Flood-Time on the Marshes

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     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 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,     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; 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,     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, 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     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. —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,     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 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     Is filled, and overfilled!