Songs of Exile

trees nod on the windy crest, The clean streams flash below, And oh, for the calm, firm, rocky rest, The stubborn strength of the earth's ribbed breast, And the flowers our old eyes know ! We have delved the black of the prairie earth, The muck of the rotting sod, We have shared the drouth and the rain-rot dearth, We have sorrowed, have laughed with the devil's mirth, In a land that knew no God. We have coined black mould into gleaming gold, We have minted the green of grain, The strength of our lives is spent and sold ? And now we are old, and the tale is told, And God knows whose the gain ! Here's off with the slime of the clinging clay, And the stench of the dense sunflowers, And the dry keen wind that cries all day ? And away, oh my heart, away and away, To the old loved land of ours ! To our own loved land, where the white gull swoops, Where the salted sea-wind cries, Where the taut sheet drips, and the lee rail scoops, And the gray, long veil of the rain-squall stoops From the wrack of the scudding skies. Into the East, from the dread of the plain, In the west wind's track we come. God bring us safe through the wastes of grain, Safe back to the heaped sea-hills again, Safe back to the hills of home. PRAIRIE ACROSS the sombre prairie sea The dark swells billow heavily. Are the looming ridges near or far That heave to the smooth horizon-bar ? The russet reach of grassy roll Sickens the hear...