I knew the captain of the City of Grand Rapids. He had sailed the seas as a boy. And he stood on deck against the railing Puffing a cigar, Showing in his eyes the cinema flash of the sun on the waves. It was June and life was easy. ... One could lie on deck and sleep, Or sit in the sun and dream. People were walking the decks and talking, Children were singing. And down on the purser's deck A man was dancing by himself, Whirling around like a dervish. And this captain said to me: "No life is better than this. I could live forever, And do nothing but run this boat From the dock at Chicago to the dock at Holland And back again." One time I went to Grand Haven On the Alabama with Charley Shippey. It was dawn, but white dawn only, Under the reign of Leucothea, As we volplaned, so it seemed, from the lake Past the lighthouse into the river. And afterward laughing and talking Hurried to Van Dreezer's restaurant For breakfast. (Charley knew him and talked of things Unknown to me as he cooked the breakfast.) Then we fished the mile's length of the pier In a gale full of warmth and moisture Which blew the gulls about like confetti, And flapped like a flag the linen duster Of a fisherman who paced the pier-- (Charley called him Rip Van Winkle). The only thing that could be better Than this day on the pier Would be its counterpart in heaven, As Swedenborg would say-- Charley is fishing somewhere now, I think. There is a grove of oaks on a bluff by the river At Berrien Springs. There is a cottage that eyes the lake Between pines and silver birches At South Haven. There is the inviolable wonder of wooded shore Curving for miles at Saugatuck. And at Holland a beach like Scheveningen's. And at Charlevoix the sudden quaintness Of an old-world place by the sea. There are the hills around Elk Lake Where the blue of the sky is so still and clear It seems it was rubbed above them By the swipe of a giant thumb. And beyond these the little Traverse Bay Where the roar of the breeze goes round Like a roulette ball in the groove of the wheel, Circling the bay, And beyond these Mackinac and the Cheneaux Islands-- And beyond these a great mystery!-- Neither ice floes, nor winter's palsy Stays the tide in the river. LAKE BOATS And under the shadows of cliffs of brick The lake boats Huddled like swans Turn and sigh like sleepers---- They are longing for the Spring! CITIES OF THE PLAIN Where are the cabalists, the insidious committees, The panders who betray the idiot cities For miles and miles toward the prairie sprawled, Ignorant, soul-less, rich, Smothered in fumes of pitch?