O, I have walked in Kansas

Through many a harvest field

And piled the sheaves of glory there

And down the wild rows reeled;
 

Each sheaf a little yellow sun,

A heap of hot-rayed gold;

Each binder like Creation's hand

To mold suns, as of old.
 

Straight overhead the orb of noon

Beat down with brimstone breath;

The desert wind from south and west

Was blistering flame and death.
 

Yet it was gay in Kansas,

A-fighting that strong sun;

And I and many a fellow-tramp

Defied that wind and won.
 

And we felt free in Kansas

From any sort of fear,

For thirty thousand tramps like us

There harvest every year.
 

She stretches arms for them to come,

She roars for helpers then,

And so it is in Kansas

That tramps, one month, are men.
 

We sang in burning Kansas

The songs of Sabbath-school,

The "Day-Star" flashing in the East,

The "Vale of Eden" cool.
 

We sang in splendid Kansas

"The flag that set us free" --

That march of fifty thousand men

With Sherman to the sea.
 

We feasted high in Kansas

And had much milk and meat.

The tables groaned to give us power

Wherewith to save the wheat.
 

Our beds were sweet alfalfa hay

Within the barn-loft wide.

The loft doors opened out upon

The endless wheat-field tide.
 

I loved to watch the windmills spin

And watch that big moon rise.

I dreamed and dreamed with lids half-shut,

The moonlight in my eyes.
 

For all men dream in Kansas,

By noonday and by night,

By sunrise yellow, red and wild,

And moonrise wild and white.
 

The wind would drive the glittering clouds,

The cottonwoods would croon,

And past the sheaves and through the leaves

Came whispers from the moon.

^__Vachel Lindsey.