n every hand
The prairie all environs me; I see
Nought save a stretch of green and treeless land,
Conspicuous alone for nudity:
A sea of earth, a boundless stretch unspanned
Except by Heaven's broad horizon-band.

II.

The very vastness of its sameness lends
A fascination which it else had not;
And here my sense of solitude transcends
What I have felt on any other spot:
Of solitude, yet not of loneliness,
For God seems present, and His distance less.

III.

The sea alone of Nature's works can vie
With this in solitude. None else can be
Compared to it. Here 'neath his Maker's eye
The creature seems to stand more openly
Than elsewhere. Here his very solitude
Makes man appear by God more nearly viewed.

IV.

Yet is not here God's awfulness displayed;
His kindliness and mercy more appear;
For flow'rs, the precious emblems He has made
Of graciousness, in plenitude are here.
In rich profusion blooming unconfined,
They seem to whisper softly: "God is kind."

V.

Yet break they not the solitude; nor can
The works of Nature break the solitude.
Man needs the presence of his fellow-man,
And ever needs it, whatsoe'er his mood;
Except when, in the hour he calls his own,
He holds communion with his God alone.

VI.

How vast this solitude! And yet 'tmay be
That, ere a decade's course is fully run,
This prairie, where no being I can see
Inhabiting, may be well built upon;
And even on this lonely stretch of ground
Surrounding me, a city may be found.

VII.

So rapidly have risen in the past
The cities in this Western land, that well
May we expect that not at all less fast
Shall future cities rise. And here may dwell
A population, whose increasing rate
Shall rival cities of an older date.

VIII.

I once had thought that I would choose to live
Upon the prairie-land. My youthful eyes
Raised here a mighty castle, which should give
A home to me and mine. To youth there lies
A fascination in the great Unknown,
Which some in old age have not yet outgrown.

IX.

Thus was I fascinated, and I thought
A prairie life, untrammeled, free and blest,
Much happiness to me had surely brought;
And so I longed to roam the mighty West.
But kindly Fate forbade me then to roam,
Well knowing that the West was not my home.

X.

But now I stand upon the prairie, now
I see the land which once I longed to see--
And fain must smile, as I remember how
This land s