144 Half-Hour in a Marsh [THIRD WEEK 



the marsh may perhaps come to us. A swamp sparrow 

 may show by its actions that its nest is not far away; 

 from the depths of a ditch jungle the clatter of some rail 

 comes faintly to our ears, and the distant croak of a night 

 heron reaches us from its feeding-grounds, guarded by the 

 deeper waters. 



And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? 

 The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky! 

 A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade. 



************ 

 Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and terminal sea? 

 Somehow my soul seems suddenly free 

 From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin. 



SIDNEY LANIER. 



