WIDE are the plains—the plains that stretch to the west <br />An ocean of trackless waste, untrodden and rude, <br />Where an Austral sun flings fire on earth’s bare breast, <br />Brazen skies o’erhanging a treeless solitude. <br /> <br />Wild are the plains—the plains that shimmer and surge, <br />Leagues of billowy grass like an angry sea, <br />Bend ’neath the storm-wind, chanting its mystic dirge— <br />The wind that knows no Lord—Lord of ocean or lea. <br /> <br />Calm are the plains—when the moon’s clear beams are shed <br />And the wilds lie hushed, all shrouded in silver-grey, <br />And Nature sinks to rest like one whose life has fled, <br />E’en as a bride lying dead in her bridal array. <br /> <br />Weird are the plains—the plains that wait for the dawn <br />When the shadowy darkness strives with the sickly light, <br />And the battle hangs in the balance, finely drawn, <br />Till the spears of morning pierce through the mail of night. <br /> <br />Who shall hear, O Nature, messages thou wouldst send <br />In thy desolate places, far from the moving throng? <br />Ah, but the soul that loveth thee best may comprehend, <br />The voice of the silence speaketh louder than song!<br /><br />George Essex Evans<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-plains-2/
