William H. Simpson

From “Along Old Trails”

AGAIN, O plains,

I go your windswept ways,

With Indian, trapper, trader, pioneer—

Gray shadows all

On gray grass.

I am companioned—

Miracle most strange—

By youth

And its high dreams.

West, with the sun,

From rim to rim;

And then,

Beyond ken,

Tired miles of trails

On sod fresh trod.

So new

The billows of your grass—

So new

Your breezes, born each morn.

But old—so old—

The ghosts that pass.