THE MARSHES OF GLYNN
Sydney Lanier
1878
GLOOMS of the live-oaks,
beautiful-braided and woven
With intricate shades of the vines
that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform
boughs, -
Emerald twilights, -
Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to
the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down
through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear
dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal
sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn; -
Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the
noon-day fire, -
Wildwood privacies, closets of lone
desire,
Chamber from chamber parted with
wavering arras of leaves,
Cells for the passionate pleasure of
prayer to the soul that grieves,
Pure with a sense of the passing of
saints through the wood,
Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill
with good; -
O braided dusks of the oak and woven
shades of the vine,
While the riotous noon-day sun of
the June-day long did shine
Ye held me fast in your heart and I
held you fast in mine;
But now when the noon is no more,
and riot is rest,
And the sun is a-wait at the
ponderous gate of the West,
And the slant yellow beam down the
wood-aisle doth seem
Like a lane into heaven that leads
from a dream, -
Ay, now, when my soul all day hath
drunken the soul of the oak,
And my heart is at ease from men,
and the wearisome sound of the stroke
Of the scythe of time and the trowel
of trade is low,
And belief overmasters doubt, and I
know that I know,
And my spirit is grown to a lordly
great compass within,
That the length and the breadth and
the sweep of the marshes of Glynn
Will work me no fear like the fear
they have wrought me of yore
When length was fatigue, and when
breadth was but bitterness sore,
And when terror and shrinking and
dreary unnamable pain
Drew over me out of the merciless
miles of the plain, -
Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face
The vast sweet visage of space.
To the edge of the wood I am drawn,
I am drawn,
Where the gray beach glimmering
runs, as a belt of the dawn,
For a mete and a mark
To the forest-dark: -
So:
Affable live-oak, leaning low, -
Thus - with your favor - soft, with
a reverent hand,
(Not lightly touching your person,
Lord of the land!)
Bending your beauty aside, with a
step I stand
On the firm-packed sand,
Free
By a world of marsh that borders a
world of sea.
Sinuous southward and sinuous
northward the shimmering band
Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe
of the marsh to the folds of the land.
Inward and outward to northward and
southward the beachlines linger and curl
As a silver-wrought garment that
clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl.
Vanishing, swerving, evermore
curving again into sight,
Softly the sand-beach wavers away to
a dim gray looping of light.
And what if behind me to westward
the wall of the woods stands high?
The world lies east: how ample, the
marsh and the sea and the sky!
A league and a league of
marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade,
Green, and all of a height, and
unflecked with a light or a shade,
Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant
plain,
To the terminal blue of the main.
Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and
the terminal sea?
Somehow my soul seems suddenly free
From the weighing of fate and the
sad discussion of sin,
By the length and the breadth and
the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.
Ye marshes, how candid and simple
and nothing-withholding and free
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and
offer yourselves to the sea!
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea
and the rains and the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic
man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of
infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and
purity out of a stain.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on
the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the
greatness of God:
I will fly in the greatness of God
as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the
space 'twixt the marsh and the skies:
By so many roots as the marsh-grass
sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the
greatness of God:
Oh, like to the greatness of God is
the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the
liberal marshes of Glynn.
And the sea lends large, as the
marsh: lo, out of his plenty the sea
Pours fast: full soon the time of
the flood-tide must be:
Look how the grace of the sea doth
go
About and about through the
intricate channels that flow
Here and there,
Everywhere,
Till his waters have flooded the
uttermost creeks and the low-lying lanes,
And the marsh is meshed with a
million veins,
That like as with rosy and silvery
essences flow
In the rose-and-silver evening glow.
Farewell, my lord Sun!
The creeks overflow: a thousand
rivulets run
'Twixt the roots of the sod; the
blades of the marsh-grass stir;
Passeth a hurrying sound of wings
that westward whirr;
Passeth, and all is still; and the
currents cease to run;
And the sea and the marsh are one.
How still the plains of the waters
be!
The tide is in his ecstasy.
The tide is at his highest height:
And it is night.
And now from the Vast of the Lord
will the waters of sleep
Roll in on the souls of men,
But who will reveal to our waking
ken
The forms that swim and the shapes
that creep
Under the waters of sleep?
And I would I could know what
swimmeth below when the tide comes in
On the length and the breadth of the
marvellous marshes of Glynn.
BALTIMORE, 1878.
Lanier, Sidney,
1842-1881 |
