As I sat on a Kansas hilltop,
While, far away from my,
Rippled the lights and shadows
Dancing across acres of wheat,
The sound of the grain as it murmured
Wrought a wonder with me__.
It turned from the voice of the Prairie
Into the roar of the sea.
And I saw not the running wind-waves,
But an ocean that washed below
In ridging and crumbling breakers
And ceaseless motion and flow;
Then, as a valley is flooded
With opaline mists at morn
Which momently flow asunder
And leave green spaces of corn__
There burst.the strangest vision
Up from that'ancient sea.__
'Twas not the pearl-white Venus
Anadyomene,
Twas the bobbing ears of horses
And a head with a great hat crowned
And a binder that burst upon me i
Sudden, as from the ground
And the waves gave place to the wheatlands
Myriad-touched 'with gold__
Then my soul felt century-weary
And untold aeons old;
For a rock-ledge sloped beside me
And the lime-traced shells it bore
Had plied that ancient ocean
Each with a sentient oar.
A Wheat-Field Fantasy
written byHarry Kemp
© Harry Kemp