The Illinois Village

O you who lose the art of hope,         Whose temples seem to shrine a lie,         Whose sidewalks are but stones of fear,         Who weep that Liberty must die,         Turn to the little prairie towns,         Your higher hope shall yet begin.         On every side awaits you there         Some gate where glory enters in.         Yet when I see the flocks of girls,         Watching the Sunday train go thro'         (As tho' the whole wide world went by)         With eyes that long to travel too,         I sigh, despite my soul made glad         By cloudy dresses and brown hair,         Sigh for the sweet life wrenched and torn         By thundering commerce, fierce and bare.         Nymphs of the wheat these girls should be:         Kings of the grove, their lovers strong.         Why are they not inspired, aflame?         This beauty calls for valiant song -         For men to carve these fairy-forms         And faces in a fountain-frieze;         Dancers that own immortal hours;         Painters that work upon their knees;         Maids, lovers, friends, so deep in life,         So deep in love and poet's deeds,         The railroad is a thing disowned,         The city but a field of weeds.         Who can pass a village church         By night in these clean prairie lands         Without a touch of Spirit-power?         So white and fixed and cool it stands -         A thing from some strange fairy-town,         A pious amaranthine flower,         Unsullied by the winds, as pure         As jade or marble, wrought this hour: -         Rural in form, foursquare and plain,         And yet our sister, the new moon,         Makes it a praying wizard's dream.         The trees that watch at dusty noon         Breaking its sharpest lines, veil not         The whiteness it reflects from God,         Flashing like Spring on many an eye,         Making clean flesh, that once was clod.         Who can pass a district school         Without the hope that there may wait         Some baby-heart the books shall flame         With zeal to make his playmates great,         To make the whole wide village gleam         A strangely carved celestial gem,         Eternal in its beauty-light,         The Artist's town of Bethlehem!