294 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE NORTHERN 



DOCUMENTS NOT KEB^ERRED TO JN THE REPORT OF THE PRO- 



CEEDIXGS. 



A PASTORAL. 



To Samuel Edwards, President of Northern Illinois Horticultural Society, this poem is inscribed 



by the Author. 



BY T. HEMPSTEAD, WINDSOR, BROOME COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



It is winter on the prairies, stretching outward far away. 



Blank and drearj' in tlieir vastness and tlie dusli of closing daj; 



'Tis as If some angry Presence, from the black vault stooping down. 



Passed, and trailed along the world its robes of cold and sullen brown. 



Banishing the pleasant sunshine, sealing up all tuneful lips 



With tlie sliadow and the sorrow of their stern and dark ecUiise; 



Not a flower expands its golden cup in all the lifeless view. 



From the dead grass not a violet turns its eye of tender blue, 



Not an oak in all the landscape lifts its broad and kingly form. 



Rustling in the gales of summer, wrestling with the thunder storm; 



Not a chestnut nor a poplar rears its many twinkling crest, 



AA'here the jay may find a covert or the eagle build her nest; 



Verdureless expanses, dreary as night without a morn, 



Jliles of empty, sullen grassland, broken stalks of earless corn. 



Through whose gray and battered husks with a sad, inconstant moan, 



Runs the wind, a thousand shudders In each deprecating tone: 



Here and there a lonely dwelling, thrust afar from every tree, 



Where a sprightly wren miglit build, or hum a honej^-laden bee: 



Further frowns the dull horizon rising like a wall of lead, 



'Gainst whose face no forest rustles, not a lir tree leans its head — 



"Whilst 1 sit and muse and struggle with the gloom without, within, 



I^isteniug to the rain's dull jjatter and the northwind's roaring din. 



Thoughts of other days come o'er me, thoughts that lead my feet away. 



Through the long years' deei^ening shadows to m^' boyhood's greener day. 



And again I tread the vallej'S, climb again the rugged hills, 



Vocal with the notes of woodbirds and the headlong dash of rills, 



Pleasant with green nooks of mosses and the trailing of the vines. 



And the dancing feet of breezes in the tops of rocking pines. 



O, I sigh, if I could reach them, could I seize them, bring them lieru. 



In tlie prairie's heart to flourish and my daily paths to cheer, 



C'oidd I have the jjines and spruces I with thoughtless hands have burned. 



Seize the symmetry and greenness I have heeded not or sjiurned. 



Here in ranks could 1 behold them, in their undecaj'ing bloom. 



Bringing springtime, shedding glory o'er the prairie's desert gloom, 



I would rather clasp the treasure tlian a palace in Broadway, 



Piled with plate and drowned in perfumes and with Brussels carpets gay— 



Rather that these sylvan children with their deathless green were mine 



Tlian to own a baron's castle with its vaults of hoary wine. 



Then I float on glimmering dreams of woven boughs and snowy bloom ! 



Sparkles into life around me mj- ideal Prairie Home — 



