Mark

The heavy mists have crept away,
Heavily swims the sun,
And dim in mystic cloudlands gray
The stars fade one by one;
Out of the dusk enveloping
Come marsh and sky and tree,
Where erst has rested night's dark ring
Over the Kankakee.

"Mark right!" Afar and faint outlined
A flock of mallards fly,
We crouch within the reedy blind
Instantly at the cry.
"Mark left!" We peer through wild rice-blades,
And distant shadows see,
A wedge-shaped phalanx from the shades
Of far-off Kankakee.

"Mark overhead!" A canvas-back!
"Mark! mark!" A bunch of teal!
And swiftly on each flying track
Follows the shotgun's peal;

Thus rings that call, till twilight's tide
Rolls in like some gray sea,
And whippoorwills complain beside
The lonely Kankakee.