Puts me in mind of it, happens to be the place where it happened, Three years ago. I suppose no man ever knew the Ohio Better than Captain Dunlevy, if any one else knew it like him. Man and boy he had been pretty much his whole life on the river: Cabin-boy first on a keelboat before the day of the steamboats, Back in the pioneer times; and watchman then on a steamboat; Then second mate, and then mate, and then pilot and captain and owner-- But he was proudest, I reckon, of being about the best pilot On the Ohio. He knew it as well as he knew his own Bible, And I don't hardly believe that ever Captain Dunlevy Let a single day go by without reading a chapter." While the pilot went on with his talk, and in regular, rhythmical motion Swayed from one side to the other before his wheel, and we listened, Certain typical facts of the picturesque life of the river Won their way to our consciousness as without help of our senses. It was along about the beginning of March, but already In the sleepy sunshine the budding maples and willows, Where they waded out in the shallow wash of the freshet, Showed the dull red and the yellow green of their blossoms and catkins, And in their tops the foremost flocks of blackbirds debated As to which they should colonize first. The indolent house-boats Loafing along the shore, sent up in silvery spirals Out of their kitchen pipes the smoke of their casual breakfasts. Once a wide tow of coal-barges, loaded clear down to the gunwales, Gave us the slack of the current, with proper formalities shouted By the hoarse-throated stern-wheeler that pushed the black barges before her, And as she passed us poured a foamy cascade from her paddles. Then, as a raft of logs, which the spread of the barges had hidden, River-wide, weltered in sight, with a sudden jump forward the pilot Dropped his whole weight on the spokes of the wheel just in time to escape it.