The shining, friendly cottonwoods Along my loved Canadian Still gracious spread their welcome shade As when my father's toil first made His prairie acres rich with grain. Past weathered mounds of last year's straw Unripened, bearded wheat still bends; The plow still turns; the hoe still shines; Grass-deep, the mower whirrs and whines; The oat its green and silver blends. Their fields remain, their prairie tamed, Shut in with fence lines they first drew, Bound fast with nets of road they laid; The schoolhouse, church, and town they made Endure for generations new. Along my loved Canadian The men alone, are gone; they lie Where cottonwoods shine overhead In patient rows of neighboring dead -- Beneath their changeless prairie sky. |