What are wilds?

Famous quotes containing the word wilds:

    The remnant of Indians thereabout—all but exterminated in their recent and final war with regular white troops, a war waged by the Red Men for their native soil and natural rights—had been coerced into the occupancy of wilds not far beyond the Mississippi.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    when I see you,
    as I have seen you at least

    once every year of my life,
    spin across the wilds of the sky
    like a tiny, African god,

    I feel dead.
    James Tate (b. 1943)

    The man who would change the name of Arkansas is the original, iron-jawed, brass-mouthed, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of the Ozarks! He is the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the smallpox on his mother’s side!
    —Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)