Friday,
1/27/12
In the
Gospel Jesus spoke of the mysterious ways in which God gives life and growth to
scattered seed while the farmer who scattered them sleeps unawares. That might
remind you of Sidney Lanier’s great poem about the tidal marsh land in Glynn
County Georgia just north of here. In the closing verse of his “Marshes of
Glynn” Lanier described the enriching tide rolling in through the marshes at
night, comparing it to God’s sleep working its wonders as we lay lost in
dreams.
The creeks overflow: a dozen
rivulets run:
Twixt the roots and the sod; the
blades of the marsh grass stir;
Passeth a hurrying sound of wings
that westward whirr;
Passeth and all is still; and the
currents cease to run,
And the sea and the marsh are one.
How still the plains of the waters be!
The tide is in his ecstasy.
The tide is at his highest height;
And it is night.
And now from the Vast of the Lord
will the waters of sleep
Roll in on the souls of men,
But who will reveal to or waking
ken
The forms that swim and the shapes that creep
Under he waters of sleep?
And I would I could know what
swimmeth below when the tide comes in
On the length and the breadth of
the marvelous marshes of Glynn.
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