The Prairies. I behold them for the first, And my heart swells, while the dilated sight

Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch,

In airy undulations, far away,

As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell, Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,

1 See the account of Bryant's first visit to the West, in Godwin's Life, vol. i, pp. 282-286. Especially significant is a passage from Bryant's letter to Richard H. Dana: I have seen the great West, where I ate corn and hominy, slept in log houses, with twenty men, women, and children in the same room. . . . At Jacksonville, where my two brothers live, I got on a horse, and travelled about a hundred miles to the northward over the immense prairies, with scattered settlements, on the edges of the groves. These prairies, of a soft, fertile garden soil, and a smooth undulating surface, on which you may put a horse to full speed, covered with high, thinly growing grass, full of weeds and gaudy flowers, and destitute of bushes or trees, perpetually brought to my mind the idea of their having been once cultivated. They looked to me like the fields of a race which had passed away, whose enclosures and habitations had decayed, but on whose vast and rich plains, smoothed and levelled by tillage, the forest had not yet encroached.'

Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched

His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;

They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven;

Merciless Power has dug thy dungeon deep,

And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,

Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound,

The links are shivered, and the prison-walls Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth, As springs the flame above a burning pile, And shoutest to the nations, who return 31 Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.

Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,

While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,

To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst
draw

The earliest furrow on the mountain-side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.

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And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap

His withered hands, and from their ambush call

His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send

Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms

To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words

To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,

Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread,

That grow to fetters; or bind down thy

arms

These old and friendly solitudes invite
Thy visit. They, while yet the forest-trees
Were young upon the unviolated earth,
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were

As, round the sleeping infant's feet, We softly fold the cradle-sheet;

So plant we the apple-tree.

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What plant we in this apple-tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson
breast,

Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest;
We plant, upon the sunny lea,

A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,
When we plant the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs
To load the May-wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard-row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;

A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree?
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,
And redden in the August noon,
And drop, when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,

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While children come, with cries of glee, And seek them where the fragrant grass Betrays their bed to those who pass, At the foot of the apple-tree.