The Music of the Marsh 



across my way, singing "Good cheer! Good cheer!" 

 I immediately feel so full of power that I dream 

 I can accomplish something worth doing. 



Red is the love color, but white is the holy one ; 

 and above all other white flowers the lily is em- 

 blematic of the holy of holies. Of all lilies not the 

 proud ascension nor the lowly lily of the valley is 

 so serenely, pearly pure as the arrowhead lifting 

 its jewels above the mire of the marsh. If only I 

 were a poet and had the gift of rhyming, or meas- 

 uring stately periods, I know the story well 

 enough. There are many things in nature that 

 bring the same thought to every heart. The com- 

 pilers of the Bible knew that when they epito- 

 mized the very Spirit of God in a dove and com- 

 pared the Prince of Peace with the white lily. 

 Above all else, white, unspotted white, is the em- 

 blem of truth, purity, and holiness; so this is the 

 song a poet should sing. 



The lordly ascension lily was set high in the 

 fields as a perpetual reminder to men that Christ 

 gave His life, and ascended to heaven to inter- 

 cede for them with God the Father. The humble 

 lily of the valley was placed low among the grasses 

 of untraveled ways that any wanderer there might 

 see the emblem, so precious that it w r as said of 

 Jesus, "I am the lily of the valley." Then to the 

 muck and mire of the marsh the Almighty gave 

 the whitest and sweetest lily of all, that any lost and 

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