Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Introductory to Western States

Kansas

By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)

WE cross the prairie as of old

The pilgrims crossed the sea,

To make the West, as they the East,

The homestead of the free!

We go to rear a wall of men

On Freedom’s southern line,

And plant beside the cotton-tree

The rugged Northern pine!

We ’re flowing from our native hills

As our free rivers flow;

The blessing of our Mother-land

Is on us as we go.

We go to plant her common schools

On distant prairie swells,

And give the Sabbaths of the wild

The music of her bells.

Upbearing, like the Ark of old,

The Bible in our van,

We go to test the truth of God

Against the fraud of man.

No pause, nor rest, save where the streams

That feed the Kansas run,

Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon

Shall flout the setting sun!

We ’ll tread the prairie as of old

Our fathers sailed the sea,

And make the West, as they the East,

The homestead of the free!