| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 1590. Prairie |
| | | By Herbert Bates |
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| ACROSS the sombre prairie sea | |
| The dark swells billow heavily. | |
| Are the looming ridges near of far | |
| That heave to the smooth horizon-bar? | |
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| The russet reach of grassy roll | 5 |
| Sickens the heart and numbs the soul; | |
| The thin wind gives no air for breath; | |
| The stillness is the pause of death. | |
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| This width was never shaped to be | |
| The home of man’s mortality, | 10 |
| A breathless vacuum of peace, | |
| Where life’s spent ripples spread and cease. | |
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| No end, no source, its spaces know; | |
| Wide as the sea’s perpetual flow | |
| Is its dead stand—dull wall on wall | 15 |
| Of sullen waves unspiritual. | |
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| 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. | 20 |
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