Deeply the buffalo trod it
Beating it barren as brass;
Now the soft rain-fingers sod it,
Green to the crest of the pass.
Backward it slopes into history;
Forward it lifts into mystery.
Here is but wind in the grass.

Backward the millions assemble,
Bannered with dust overhead,
Setting the prairie a-tremble
Under the might of their tread.
Forward the sky-line is glistening
And to the reach of our listening
Drifts not a sound from the dead.

Quick, or the swift seasons fade it!
Look on his works while they show.
This is the bison. He made it.
Thus say the old ones who know.
This is the bison—a-pondering
Vague as the prairie wind wandering
Over the green or the snow.