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Frontier ballads |
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AFTERGLOW (On the Missouri)
T
WILIGHT on the river, summer everywhere, Prairie flowers perfuming the warm June air, Breezes stirring softly on the high bluff's crest Where stand a lad and maiden, looking toward the West.
Just a lad and maiden, standing, hand in hand, While the lights are fading from the sunset's fairyland, While on butte and buttress dies the crimson afterglow And the mists creep upward from the river far below.
Down there in the valley house lights twinkle out, Homeward-wending cattle low, laughing children shout, While those two stand dreaming of another home to be, Close beside the river, slipping swiftly toward the sea.
O, thou broad, strong river, rolling from the North, Dost thou, too, see visions, from the centuries spun forth? See a lad and maiden in some summer long ago Gazing from the hilltop on the shadowed vale below?
Dusky, slender lovers, clasping hand in hand While the tepee fires flicker down there on the strand — Wild, unconquered children of the forest and the plain, Dreaming, softly dreaming that same old dream again!
River of the Northland, in thy banks of living green, Many are the visions that thy changing tides have seen, Yet they came and vanished with Time's ceaseless onward flow, Grew and bloomed and faded like the sunset's afterglow.
Only this was changeless in the centuries agone,
Only this will change not as the countless years speed on;
Ever to the hilltop, looking westward o'er the land
Will come some lad and maiden, dreaming, hand in hand;
In the twilight dreaming of a happy home to be Beside thy restless waters, sweeping silent toward the sea, Ever in the gloaming while time shall ebb and flow Love will build its castles in the crimson afterglow.
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