The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar/On the River

ON THE RIVER

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.