Dakota Poem by Joel Benton

Sea-like in billowy distance, far away
The half-broke prairies stretch on every hand;
How wide the circuit of their summer day-
What measureless acres of primeval land,
Treeless and birdless, by no eyesight spanned!
Looking along the horizon's endless line
Man seems a pigmy in these realms of space;
No segment of our planet-so divine-
Turns up such beauty to the moon's fair face!
Here are soft grasses, flowers of tender hue,
Palimpsests of the old and coming race,
Vistas most wonderful, and vast and new;
And see-above-where giant lightnings play,
From what an arch the sun pours forth the day!