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.
Mark
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