He saw them out of the cottage door,

The lame boy sitting upon the floor:

“Mother, mother, how long will it be

Till the prairie go like a waving sea?

Will the bare woods ever be green—and when?

O, will it ever be summer again?”—

She looked in silence on her child:

That large eye, ever so dark and wild,

Oh me, how bright!—it may have been

That he was grown so pale and thin.