I imagine a Western wheat-field, half-way to 

 head, could look, in the dew of morning, some- 

 what like a salt-marsh. It certainly would 

 have at times the purple-distance haze, that at- 

 mosphere of the sea which hangs across the 

 marsh. The two might resemble each other as 

 two pictures of the same theme, upon the same 

 scale, one framed and hung, the other not. It is 

 the framing, the setting of the marsh that gives 

 -it character, variety, tone, and its touch of 

 mystery. 



For the marsh reaches back to the higher 

 lands of fences, fields of corn, and ragged forest 

 blurs against the hazy horizon ; it reaches down to 

 the river of the reedy flats, coiled like a serpent 

 through the green ; it reaches away to the sky 

 where the clouds anchor, where the moon rises, 

 where the stars, like far-off lighthouses, gleam 

 along the edge ; and it reaches out to the bay, 

 and on, beyond the white surf-line of meeting, 

 on, beyond the line where the bay's blue and 

 the sky's blue touch, on, far on. 



Here meet land and river, sky and sea ; here 

 they mingle and make the marsh. 



A prairie rolls and billows ; the marsh lies 

 [50] 



