Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WIND SONG; OKLAHOMA ANNIVERSARY, APRIL 22, by ZOE AGNES STRATTON TILGHMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WIND SONG; OKLAHOMA ANNIVERSARY, APRIL 22, by                    
First Line: Wind of the prairie, sweeping adown from the hills
Last Line: "but these are they who have conquer'd and kept, the people of eighty-nine."
Subject(s): Native Americans; Oklahoma; Pioneers; West (u.s.); Wind; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America; Southwest; Pacific States


Wind of the Prairie, sweeping adown from the hills
Bending the upstarting grass of the early spring,
Tell me what you are singing.
Summers and winters uncounted, unknown,
Over the wilderness roaming,
So you have learned if you will but tell,
All that in the long years befell;
Sing to me, then, of the Coming.

"Tread of the moccasin'd Indian, trailing the deer in the timber,
Stalking the bison and antelope grazing the open plains;
Flying with stolen ponies snatcht from the Utes of the West;
Plumes of the war-parties riding—past, like the wind in the grass.

"Tramp of the cavalry horses, and gleam of the council fires burning;
Sound of the axe and of hammer where forts arise at their bidding;
Dim trails over the prairie where longhorns journey to northward—
I lift the mists from the river, and these are gone as the vapors.
"Creaking of laden wagons in lonely and desolate places,
Ring of the wires drawn taut as the staples are driven home;
Grazing herds in the pastures; long lines winding down to the river;
They drink, and I ripple the water, and these are gone like the ripples.

"Alone in the smile of the springtide the land lies waiting before me.
The jackrabbit leisurely lopes on quest of his own, and the coyote
Howls in the night at the camp fires that gleam in the darkness before him;
Men and women and children about them gather'd and waiting,
Faces and hearts alight with a wonderful hope and desiring;
Soldiers riding before them, as the sun climbs high in the heavens;
I scatter the smoke of their guns, and the throngs are melted as quickly.

"Over the land they are pour'd, in a flood resistless, unyielding;
Toiling with stubborn patience, a winter light in their faces;
Steadfast thru days that are dark, till the first great struggle is over;
Winter winds have they borne, but now the joy of the springtime
Wells in their hearts once more, as they who remain are foregathered;
Past on the breath of the wind, pioneers who blazed the way for them.
But these are they who have conquer'd and kept, the People of Eighty-Nine."





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