Song of the Oktahutchee

FAR, far, far are my silver waters drawn;

  The hills embrace me, loth to let me go;

The maidens think me fair to look upon,

  And trees lean over, glad to hear me flow.

Thro' field and valley, green because of me,

I wander, wander to the distant sea.

Thro' lonely places and thro' crowded ways,

  Thro' noise of strife and thro' the solitude,

And on thro' cloudy days and sunny days,

  I journey till I meet, in sisterhood,

The broad Canadian, red with the sunset,

Now calm, now raging with a mighty fret!

On either hand, in a grand colonnade,

  The cottonwoods rise in the azure sky,

And purple mountains cast a purple shade

  As I, now grave, now laughing, pass them by;

The birds of air dip bright wings in my tide,

In sunny reaches where I noiseless glide.

O'er sandy reaches with rocks and mussel-shells,

  Blue over spacious beds of amber sand,

By hanging cliffs, by glens where echo dwells--

  Elusive spirit of the shadow-land--

Forever blest and blessing do I go,

A-wid'ning in the morning's roseate glow.

Tho' I sing my song in a minor key,

  Broad lands and fair attest the good I do;

Tho' I carry no white sails to the sea,

  Towns nestle in the vales I wander thro';

And quails are whistling in the waving grain,

And herds are scattered o'er the verdant plain.

Alexander Lawrence Posey

July

THE air without has taken fever;

Fast I feel the beating of its pulse.

The leaves are twisted on the maple,

In the corn the autumn's premature;

The weary butterfly hangs waiting

For a breath to waft him thither at

The touch, but falls, like truth unheeded,

into dust-blown grass and hollyhocks.

The air without is blinding dusty;

Cool I feel the breezes blow; I see

The sunlight, crowded on the porch, grow

Smaller till absorbed in shadow; and

The far blue hills are changed to gray, and

Twilight lingers in the woods between;

And now I hear the shower dancing

In the cornfield and the thirsty grass.

Alexander Lawrence Posey

Midsummer

I SEE the millet combing gold

  From summer sun,

In hussar caps, all day;

&nbs; And brown quails run

Far down the dusty way,

  Fly up and whistle from the wold;

Sweet delusions on the mountains,

  Of hounds in chase,

Beguiling every care

  Of life apace,

Though only fevered air

That trembles, and dies in mounting.

Alexander Lawrence Posey

Autumn

IN the dreamy silence

Of the afternoon, a

Cloth of gold is woven

Over wood and prairie;

And the jaybird, newly

Fallen from the heaven,

Scatters cordial greeting,

And the air is filled with

Scarlet leaves, that, dropping

Rise again, as ever,

With a useless sigh for

Rest--and it is Autumn.

Alexander Lawrence Posey

Nightfall

AS evening splendors fade

  From yonder sky afar,

The Night pins on her dark

  Robe with a large bright star,

And the new moon hangs like

  A high-thrown scimitar.

Vague in the mystic room

  This side the paling west,

The Tulledegas loom

  In an eternal rest,

And one by one the lamps are lit

  In the dome of the Infinite.

Alexander Lawrence Posey