Sunday, September 10, 2006

"The Marshes of Glynn"

I usually don't post on a Sunday, but I was reading a bit of one of my many notebooks and came across a bit of "The Marshes of Glynn" by Sidney Lanier that I can't resist posting.

From "The Marshes of Glynn"

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-witholding 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 mightiliy 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.

~Sidney Lanier

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