A SONG TO MONROE COUNTY

by Agnes Cochran Bramblett

Monroe County, like a jewel, sparkling on the earth's warm breast,

Fain am I to sing your praises but mere words are futile here.
 Flights of song and fancy lead me, an adverturer on quest
 Of pigments rare, palette and brush, to paint so fair a sphere.

Where the Towaliga falls in amber cascades thru the hills,

Meandering thru potent plain, thru cotton, cane, and corn,

Where the quail calls, and the dove coos, and the far-famed mocker trills,

And the day comes up like a jewelled prince to

meet his bride at morn

Where autumn lays her restive hand

           to stay the blast that chills,

Robbing the oak of glory, stripping

           maple, haw, and elm,

In compensation of the Indian summer's

           flight she spills

The master-artist's colors, vandal-like,

           upon the realm.

Where winter's pageantry is merely

sketched upon the screen,
A silhouette of old lace boughs
against the oval sky,

Crisp days and nights, with now and

           then the hoar frost on the scene,

We but hear her garments rustle and

           she passes swiftly by.

Where spring comes like a vagabond and sings his

           heart away,

Men come out to hear his song that glorifies the

           earth

That waits the strength of their strong arms to

           turn the mold and clay,

That she may yield her treasured store and testify

           her worth.

Monroe County, there is not, beneath kind heaven's

           dome,

A better-peopled, or a lovelier spot, in which to

           live.

When God gave your kind acres as a place to make

           man's home,

He granted the most beautiful, the best He had

           to give!