Thus with your favor soft, with a reverent hand, 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 beach-lines linger and curl 10 As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows 15 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 20 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. 25 5 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 nothingwithholding and free Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea! 10 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 15 And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain. 20 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. 25 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, Farewell, my lord Sun! The creeks overflow; a thousand rivulets run 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh grass stir; 5 10 Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward 15 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? 20 25 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. INA COOLBRITH HELEN HUNT JACKSON What songs found voice upon those lips, Whose spell lives not again. For her the clamorous to-day The dreamful yesterday became; Clear ring the silvery Mission bells O'er vineyard slopes, through fruited dells, The pale Franciscan lifts in air The Cross above the kneeling throng; There, with her dimpled, lifted hands, The dusky maid, Ramona, stands |