Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MISSISSIPPI; JULY, 1863, by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MISSISSIPPI; JULY, 1863, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Down the silent mississippi, with his saintly soul aflame
Last Line: Far to eastward, far to westward, touch the shining ocean sands.
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): American Civil War; Mississippi; Mississippi River; Rivers; Sailing & Sailors; U.s. - History


DOWN the silent Mississippi, with his saintly soul aflame,
Twice a hundred years are numbered since Marquette, rejoicing, came.
All the winter in his cabin high among the Huron snows,
Gaining lore of forest hunters, tracing maps by firelight glows,
Offering to the Blessed Virgin morn and evening vow and prayer
That his eyes might view the River flowing southward broad and fair —
Wondrous grace! upon its bosom, glad beneath the summer blue,
Rapt in visions, lost in praises, lo! he guides his light canoe!
Winding 'mid the wooded islands tangled deep with musky vines;
Flower-enchanted, past the prairies with their dim horizon lines;
By the fierce Missouri water, dark in gorge and cataract wiles,
Down from nameless regions rolling, restless, thrice a thousand miles;
Past Ohio, loveliest river, all its banks aflush with rose,
While the red-bud tints the woodlands and the lavish laurel blows;
By the belts of odorous cedar, through the cypress-swamps below,
Till he greets its wider grandeur, knows the secret of its flow;
Fainting then from summer fervors, homeward turns in sacred awe,
Dying humbly with his Hurons by their windswept Mackinaw.

Then La Salle, impatient, fearless, took the Father's idle oar,
Longing for the larger splendor, listening for the ocean roar!
Under Bluffs that seek the beauty of the upper shores to win;
Past the Ar'kansas, slow-drifting with its mountain tribute in;
By the bend where sad DeSoto, with his high Castilian pride,
Lulled forever and lamented, sleeps, a king, beneath the tide;
Through the forests, perfume-haunted, weird moss waving to and fro —
There the cottonwood towers stately, and the tall magnolias blow —
Past the bayous, still and sombre, where the alligator swims,
And at noonday, on the shore, the paroquet his plumage trims;
Gliding down by green savannas — ho! the wind blows cool and free!
Bright, beyond, the Gulf is gleaming — lo! the River finds the Sea!
Out of mystery, out of silence, now the mighty stream is won —
Rear the cross, O joyful Boatman! chant sweet hymns at set of sun!

Ah, La Salle, Marquette, De Soto! boatmen bold in song and story,
Lighting up the river romance there are later deeds of glory.
Lonely was the stream, the forest, as ye dropped, with measured calm,
Down to golden zones of summer through the fresh world's breeze and balm; —
But the Indian, silent-gazing, half in welcome, half in fear;
On the grassy plains the bison, in the dewy glades the deer;
Not a sound to break the stillness save the song of woodland bird,
Or the panther's cry at evening from the cypress thickets heard;
Or the eagle's scream, as northward to his cooler lakes he flew,
Fainter ringing down the valley till he faded in the blue.
Twice a hundred years are numbered, and the Red Man roams no more
Through the green aisles of the forest — by the reedy, open shore;
With the startled deer and bison he has fled before the bands
That your fleet canoes have followed from the wondering father-lands.
Now a people build its bordors; now the great fleets hasten down
With the sheaves of many a prairie, with the wealth of many a town;
Decks piled high from tropic harvest in the warmer realms below—
Rice and sugar from the cane-fields, and the cotton's downy snow;
Laden sea-craft inland sailing, rafts that find the current's fall,
Smoke of steamer, call of pilot, from the Gulf to high Saint Paul;
And the thronged, exultant River is a nation's heart, whose hands
Far to eastward, far to westward, touch the shining ocean sands.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net