For One of the Killed 133 The Two Wives 134 Bereaved 136 The Snow-Birds 138 Vagary 139 Feuerbilder 141 Avery 143 Bopeep: A Pastoral 148 While she sang 160 A Poet 163 Convention 164 The Poet Friends 165 No Love Lost 166 The Song the Oriole sings 199 Pordenone 201 The Long Days 223 THE PILOT'S STORY. I. It was a story the pilot told, with his back to his hearers,-- Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the globe of the jack-staff, Holding the boat to the shore and out of the sweep of the current, Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the drift-wood, Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic obeisance. II. All the soft, damp air was full of delicate perfume From the young willows in bloom on either bank of the river,-- Faint, delicious fragrance, trancing the indolent senses In a luxurious dream of the river and land of the lotus. Not yet out of the west the roses of sunset were withered; In the deep blue above light clouds of gold and of crimson Floated in slumber serene; and the restless river beneath them Rushed away to the sea with a vision of rest in its bosom; Far on the eastern shore lay dimly the swamps of the cypress; Dimly before us the islands grew from the river's expanses,-- Beautiful, wood-grown isles, with the gleam of the swart inundation Seen through the swaying boughs and slender trunks of their willows; And on the shore beside us the cotton-trees rose in the evening, Phantom-like, yearningly, wearily, with the inscrutable sadness Of the mute races of trees. While hoarsely the steam from her 'scape-pipes Shouted, then whispered a moment, then shouted again to the silence, Trembling through all her frame with the mighty pulse of her engines, Slowly the boat ascended the swollen and broad Mississippi, Bank-full, sweeping on, with tangled masses of drift-wood, Daintily breathed about with whiffs of silvery vapor, Where in his arrowy flight the twittering swallow alighted, And the belated blackbird paused on the way to its nestlings. III.