokes, receding, dissolving over the prairies, —
Trail of my own lost footprints — I go to the plains!