Kansas.

From the surge of the western ocean and the roaring

of the sea,

From the Land of the Orange BloSsom, thy daughter

cried to thee,

"Kansas, beloved Mother;'" so I with a heart as

sore

Turn from the wooded hillside and vast Atlantic's

shore

To the wind-swept Kansas prairies and golden seas

of grain,

With as desperate a longing and hands that stretch

as vain.
 

Not I with the crowded palette of genius-given

art

Crystallize into perfection the yearning of my

heart;,

Her's is the sun-kissed rapture, her's is the gift

divine,

Only the blundering phrases of awkwardness are

mine;

And yet from the hills of longing thru severing

leagues between

I cry with the bitter aching of loneliness as keen.
 
Mahattan's walls reecho with a million clamoring

cries,

The stars grow wan above her in the glory of her

eyes,

The sea falls down before her like a lover at her

knees,

And rich is she in raiment of his purple, argosies
A queen upon a dais at the gateway of the world,
She is not half so lovely as the Prairie, dewdrop

pearled.

 
The elms of Boston murmur, with ghostly memories,
And haunting echoes of the past speak still in cul-

tured ease;

But at her heart a grave-yard has festered with

its dead,

A white skull glistens underneath the garlands of

her head;

Aross the Kansas prairies, with brown and dusty

feet,

The wind-blown sweetheart of the Sun has gone

her lord to greet.
 

Not in the crowded cities of money-maddened men,
Not in the shaded cloister where Learning trims

her pen,

But out on the Kansas prairies, in purity of the

Sun,

There are the great thoughts builded, visions of

empires begun;

Here on the wooded hillside I sicken in heart and

brain

But some day, beloved Mother, I'm coming home

again

Dedicated to Esther M. Clark, author of "The Call of Kansas."

^__Willard Wattles.