POEMS OF SIDNEY LANIER

HYMNS OF THE MARSHES.

I.

SUNRISE.

IN my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain

Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main.

The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep; Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of

sweep,

Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting,

Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting,

Came to the gates of sleep.

Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep
Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep,
Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling :
The gates of sleep fell a-trembling

Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter yes,
Shaken with happiness :

The gates of sleep stood wide.

I have waked, I have come, my beloved! I might not abide : I have come ere the dawn, O beloved, my live-oaks, to hide In your gospelling glooms,-to be

As a lover in heaven, the marsh my marsh and the sea my sea.

Tell me, sweet burly-bark'd, man-bodied Tree
That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know
From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow?

They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps. Reason's not one that weeps.

What logic of greeting lies

Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes?

O cunning green leaves, little masters! like as ye gloss All the dull-tissued dark with your luminous darks that emboss

The vague blackness of night into pattern and plan,

So,

(But would I could know, but would I could know,)

With your question embroid'ring the dark of the question of

So, with your silences purfling this silence of man

While his cry to the dead for some knowledge is under the ban,

Under the ban,—

So, ye have wrought me

Designs on the night of our knowledge,-yea, ye have taught

me,

So,

That haply we know somewhat more than we know.

Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms,

Ye consciences murmuring faiths under forms,
Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves,
Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves,

Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me
Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me,-
Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet

That advise me of more than they bring,-repeat
Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath
From the heaven-side bank of the river of death,-

Teach me the terms of silence,-preach me

The passion of patience,-sift me,-impeach me,

And there, oh there

As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air, Pray me a myriad prayer.

My gossip, the owl,-is it thou

That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough,

As I pass to the beach, art stirred?

Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird?

Reverend Marsh, low-couched along the sea,
Old chemist, rapt in alchemy,

Distilling silence,-lo,

That which our father-age had died to know

The menstruum that dissolves all matter-thou

Hast found it for this silence, filling now
The globéd clarity of receiving space,

This solves us all: man, matter, doubt, disgrace,
Death, love, sin, sanity,

Must in yon silence' clear solution lie.

Too clear! That crystal nothing who'll peruse ?
The blackest night could bring us brighter news.
Yet precious qualities of silence haunt
Round these vast margins, ministrant.
Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for space,
With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race
Just to be fellow'd, when that thou hast found
No man with room, or grace enough of bound
To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art,-
'Tis here, 'tis here thou canst unhand thy heart
And breathe it free, and breathe it free,

By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty.

The tide's at full: the marsh with flooded streams
Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams.