On The River

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The sun is low,
  The waters flow,
  My boat is dancing to and fro.
  The eve is still,
  Yet from the hill
  The killdeer echoes loud and shrill.

  The paddles plash,
  The wavelets dash,
  We see the summer lightning flash;
  While now and then,
  In marsh and fen
  Too muddy for the feet of men,

  Where neither bird
  Nor beast has stirred,
  The spotted bullfrog's croak is heard.
  The wind is high,
  The grasses sigh,
  The sluggish stream goes sobbing by.

  And far away
  The dying day
  Has cast its last effulgent ray;
  While on the land
  The shadows stand
  Proclaiming that the eve's at hand.

© Paul Laurence Dunbar