John Gould Fletcher

From “Down the Mississippi”

AFTER the whistle’s roar has bellowed and shuddered,

Shaking the sleeping town and the somnolent river,

The deep-toned floating of the pilot’s bell

Suddenly warns the engines.

They pause like heart-beats that abruptly stop:

The shore glides to us, in a wide low curve.

And then—supreme revelation of the river—

The tackle is loosed, the long gang-plank swings outwards;

And poised at the end of it, half naked beneath the searchlight,

A blue-black negro with gleaming teeth waits for his chance to leap.