Summer Sunrises on the Mississippi
One can never see too many summer sunrises
on the Mississippi.
They are enchanting.
First, there is the eloquence of silence;
for a deep hush broods everywhere.
Next, there is the haunting sense of loneliness, isolation,
remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world.
The dawn creeps in stealthily;
the solid walls of the black forest soften to grey,
and vast stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves;
the water is smooth,
gives off spectral little wreaths of white-mist,
there is not the faintest breath of wind, nor stir of leaf;
the tranquility is profound and infinitely satisfying.
Then a bird pipes up, another follows,
and soon the pipings develop into a jubilant riot of music.
You see none of the birds,
you simply move through an atmosphere of song
which seems to sing itself.
When the light has become a little stronger,
you have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable.
You have the intense green of the massed
and crowded foliage near by;
you see it paling shade by shade in front of you;
upon the next projecting cape,
a mile off or more,
the tint has lightened to the tender young green of spring;
the cape beyond that one has almost lost colour,
and the furthest one, miles away under the horizon,
sleeps upon the water a mere dim vapour,
and hardly separable from the sky above it and about it.
And all this stretch of river is a mirror,
and you have shadowy reflections of the leafage
and the curving shores and the receding capes pictured in it.
Well, this is all beautiful; soft and rich and beautiful;
and when the sun gets well up,
and distributes a pink flush here and a powder of gold yonder
and a purple haze where it will yield the best effect,
you grant that you have something that is worth remembering.