My First View of a Western Prairie

by Eliza Roxcy Snow

The loveliness of Nature, always did
Delight me.
          In the days of childhood; when
My young light heart, in all the buoyancy
Of its own bright imagination’s spell,
Beat in accordant consonance to all
For which it cherished an affinity;
The summer glory of the landscape, rous’d
Within my breast a princely feeling. Time’s
Obliterating glance cannot erase,
The impulse with my being interwove;
And oftentimes, in the fond ecstacy
Of youth’s effervescence, I’ve gaz’d
Upon the richly variegated fields;
Which most emphatically spoke the praise
Of Nature, and the cultivator’s skill.

     But when I heard the western traveller paint
The splendid beauties of the far-off West;
Where Nature’s pastures, rich and amply broad,
Waving in full abundance, seem to mock
The deepest schemes and boldest efforts of
The cultivators of the eastern soil;
I grew incredulous that Nature’s dress
Should be so rich, and so domestic, and
So beautiful, without the touch of Art;
And thought the picture fancifully wrought.

     Yet, in the process of revolving scenes,
I left the place of childhood and of youth;
And as I journey’d t’ward the setting sun,
As if awaking from a nightly dream,
Into a scenery grand and strangely new,
I almost thought myself transported back
Upon the retrograding wheel of time;
To days, and scenes, when Greece presided o’er
The destinies of earth; and when she shone
Like her ador’d Apollo, without one
Tall rival in the field of Literature:
And fancied then, that I was standing on
That tow’ring mount of truly classic fame,
That overlooks the rich, the fertile, and
The far-extended vales of Crissa: Or,
That in some wild poetic spell, of deep
Unconscious recklessness, I’d stray’d afar
Upon the flowing plains of Marathon.

     But soon reflection’s potent wand dispel’d
The false illusion, and I realiz’d
That I was not inhaling foreign air;
Nor moving in a scene emblazon’d with
The classic legends of antiquity:
O no; the scenery around was not
Enchantment: ’Twas the bright original,
Of those fair images and ideal forms,
Which fancy’s pencil is so prompt to sketch,
Instead of treading on Ionian fields;
I stood upon Columbian soil; and in
The rich and fertile State of Illinois.
Amaz’d, I view’d until my optic nerve
Grew dull and giddy with the phrenzy of
The innocent delight; and I exclaim’d
With Sheba’s queen, ‘one half had not been told.’

     But then my thoughts—can I describe them now?
No: for description’s ablest pow’rs grow lame,
Whenever put upon the chase of things
Of non-existence; and my thoughts had all,
Like liquid matter, melted down; and had
Become, as with a secret touch absorb’d,
In the one all-engrossing feeling of
Deep admiration, vivid and intense.
And my imagination too, for once,
Acknowledged its own imbecility,
And cower’d down, as if to hide away:
For all its pow’rs had been too cold and dull,
Too tame, and too domestic far, to draw
A parallel, with the bold grandeur, and
The native beauty of this “Western World.”