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Anna E. Arnold.

QUIVERA—KANSAS

In that half-forgotten era,

With the avarice of old,

Seeking cities he was told

Had been paved with yellow gold,

In the kingdom of Quivera—​

Came the restless Coronado

To the open Kansas plain,

With his knights from sunny Spain;

In an effort that, though vain,

Thrilled with boldness and bravado.

League by league, in aimless marching,

Knowing scarcely where or why,

Crossed they uplands drear and dry,

That an unprotected sky

Had for centuries been parching.

But their expectations, eager,

Found, instead of fruitful lands,

Shallow streams and shifting sands,

Where the buffalo in bands

Roamed o’er deserts dry and meager.

Back to scenes more trite, yet tragic,

Marched the knights with armor’d steeds

Not for them the quiet deeds;

Not for them to sow the seeds

From which empires grow like magic.

Thus Quivera was forsaken;

And the world forgot the place

Through the lapse of time and space.

Then the blue-eyed Saxon race

Came and bade the desert waken.

— Eugene Ware.