Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SONG OF THE SUSQUEHANNA, by ELEANOR G. R. YOUNG


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SONG OF THE SUSQUEHANNA, by                    
First Line: Straight from the cool green arms
Last Line: Of the dogwood's ivory gleam.
Subject(s): Brooks; Susquehanna (river); Travel; Water; Streams; Creeks; Journeys; Trips


Straight from the cool green arms
Of the bordering forests I spring,
Rippling and singing and blithe,
A silvery, laughing thing
With the sunlight brushing my face
As light as a butterfly's wing.

Safe on my quiet bosom
Green little islands rest
Strange to the foot of the White Man
Islands where eagles nest,
Islands the Red Men traveled
When they lorded "the land of the West."

Softly my "muddy waters"
Run on to the waiting sea,
Past the gay little hamlets
And cities of industry,
While great rocks lift their jagged heads
As if to threaten me.

But on I go laughing, singing,
On, swiftly on to the sea,
With the memory of moccasined footsteps
Echoing hauntingly
Out of the hush of the forest's
Age-old mystery.

"Crooked" they call my waters,
"A narrow and useless stream,"
Yet I freshen a hundred valleys
On my way to the sea's blue gleam
And I mirror the white reflection
Of the dogwood's ivory gleam.





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