On the Plain

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Title:     On the Plain
Author: Hamlin Garland [More Titles by Garland]

My cabin cowers in the pathless sweep
Of the terrible northern blast;
Above its roof the wild clouds leap
And shriek as they hurtle past.
The snow-waves hiss along the plain,
Like spectral wolves they stretch and strain
And race and ramp--with hissing beat,
Like stealthy tread of myriad feet,
I hear them pass; upon the roof
The icy showers swirl and rattle;
At times the moon, from storms aloof,
Shines white and wan within the room--
Then swift clouds drive across the light
And all the plain is lost to sight,
The cabin rocks, and on my palm
The sifted snow falls, cold and calm.

God! What a power is in the wind!
I lay my cheek to the cabin side
To feel the weight of his giant hands--
A speck, a fly in the blasting tide
Of streaming, pitiless, icy sands;
A single heart with its feeble beat--
A mouse in the lion's throat--
A swimmer at sea--a sunbeam's mote
In the grasp of a tempest of hail and sleet!

[The end]
Hamlin Garland's poem: On the Plain

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