Prairie Born Child
When people wander far from home,
From the land that gave them birth
Their homesick hearts turn often back
To their own wee bit of earth.
Mountain-folk yearn for peaks and crags,
While the sailor pines for the sea
But I was born on the level land,
And the prairie calls to me.
Majestic heights inspire with awe
And the sea has a lure of its own,
But the prairie never calls in vain,
To her child who wanders alone.
The sunlight floods the lofty range,
And the moonlight gleams on the deep;
But the stars themselves come down and sing,
The prairie-born child to sleep.
By Laressa Cox McBurney
Printed in Prairie Panorama in 1938
Laressa Cox McBurney was my grandmother's half-sister.