cited it, and I lost myself forthwith in revery. "If ever island were enchanted," said I to myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?-or do they yield up 5 their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God, little by little, their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, 10 growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?" As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing upon their bosom large, dazzling, white flakes 15 of the bark of the sycamore-flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased,-while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering made its way slowly into the dark20 ness from out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams her attitude seemed indicative of joy; but sorrow deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she 25 glided along, and at length rounded the islet and reëntered the region of light. "The revolution which has just been made by the Fay," continued I, musingly, "is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She was floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto death; for I did not fail 30 to see that, as she came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its blackness more black." And again the boat appeared, and the Fay; but about the attitude of the latter there was more of care and uncertainty, 35 and less of elastic joy. She floated again from out the light, and into the gloom (which deepened momently), and agein her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and 5 at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler, and far fainter, and more indistinct; and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now 10 the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood-and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all things, and I beheld her magical figure no more. THE MARSHES OF GLYNN SIDNEY LANIER." O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine, 5 And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, 10 Aye, 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 15 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. 20 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 25 Thus with your favor-soft, with a reverent hand, * For Biography see p. 255. 30 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. 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? 35 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. 40 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, Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free 45 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. 50 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 55 I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God: Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within sea Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood tide must be: 60 Look how the grace of the sea doth go About and about through the intricate channels that flow Everywhere, Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low lying lanes, And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, 65 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; 70 Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whir; 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! 75 The tide is at its heighest 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 80 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 marvelous marshes of Glynn. |