University of Virginia Library

I

When I look back and say, of all our hours
This one or that was best,
Straightway, from north and south, from east and west,
With banners strange and tributary powers
The others camp against me. Thus,
Now for many nights and days,
The hills of memory are mutinous,
Hearing me raise
Above all other praise
That autumn morn
When league on league between ripe fields of corn,
Galloping neck and neck or loitering hand in hand,
We rode across the prairie land
Where I was born.

II

I never knew how good
Were those fields and happy farms,
Till, leaning from her horse, she stretched her arms
To greet and to receive them; nor for all
My knowing, did I know her womanhood
Until I saw the gesture understood,
And answer made, and amity begun.
On the proud fields and on her proud bent head
The sunlight like a covenant did fall;
Then with a gesture rich and liberal
She raised her hands with laughter to the sun,—
And it was done,
Never in life or death to be gainsaid!
And I, till then,
Home-come yet alien,
Held by some thwart and skeptic mind aloof
From nature's dear behoof,
Knelt down in heart and kissed the kindly earth,
And, having swept on wings of mirth
The big horizon round, I swiftly clomb,
And from the utter dome
Of most high morning laughed, and sang my loved one home!
Meanwhile, within the rings our laughter made,
Bending like a water-arum
Where impetuous waters meet,
Rhythmic to the strong alarum,
Of her horse's rushing feet,
Before me and beside me and on before me swayed
Her body like a water-arum blade,
Like a slanted gull for motion,
And the blown corn like an ocean
For its billows and their rumor, and the tassels snapping free
As whittled foam and brine-scud of the sea.
Thanks to God,
No ocean, but the rife and homely sod,
And golden corn to feed
A universe at need!
Land of mine, my mother's country!
My heritage!—But through her loosing hair
Sha has tossed me back the dare.
Drunken-hearted! shall it be a race indeed?
Then drink again, and drink again, to reeling drink the winy speed!

III

Ye on the jealous hills,
Ye shall not have your wills
For many a dreaming day
And haunted night.
To that high morning, walled and domed with light,
I am given away;
And often here, above the weary feet
That pour along along this fierce and jaded street,
As from a taintless source
Of power and grace,
Anxious and shrill and sweet
I hear her strong unblemished horse
Neigh to the pastured mothers of the race.