Explore "The Rime of the Raftmen" by Irving Sidney Dix on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I / / The Delaware above the Rift / Each bank is fast o'erflowing, / And sweeping onward dark and swift, / Wild and still wilder growing / It hurls a heavy raft along / Upon its rocking way, / While the Captain's call the hills prolong / At dawning of the day: / Pull, lads, pull! -- to Jersey side, / The Rift is near! / Pull, lads, pull! -- for the high floods hide / The ragged rocks like an ocean tide, / And the river's rush I hear.
II / / Safely the Rift is left behind, / A careful stearsman stearing; / Swiftly we speed, only to find / A dizzy eddy nearing, / Where rolling in the river-lake, / And whirling round and round / A dozen rafts the circle make, / And warning cries resound: / Pull, lads, pull! -- Sylvania's shore! / The Eddy's near! / Pull, lads, pull! -- till the sweeping oar / Bends like a bow and you hear the roar / Of the river in the rear.