Prairie Wind

I looked out as the dusk fell on the prairie waste and wide, There was no dog that barked there, nor any tree that sighed: Silence, and nought but silence, was there on every hand, But for the lone wind blowing over the lone land. But for the voice of the lonely places, wandering by Between the vast and empty earth and the star-sown sky, From the wrinkled flanks of the mountains where the eagle rears her brood, And screams from her wild eyrie to the barren solitude. But for the voice from the ramparts where hasten down alone Cold and unforded rivers flowing to seas unknown, And the lost ranges where never a white man's foot has trod, And lakes in deep hill-hollows look lonely up to God. But for the ancient burthen of the long uncounted years In far untravelled gorges where the waiting echo hears Only the cougar hunting by night, and the eagle's cry, And the lone wind blowing under the lone sky.