John Gould Fletcher

From “Down the Mississippi”

WHEN the moon lights up

Its dull red camp-fire through the trees;

And floats out, like a white balloon,

Into the blue cup of the night, borne by a casual breeze;

The moon-orchestra then begins to stir:

Jiggle of fiddles commence their crazy dance in the darkness;

Crickets churr

Against the stark reiteration of the rusty flutes which frogs

Puff at from rotted logs

In the swamp.

And the moon begins her dance of frozen pomp

Over the lightly quivering floor of the flat and mournful river.

Her white feet slightly twist and swirl—

She is a mad girl

In an old unlit ball-room,

Whose walls, half-guessed-at through the gloom,

Are hung with the rusty crape of stark black cypresses,

Which show, through gaps and tatters, red stains half hidden away.