And the foe held the banks of the blue Illinois!
Oh, the gray rock that hung
O’er the billows of blooms,
Where the rain-plover sung
In the dark under glooms,
And cool, cool ran the prairie river!
They lowered their gourds to the river in vain;
They crept toward the rippling waters to die;
They called on the gods of the cloudlands for rain,
But answered them only the flames of the sky.