The Prairie.

The skies are blue above my head,
    The prairie green below,
And flickering o'er the tufted grass
    The shifting shadows go,
Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds
    Fleck white the tranquil skies,
Black javelins darting where aloft
    The whirring pheasant flies.

A glimmering plain in drowsy trance
    The dim horizon bounds,
Where all the air is resonant
    With sleepy summer sounds, -
The life that sings among the flowers,
    The lisping of the breeze,
The hot cicala's sultry cry,
    The murmurous dream of bees.

The butterfly - a flying flower -
    Wheels swift in flashing rings,
And flutters round his quiet kin,
    With brave flame-mottled wings.
The wild Pinks burst in crimson fire
    The Phlox' bright clusters shine,
And Prairie-Cups are swinging free
    To spill their airy wine.

And lavishly beneath the sun,
    In liberal splendour rolled,
The Fennel fills the dipping plain
    With floods of flowery gold;
And widely weaves the Iron-Weed
    A woof of purple dyes
Where Autumn's royal feet may tread
    When bankrupt Summer flies.

In verdurous tumult far away
    The prairie-billows gleam,
Upon their crests in blessing rests
    The noontide's gracious beam.
Low quivering vapours steaming dim
    The level splendours break
Where languid Lilies deck the rim
    Of some land-circled lake.

Far in the east like low-hung clouds
    The waving woodlands lie;
Far in the west the glowing plain
    Melts warmly in the sky.
No accent wounds the reverent air,
    No footprint dints the sod,
Lone in the light the prairie lies
    Rapt in a dream of God.

ILLINOIS, 1858.

John Hay

John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose government career stretched over almost half a century. He began as a private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, eventually becoming Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Aside from his political career, Hay was also a poet and writer, remembered for his influence on American literature and foreign policy.

John Hay

The Advance-Guard.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Una.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Dreams.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Wanderlieder.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

On The Bluff.

O grandly flowing River!
O silver-gliding River!
Thy springing willows shiver
    In the sunset as of old;
They shiver in the silence
Of the willow-whitened islands,
While the sun-bars and the sand-bars
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O gay, oblivious River!
O sunset-kindled River!
Do you remember ever
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O stern, impassive River!
O still, unanswering River!
The shivering willows quiver
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From the past a voice is calling,
From heaven a star is falling,
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The Prairies.

These are the gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name,
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch
In airy undulations, far away,
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,
And motionless for ever. Motionless?
No, they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!
Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,
And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,
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The Lake Shore Road.

    'Tis noon, the meadow stretches in the sun,
    And every little spear of grass uplifts its slimness to the glow
    To let the heavy-laden bees pass out.

    A stream comes at a snail's pace through the gloom
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    A wild rose spreads her greenness on a hedge,
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    The sweetbriar neighbors with that porcupine
    Of shrubs, the gooseberry; with parasol
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    And dreams of purple fruit and wine-press chill.

    From off her four warm eggs of mottled shade,
    A bird flies with a call of love and joy
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An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie

            (In the Beginning)

    The sun is a huntress young,
    The sun is a red, red joy,
    The sun is an Indian girl,
    Of the tribe of the Illinois.


            (Mid-morning)

    The sun is a smouldering fire,
    That creeps through the high gray plain,
    And leaves not a bush of cloud
    To blossom with flowers of rain.


            (Noon)

    The sun is a wounded deer,
    That treads pale grass in the skies,
    Shaking his golden horns,
    Flashing his baleful eyes.


            (Sunset)

    The sun is an eagle old,
    There in the windless west.
    Atop of the spirit-cliffs
    He builds him a crimson nest.

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The Fens

Wandering by the river's edge,
I love to rustle through the sedge
And through the woods of reed to tear
Almost as high as bushes are.
Yet, turning quick with shudder chill,
As danger ever does from ill,
Fear's moment ague quakes the blood,
While plop the snake coils in the flood
And, hissing with a forked tongue,
Across the river winds along.
In coat of orange, green, and blue
Now on a willow branch I view,
Grey waving to the sunny gleam,
Kingfishers watch the ripple stream
For little fish that nimble bye
And in the gravel shallows lie.

Eddies run before the boats,
Gurgling where the fisher floats,
Who takes advantage of the gale
And hoists his handkerchief for sail
On osier twigs that form a mast--
While idly lies, nor wanted mo...

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From "A Rhapsody"

Sweet solitude, what joy to be alone--
In wild, wood-shady dell to stay for hours.
Twould soften hearts if they were hard as stone
To see glad butterflies and smiling flowers.
Tis pleasant in these quiet lonely places,
Where not the voice of man our pleasure mars,
To see the little bees with coal black faces
Gathering sweets from little flowers like stars.

The wind seems calling, though not understood.
A voice is speaking; hark, it louder calls.
It echoes in the far-outstretching wood.
First twas a hum, but now it loudly squalls;
And then the pattering rain begins to fall,
And it is hushed--the fern leaves scarcely shake,
The tottergrass it scarcely stirs at all.
And then the rolling thunder gets awake,
And from black clouds the lightning flashes break.<...

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