John Gould Fletcher

From “Down the Mississippi”

THERE is a silence which I carry about with me always—

A silence perpetual, for it is self-created;

A silence of heat, of water, of unchecked fruitfulness,

Through which each year the heavy harvests bloom, and burst, and fall.

Deep, matted green silence of my South,

Often, within the push and the scorn of great cities,

I have seen that mile-wide waste of water swaying out to you,

And on its current glimmering I am going to the sea.

There is a silence I have achieved—I have walked beyond its threshold.

I know it is without horizons, boundless, fathomless, perfect.

And some day maybe, far away,

I shall curl up in it at last and sleep an endless sleep.