>>24487000
Check out Cather's poetry.
>Does the darkness cradle thee
>Than mine arms more tenderly?
>Do the angels God hath put
>There to guard thy lonely sleep —
>One at head and one at foot —
>Watch more fond and constant keep?
>When the black-bird sings in May,
>And the Spring is in the wood,
>Would you never trudge the way
>Over hilltops, if you could?
>Was my harp so hard a load
>Even on the sunny morns
>When the plumed huntsmen rode
>To the music of their horns?
>Hath the love that lit the stars,
>Fills the sea and moulds the flowers,
>Whose completeness nothing mars,
>Made forgot what once was ours?
>Christ hath perfect rest to give;
>Stillness and perpetual peace;
>You, who found it hard to live,
>Sleep and sleep, without surcease.

>Christ hath stars to light thy porch,
>Silence after fevered song; —
>I had but a minstrel's torch
>And the way was wet and long.
>Sleep. No more on winter nights,
>Harping at some castle gate,
>Thou must see the revel lights
>Stream upon our cold estate.
>Bitter was the bread of song
>While you tarried in my tent,
>And the jeering of the throng
>Hurt you, as it came and went.
>When you slept upon my breast
>Grief had wed me long ago:
>Christ hath his perpetual rest
>For thy weariness. But Oh!
>When I sleep beside the road,
>Thanking God thou liest not so,
>Brother to the owl and toad,
>Could'st thou, Dear, but let me know,
>Does the darkness cradle thee
>Than mine arms more tenderly?

Willa Cather (rhymes with rather). I will shill this woman at every opportunity. She is an indisputable master of prose and poetry. See:
>You shall hear the tale again—
>Hush, my red-haired daughter.”
>Brightly burned the sunset gold
>On the black pond water
>Red the pasture ridges gleamed
>Where the sun was sinking.
>Slow the windmill rasped and wheezed
>Where the herd was drinking.
>On the kitchen doorstep low
>Sat a Swedish mother;
>In her arms one baby slept,
>By her sat another.
>“All time, ’way back in old countree,
>Your grandpa, he been good to me.
>Your grandpa, he been young man, too,
>And I been yust li’l’ girl, like you.
>All time in spring, when evening come,
>We go bring sheep an’ li’l’ lambs home.
>We go big field, ’way up on hill,
>Ten times high like our windmill.
>One time your grandpa leave me wait
>While he call sheep down. By de gate
>I sit still till night come dark;
>Rabbits run an’ strange dogs bark,
>Old owl hoot, an’ your modder cry,
>She been so ’fraid big bear come by.
>Last, ’way off, she hear de sheep,
>Li’l’ bells ring and li’l’ lambs bleat.
>Then all sheep come over de hills,
>Big white dust, an’ old dog Nils.
>Then come grandpa, in his arm
>Li’l’ sick lamb dat somet’ing harm.
>He so young then, big and strong,
>Pick li’l’ girl up, take her ’long,—
>Poor li’l’ tired girl, yust like you,—
>Lift her up an’ take her too.
>Hold her tight an’ carry her far,—
>’Ain’t no light but yust one star.
>Sheep go ‘bah-h,’ an’ road so steep;
>Li’l’ girl she go fast asleep.”
>Every night the red-haired child
>Begs to hear the story,
>When the pasture ridges burn
>With the sunset glory.
>She can never understand,
>Since the tale ends gladly,
>Why her mother, telling it,
>Always smiles so sadly.
>Wonderingly she looks away
>Where her mother’s gazing;
>Only sees the drifting herd,
>In the sunset grazing.
and
>The dawn in the east looked like the light from some great fire that was burning under the edge of the world. The color was reflected in the globules of dew that sheathed the short gray pasture grass. Carl walked rapidly until he came to the crest of the second hill, where the Bergson pasture joined the one that had belonged to his father. There he sat down and waited for the sun to rise. It was just there that he and Alexandra used to do their milking together, he on his side of the fence, she on hers. He could remember exactly how she looked when she came over the close-cropped grass, her skirts pinned up, her head bare, a bright tin pail in either hand, and the milky light of the early morning all about her. Even as a boy he used to feel, when he saw her coming with her free step, her upright head and calm shoulders, that she looked as if she had walked straight out of the morning itself. Since then, when he had happened to see the sun come up in the country or on the water, he had often remembered the young Swedish girl and her milking pails.