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. |