On The Mississippi

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.