Classic Poem

The heavy mists have crept away,
Heavily swims the sun,
And dim in mystic cloudlands gray
The stars fade one by one;
Out of the dusk enveloping
Come marsh and sky and tree,
Where erst has rested night's dark ring
Over the Kankakee.

" Mark right! " Afar and faint outlined
A flock of mallards fly,
We crouch within the reedy blind
Instantly at the cry.
" Mark left! " We peer through wild rice-blades,
And distant shadows see,
A wedge-shaped phalanx from the shades
Of far-off Kankakee.

" Mark overhead! " A canvas-back!
" Mark! mark! " A bunch of teal!
And swiftly on each flying track
Follows the shotgun's peal;
Thus rings that call, till twilight's tide
Rolls in like some gray sea,
And whippoorwills complain beside
The lonely Kankakee.