Deep in the Georgia night when all
The crickets have hushed their notes
And silence lies upon the needles
Of pines and on the feathered throats
Of sparrows in the star-still boughs,
Across the meadows of my mind
There drift the names of Georgia towns
Softly and slowly as summer wind.

O little half-hid towns I love!
I hear them waking, and in sleep,
And all the music of their names
Like opening flowers, a tidal sweep,
Rests on my heart the hand of peace.
O little towns how close you lie
Upon the warm red clay, how near
Your sun-drenched rooftops touch the sky!
Not all the violins in the world,
The flutes, nor ivory keys,
Could take me so triumphantly
And give my soul release.

O Dewy Rose and Talking Rock,
O rain-wet Rising Fawn,
Social Circle where the hand
Of friendship greets the dawn,
O Cave Spring cool as lilies are,
Ty Ty, Ringgold, Summerville
Where honeysuckle haunts the air
When dusk falls blue and chill—
O Blue Ridge resting like a cloud,
Benevolence and Kennesaw,
Hiwassee, Lovelace, Darien
Where four-o’clocks are law,
O Daisytown and Shadydale,
Across my heart you go
With all a June day’s fiery breath,
The grace of winter’s snow.

Deep in my last dark Georgia night
When I have come to rest,
Am one again with her red clay hills,
May all the names I love the best
Drift back, in music, over me,
May each come ringing like a rhyme
For one who loves each door, each lane,
An old man lost in sleep and Time.