The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1914-03-14
WINTER ON THE PLAINS.


But no where else so cruel and grim
As on fine plains of the far, far West.
The wind-swePt trails of the wild-wolf's
quest;
For there he comes like fiend of hate,
Like one who with life his vengeance
would safe;
His dagger of ice cuts armor of proof,
His darts pierce the wall, his arrows the
roof;
With fierce and bitter and cruel delight,
Likean incarnation of Terror and Fright,
Souls from bodies to disunite.
A beautiful mid-winter day. The vel
low buffalo-gPass SINNERS in the golden
sunshine and the soft south wind bends the
tall tops of the blue-Stem. All is warm,
spring-like, delicious. Suddenly the wind
veers to the northward; clouds gradually
oversPread the sky and the sunset is hidden
from view. The moon shines ftfuIly thro'
the night; flying clouds soar across the face
of the armament; the wind shrieks and
means around fhe cabin, as the Indian
ghosts were haunting the homes of their
white supplanters, and blizzard comes on.
A desert, desert, desert,
A desert of drifting snow,
Of flying, whirling, shifting snow,
Of snow as cold as frozen breath,
As cold as the chill on the face of death;
So fine it flies like smoke o re the plain,
And fills like mist the air with its bane;
1t levels the hollows,
And scrapes the hills.
Smooths bufalo-wallows,
ChokeS channel of rills,
And Expresses the sight with a gloom of
white
More awful and strange than the blackness
of night.
o the sharp and freezing and singing
blast,
From endless miles of North-plains vast!-
1t pelts the face with a dust of ice,
And freezes it DER with a crust of ice,
And makes one gasp and struggle for
breath
Like dying man who battles death;
Is wipes out landmarks, trail and track,
And Sits thro' every crevice and crack
The Powdery snow, and piles it high
On the settlers floor, while his children
cry.
For the awful cold fights hard with the fire,
With a deadly hate and savage desire
To have the life of the poor little things,
To torture their nerves with freezing stings;
And it Pinches their ears,
And aches their feet,
And starts the tears,
Till they whimPer for heat;
While the father feeds grimly the stove
with corn
And the mother wishes they'd never been
born.
And so the awful day wears on. At
night the wind goes down, the snow falls
steadily, and IN the morning.
There is world of white, white, white;
All cold and sparkling, pure and bright;
Not a touch, not 4 spot of color in sight,
Save the steel-blue sky and the suns yell
low kite,
And the brown grasS-stems all richly digit
With rimy frost and diamond light,
Like pixies frozen in dancing plight.
The air is filled with flying frost,
And the black mares name is ice, almost,
And the steafny breath is like smoke, up
tost,
Of the heifer who lows for her calf that is
Hercalf that the binding blizzard caught,
And the while she called, it with below
distraught
Its steps grew slower and yet more slow,
1t sank and was wrapt in blanket of snow
But the round breathing-hole its drift-bed
will show,
When forth to the search the settler shall go;
So poor brute mother, don't low! don
lowl
Your babe will come back and will feast
on your teat,
And your sad, hungry ewes shall again
feast on it,
And south winds shall blow,
And spTing-time shall come,
And waters shall flow,
And pTairie-cooks drum,
And wheat-crops shall gladden. the prairie
once more,
And the settler shall heap up MS corn
crib store.