A Wheat-Field Fantasy

As I sat on a Kansas hilltop, While, far away from my, Rippled the lights and shadows Dancing across acres of wheat, The sound of the grain as it murmured Wrought a wonder with me__. It turned from the voice of the Prairie Into the roar of the sea. And I saw not the running wind-waves, But an ocean that washed below In ridging and crumbling breakers And ceaseless motion and flow; Then, as a valley is flooded With opaline mists at morn Which momently flow asunder And leave green spaces of corn__ There burst.the strangest vision Up from that'ancient sea.__ 'Twas not the pearl-white Venus Anadyomene, Twas the bobbing ears of horses And a head with a great hat crowned And a binder that burst upon me i Sudden, as from the ground And the waves gave place to the wheatlands Myriad-touched 'with gold__ Then my soul felt century-weary And untold aeons old; For a rock-ledge sloped beside me And the lime-traced shells it bore Had plied that ancient ocean Each with a sentient oar.