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On the Mississippi  
by Hamlin Garland

Through wild and tangled forests
   The broad, unhasting river flows--
   Spotted with rain-drops, gray with night;
     Upon its curving breast there goes
A lonely steamboat's larboard light,
       A blood-red star against the shadowy oaks;
Noiseless as a ghost, through greenish gleam
Of fire-flies, before the boat's wild scream--
          A heron flaps away
          Like silence taking flight.



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From Prairie Songs: Being Chants Rhymed and Unrhymed of the Level Lands of the Great West by Hamlin Garland, published by Stone and Kimball, 1893. This poem is in the public domain.
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