John Gould Fletcher

From “Down the Mississippi”

FLINGING its arc of silver bubbles, quickly shifts the moon

From side to side of us as we go down its path;

I sit on the deck at midnight, and watch it slipping and sidling,

Under my tilted chair, like a thin film of spilt water.

It is weaving a river of light to take the place of this river—

A river where we shall drift all night, then come to rest in its shallows.

And then I shall wake from my drowsiness and look down from some dim tree-top

Over white lakes of cotton, like moon-fields on every side.