*  

The Gates Ajar

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I have seen a Kansas sunset like a vision in a dream,
When a halo was about me and a glory on the
    stream;
When the birds had ceased their music and the
    summer day was done,
And prismatic exhalations came a-drifting from the
     sun;
And those gold and purple vapors, and the holy
    stillness there
Lay upon the peaceful valley like a silent evening
    prayer.
And I've gazed upon that atmospheric splendor of
    the West
Till it seemed to me a gateway to the regions of the
    blest.


I have seen a Kansas sunrise like the waking of a
    dream,
When every dewy blade of grass caught up the
    golden gleam;
When every bird renewed the song he sang the night
    before,
And all the silent, slumbering world returned to life
    once more;
When every burst of radiance called up a throng of
    life,
And all the living, waking world with melody was
    rife.
And as that flood of life and song came floating
    down the plain,
It seemed to me those golden gates were opened
    wide again.

Albert Bigelow Paine

Sunflowers
Selected by Willard Wattles
(Chicago: A. C. McClurg. 1916)


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April 19, 1999 / John & Susan Howell / Wichita, Kansas / howell@kotn.org

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