| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Embarkation | | By John Gould Fletcher |
| | From “Down the Mississippi” August 22–27, 1915
DULL masses of dense green, | |
| The forests range their sombre platforms. | |
| Between them silently, like a spirit, | |
| The river finds its own mysterious path. | |
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| Loosely the river sways out, backward, forward, | 5 |
| Always fretting the outer side; | |
| Shunning the invisible focus of each crescent, | |
| Seeking to spread into shining loops over fields: | |
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| Like an enormous serpent, dilating, uncoiling, | |
| Displaying a broad scaly back of earth-smeared gold; | 10 |
| Swaying out sinuously between the dull motionless forests, | |
| As molten metal might glide down the lip of a vase of dark bronze. | |
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| While this, the steamboat slowly drifting out upon it, | |
| Seems now to be floating not only outwards but upwards— | |
| In the flight of a petal detached and gradually moving skyward | 15 |
| Above the pink explosion of the calyx of the dawn. | | | | |
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