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!