Prairie Spring

by Willa Cather

　　

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From Cather's collection, April Twilights, published in 1923. Evening and the flat land,Rich and somber and always silent;The miles of fresh-plowed soil,Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;The growing wheat, the growing weeds,The toiling horses, the tired men;The long, empty roads,Sullen fires of sunset, fading,The eternal, unresponsive sky.Against all this, Youth,Flaming like the wild roses,Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,Flashing like a star out of the twilight;Youth with its insupportable sweetness,Its fierce necessity,Its sharp desire;Singing and singing,Out of the lips of silence,Out of the earthy dusk.

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