The Prairie Schooner
Slow was the weary, toilsome way
Where creaked the heavy-laden wain
Quaint follower of the speeding day
Across the plain.
White canvas covers, bulging, fair,
Enclosed fond hearts athrob with joy;
The builders of an empire there
Found safe convoy.
Along its,course child-voices sweet
Marked all the strangeness of each scene;
While parents sought new homes to greet
With vision keen.
No luxury or ease was there
To lap the traveler into rest;
But staunch it bore the, pioneer,
On toward the West.
Deserted now, its ragged sails
Are furled--the port has long been won.
Sport of the boisterous, hurrying gales,
Through cloud and sun.
Unused, forlorn and gray, it stands,
A faded wreck cast far ashore,
The Mayflower of the prairie lands,
Its journey o'er.
___Charles Moreau Harger
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