Redbud, buckberry,
Wild plum-tree
And proud river sweeping
Southward to the sea,
Brown and gold in the sun
Sparkling far below,
Trailing stately round her bluffs
Where the poplars grow—
Redbirds, redbirds,
Are you singing still
As you sang one May day
On Saxton's Hill?
Sunset: St. Louis
Hushed in the smoky haze of summer sunset,
When I came home again from far-off places,
How many times I saw my western city
Dream by her river.
Then for an hour the water wore a mantle
Of tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoise
Under the tall and darkened arches bearing
Gray, high-flung bridges.
Against the sunset, water-towers and steeples
Flickered with fire up the slope to westward,
And old warehouses poured their purple shadows
Across the levee.
High over them the black train swept with thunder,
Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath it
Wharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelers
Resting in twilight.
The Coin
Into my heart's treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin,—
Oh better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.