| |
| DEAR marshes, by no hand of man | |
| Laboriously sown, | |
| My river clasps you in its arms | |
| And claims you for its own! | |
| It laughs, and laughs, and twinkles on | 5 |
| Across the reedy soil, | |
| That heed of harvest vexes not, | |
| Nor need of any toil. | |
| |
| And in my heart I joy to know | |
| That safe within this spot | 10 |
| Sweet nature reigns; let other fields | |
| Bear bread, it matters not. | |
| —What matters aught of anything | |
| When one may drift away | |
| Into the realms of all-delight, | 15 |
| As I drift on to-day? | |
| |
| Beneath the budded swamp-rose sprays | |
| The blue-eyed grasses stand, | |
| Submerged within a crystal world, | |
| A limpid wonderland; | 20 |
| And where the clustered sedges show | |
| Their silky-tasselled sheaves, | |
| The slender arrow-lily lifts | |
| Its quiver of green leaves. | |
| |
| The tiny waves lap softly past, | 25 |
| So musical and round, | |
| I think they must be moulded out | |
| Of sunshine and sweet sound. | |
| And here and there some little knoll, | |
| More lofty than the rest, | 30 |
| Stands out above the happy tide, | |
| An island of the blest; | |
| |
| Where fringed with lacy fronds of fern | |
| The grass grows rich and high, | |
| And flowering spider-worts have caught | 35 |
| The color of the sky; | |
| Where water-oaks are thickly strung | |
| With green and golden balls, | |
| And from tall tilting iris tips | |
| The wild canary calls. | 40 |
| |
| —O gracious world! I seem to feel | |
| A kinship with the trees; | |
| I am first-cousin to the marsh, | |
| A sister to the breeze! | |
| My heartstrings tremble to its touch, | 45 |
| In throbs supremely sweet, | |
| And through my pulses light and life | |
| And love divinely meet. | |
| |
| Far off, the sunbeams smite the woods, | |
| And pearly fleeces sail | 50 |
| Athwart the light, and leave below | |
| A purple-shadowed trail; | |
| The essence of the perfect June | |
| So subtly is distilled, | |
| Until my very soul of souls | 55 |
| Is filled, and overfilled! | |
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