2

Sweeter to me than the salt sea spray, the fragrance of summer rains;

Nearer my heart than these mighty hills are the windswept Kansas plains;

Dearer the sight of a shy, wild rose by the roadside's dusty way

Than all the splendor of poppy-fields, ablaze in the sun of May.

Gay as the bold poinsettia is, and the burden of pepper trees,

The sunflower, tawny and gold and brown, is richer, to me, than these.

And rising ever above the song of the hoarse, insistent sea,

The voice of the prairie, calling, calling me.

3

Kansas, beloved Mother, to-day in an alien land, Yours is the name I have idly traced with a bit of wood in the sand.

The name that, sprung from a scornful lip, will make the warm blood start;

The name that is graven, hard and deep, on the core of my loyal heart.

O higher, clearer and stronger yet, than the boom of the savage sea,

The voice of the prairie, calling, calling me.

Texas

Henry Van Dyke

In this poem, which was read at the dedication of Rice Institute, at Houston, Texas, October 12, 1912, Mr. Van Dyke has made use of an Indian legend to the effect that when the Indian hears the bees in the forest he knows that he must move on, for the whites are near. The blank verse, after the style of "Hiawatha," requires special care in so placing the emphasis and inflections as to avoid a sing-song.

I

ALL along the Brazos River,

All along the Colorado,

In the valleys and the lowlands

Where the trees were tall and stately,

In the rich and rolling meadows

Where the grass was full of wildflowers,
Came a humming and a buzzing,

Came the murmur of a going

To and fro among the treetops,
Far and wide across the meadows,
And the red men in their tepees
Smoked their pipes of clay and listened.
"What is this?" they asked in wonder;
"Who can give the sound a meaning?
Who can understand the language
Of a going in the treetops?"

2

Then the wisest of the Tejas
Laid his pipe aside and answered:

"O, my brothers, these are people,

Very little, winged people.

Countless, busy, banded people,

Coming humming through the timber!
These are tribes of bees united
By a single aim and purpose,
To possess the Tejas' country,
Gather harvest from the prairies,
Store their wealth among the timber.
These are hive and honeymakers,
Sent by Manito to warn us

That the white men now are coming,
With their women and their children!
Not the fiery filibusters

Passing wildly in a moment,

Like a flame across the prairies,
Like a whirlwind through the forest,
Leaving empty lands behind them!
Not the Mexicans and Spaniards,
Indolent and proud hidalgos,
Dwelling in their haciendas,
Dreaming, talking of to-morrow,
While their cattle graze around them,
And their fickle revolutions

Change the rulers, not the people!

Other folks are these who follow

Where the wild bees come to warn us;
These are hive and honeymakers,
These are busy, banded people,
Roaming far to swarm and settle,
Working every day for harvest,
Fighting hard for peace and order,
Worshiping as queens, their women,

Making homes and building cities,
Full of riches and of trouble.
All our hunting grounds must vanish,
All our lodges fall before them,
All our happy life of freedom,
Fade away like smoke before them.
Come, my brothers, strike your tepees,
Call your women, load your ponies!
Let us take the trail to westward,
Where the plains are wide and open,
Where the bison herds are gathered
Waiting for our feathered arrows.
We will live as lived our fathers,
Gleaners of the gifts of nature,
Hunters of the unkept cattle,

Men whose women run to serve them.
If the toiling bees pursue us,

If the white men seek to tame us,

We will fight them off and flee them,

Break their hives and take their honey, Moving westward, ever westward, There to live as lived our fathers.”

3

So the red men drove their ponies,
With the tent poles trailing after,
Out along the path to sunset,

While along the river valleys

Swarmed the wild bees, the forerunners.

And the white men, close behind them,

Men of mark from old Missouri,

Men of daring from Kentucky,

Tennessee, Louisiana,

Men of many States and races,

Bringing wives and children with them,
Followed up the wooded valleys,

Spread across the rolling prairies,
Raising homes and reaping harvests.
Rude the toil that tried their patience,
Fierce the fights that proved their courage,
Rough the stone and tough the timber
Out of which they built their order!
Yet they never failed nor faltered,
And the instinct of their swarming
Made them one and kept them working,
Till their toil was crowned with triumph,
And the country of the Tejas
Was the fertile land of Texas.

The Eagle's Song

Richard Mansfield

The sweep of the thought in this poem, embracing our Revolu tionary and Civil Wars, can hardly be followed by a pupil short of the upper grades. Note that each of the last three stanzas denotes a marked transition, to be indicated by proper pauses in each case.

I

THE lioness whelped, and the sturdy cub

Was seized by an eagle and carried up,

And homed for a while in an eagle's nest.

And slept for a while on an eagle's breast;
And the eagle taught it the eagle's song:

"To be staunch, and valiant, and free, and strong!"