THE MARSHES IN APRIL 



In spite of the life and light and color 

 about it, the key-note of a marsh is its ex- 

 treme sense of loneliness. 



" A land that is lonelier than ruin," and 

 the pervading essence of it all is a gentle 

 melancholy. Storms are out of place here 

 where no trees loom to rock before the blasts. 

 Much rest and languor seem natural to these 

 wide savannas of waving grass and sleeping 

 water, framed in by far-down rims of utter- 

 most horizon. The signs of man are few 

 perhaps a decaying fragment of a " push- 

 er's " paddle, or the dismantled outlines of a 

 duck " blind." At times the faint report of 

 a hunter's gun and its accompanying wraith 

 of pale smoke, tell of some sportsman plod- 

 ding along in the marsh. 



Above the reeds there is a level sea of 

 silence. And there is little to tell of change. 

 The trailing folds of a snow-storm fade and 

 sink in these watery coverts of marsh growth, 

 and the sleet finds no twigs to girdle with 

 clinging ice. All tokens in all seasons bear 

 with them the message of deep reserve and 

 a drawing away from the world's clamor. 

 And even in the varying moods of April the 



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