arm reaching out around the hay-meadows, 

 dragging them away from the grasping river, 

 and gathering them out of the vast undrained 

 tract of coarse sedges, to hold them to the up- 

 land. Passing along the bank until beyond the 

 weeds and scrub of the higher borders, I stood 

 with the sky-bound, bay-bound green beneath 

 my feet. Far across, with sails gleaming white 

 against the sea of sedge, was a schooner, beating 

 slowly up the river. Laying my course by her, 

 I began to beat slowly out into the marsh 

 through the heavy sea of low, matted hay-grass. 

 There is no fresh-water meadow, no inland 

 plain, no prairie with this rainy, misty, early 

 morning freshness so constant on the marsh ; no 

 other reach of green so green, so a-glitter with 

 seas of briny dew, so regularly, unfailingly fed : 



Look how the grace of the sea doth go 

 About and about through the intricate channels 

 that flow 

 Here and there, 



Everywhere, 

 Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks 



and the low-lying lanes. 

 And the marsh is meshed with a million veins ! 



i [49] 



