All day the creeping caravan
Wound on its serpent-trailing way;
A thousand miles of wind-swept tan,
A thousand miles of cloudless gray.
Beneath the quivering summer-heat
The prairie-schooner creaked afar;
Some day, some time, the trail would meet
The Setting Sun, the Golden Bar.
The course is done; the servant old
Long stood in shivering rags, and gazed
Upon the mansions built of gold;
All wondering, by their splendor dazed.
The course is done; yet on and on
Beyond Time's wavering shadow-line
The prairie-schooner long has gone,
Forsaken, lost, with ne'er a shrine.
