Rope - A poem by Lester M. Ellis

Prairie Imprisoned

Here in the plains, where our forefathers furled
The canvas of their prairie-ships,
We feel the sunrise hot upon one cheek,
The sunset scorching on the other.
Never for us the wide, free days of old:
The open road, or the still broader
Open sea. For us, only the day's return,
To plow and plant and garner
For the need of half the world.
Even the stars
Are much too near the fertile furrows.

^__Helen Rhonda Hoopes

Kansas Poets
Edited by May William Ward
(New York: Henry Harrison. 1935)
Page 114