Blue and brown,
Mississippi;
Brown of eternal earth mingled with blue of sky:
So deep, so vast,
So lazily uncoiling;
Tamed by mankind, you hint at wilds untamed.
Bound by the chains
Of tilted green leaves,
Sometimes you snap your bonds, and surge on, strange and free —
A loud brown wave,
Overwhelming field and forest,
Seething in eddies, surging in flying streams.
Now lazily poised
Below the yellow bluff, the Indian lookout,
You weave you sinuous loops from sky to sky.
So vast, so pure
In flight, eternal river,
Words cannot touch you there, for words are useless.
You will endure.
from “Big River” by John Gould Fletcher (January 3, 1886 – May 10, 1950)