Two poems by Willa Cather

Prairie Spring

Evening and the flat land,

Rich and sombre and always silent;

The miles of fresh-plowed soil,

Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;

The growing wheat, the growing weeds,

The toiling horses, the tired men;

The long empty roads,

Sullen fires of sunset, fading,

The eternal, unresponsive sky.

Against all this, Youth,

Flaming like the wild roses,

Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,

Flashing like a star out of the twilight;

Youth with its insupportable sweetness,

Its fierce necessity,

Its sharp desire,

Singing and singing,

Out of the lips of silence,

Out of the earthy dusk.

Evening Song

Dear love, what thing of all the things that be 

Is ever worth one thought from you or me, 

             Save only Love, 

             Save only Love? 

The days so short, the nights so quick to flee, 

The world so wide, so deep and dark the sea, 

              So dark the sea;  

So far the suns and every listless star, 

Beyond their light—Ah! dear, who knows how far, 

             Who knows how far?  

One thing of all dim things I know is true, 

The heart within me knows, and tells it you, 

             And tells it you.  

So blind is life, so long at last is sleep, 

And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep, 

             And none but Love, 

             And none but Love. 

Willa Cather

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was an American writer best known for her novels, including O Pioneers, My Ántonia, and Death Comes for the Archbishop. She also wrote a small but considerable collection of verse and, like many of her novels, her poems focus on the landscapes, environment, and changing seasons to attain their mood. Her first published book was a volume of verse, April Twilights (1903). Her approach to writing (based in part on her early career as a journalist) helped define her meticulous yet dynamic style by writing narrative from a middle ground between journalistic objectivity and psychological subjectivity.