To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
(F.1779/J.1755)
[1] prairie:: prairie fever, or prairie madness, an affliction (mainly due to isolation) among the prairie settlers of America in the 19th century.
[2] bee:: mad thought, a bee in one's bonnet or head. clover:: to live in clover, to live luxuriously.
[1,2] a clover, one bee:: the repeating simulates the lost of one's mind caused by a fever, a symptom of prairie-fever.
[3] revery:: reverie, an illusion, a day-dream.
[5] bees are few:: lack of whimsical ideas to create a vision.
In the prairie territories of America there is experienced by the traveller and the hunter, a strange sensation which has been called the prairie fever. It is a sweet and exhilarating feeling, absorbing for a time all recollection of the past, and killing all anxiety about the future. It is a maddening enjoyment of the present, arising from lightened spirits, and the grandeur of surrounding nature. ─ Our Garrisons in the West (1864)
The prairie fever! Yes. I was just then in process of being inoculated by that strange disease. It grew upon me apace. The dreams of home began to die within me; and. with these, the illusory ideas of many a young and foolish ambition. ─ The Scalp Hunters (1851) By Mayne Reid