The Ballad Of William Sycamore

Stephen Vincent Benet

USA

...

Now I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil,
Like the seed of a prairie-thistle;
It has washed my bones with honey and oil
And picked them clean as a whistle.

And my youth returns, like the rains of spring,
And my sons, like the wild geese flying;
And I lie and hear the meadow-lark sing
And have much content in my dying.

Go play with the town you have built of blocks,
The towns where you would have bound me!
I sleep in my earth like a tired fox,
And my buffalo have found me.