Beware the man who's crossed in love;
For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move,
And lend him all the Continent.

O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise, or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
A sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
Only an ocean of tomorrows,
A sky of tomorrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say at sundown:
Tomorrow is a day.

Weeping for thee, my love, thro' the long day,
Lonely and wearily life wears away.
Weeping for thee, my love, thro' the long night—
No rest in darkness, no joy in light!
Naught left but Memory whose dreary tread
Sounds thro' this ruined heart, where all lies dead—
Wakening the echoes of joy long fled!

They told me you were lovely—yes,
The word is true, the judgment just,
While you are silent, motionless
As pictured form or waxen bust;
Your speech turns love to sheer disgust,
Your face it mars, your charm it balks;
Beware the aedile, all mistrust
The omen if a statue talks.

Tho Ive sung in rambles cheery
Springs & summers almost weary
Ere since my boyish hand dare try
To cull a wreath of poesy
& woo that sun tand beautious maid
The rural muse beneath the shade
Binding free her carless hair
To win her smiling favours there
Tho ere since wi countless pleasures
In unpremedi[t]ated measures
Ive sung of woods & dribbling rills
& pastures speckt wi little hills
& meadows smooth as bowling greens
& fields of grain & many scenes
Were manhoods leisure joys to dwell

Light hearted, careless, shall I take my way,
When I to thee this being have resigned,
Well knowing where upon a future day,
With usurer's craft, more than myself to find.

Who is the maiden
Who is gathering flowers
And is not love-laden?
But she now would gather
A rose, the fair maiden,
And he of the garden
Besought for the favour,
If she is not love-laden.

Would that I might this lovely scene
Enjoy for evermore;—
The fishing-boats with busy crews
Who tow upon the shore
Or labour at the oar.

O how shall I, unskilfu', try
The Poet's occupation?
The tunefu' Powers, in happy hours,
That whisper, inspiration,

Even they maun dare an effort mair
Than aught they ever gave us,
Or they rehearse in equal verse
The charms o' lovely Davies.—

Each eye it chears when she appears,
Like Phebus in the morning,
When past the shower, and every flower
The garden is adorning:
As the wretch looks o'er Siberia's shore,
When winter-bound the wave is;
Sae droops our heart when we maun part
Frae charming, lovely Davies.—

Thrice happie Roses, so much grac't, to have
Within the Bosome of my Love your grave.
Die when ye will, your sepulchre is knowne,
Your Grave her Bosome is, the Lawne the Stone.