Thursday, 10/25/12
Paul’s mention of the length and the breadth of Christ’s
love puts me in mind of a local poem. A hundred and fifty years ago Sidney
Lanier, an ex-Confederate officer, was faced with death from tuberculosis at
age thirty-nine. Coming to the edge of the wide marshes of Glynn County just
north of here, he saw them as Christ-like in the way they suffered from winds
and tides, but survived. Here are a few lines from his long poem.
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Somehow my soul seems suddenly free
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From the weighing of fate and the
sad discussion of sin,
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By the length and the breadth and
the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.
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Ye marshes, how candid and simple
and nothing-withholding and free
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65
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Ye publish yourselves to the sky
and offer yourselves to the sea!
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Tolerant plains, that suffer the
sea and the rains and the sun,
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Ye spread and span like the
catholic man who hath mightily won
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God out of knowledge and good out
of infinite pain
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And sight out of blindness and
purity out of a stain.
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70
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As the marsh-hen secretly builds on
the watery sod,
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Behold I will build me a nest on
the greatness of God:
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I will fly in the greatness of God
as the marsh-hen flies
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In the freedom that fills all the
space ’twixt the marsh and the skies:
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By so many roots as the marsh-grass
sends in the sod
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75
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I will heartily lay me a-hold on
the greatness of God:
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Oh, like to the greatness of God is
the greatness within
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The range of the marshes, the
liberal marshes of Glynn.
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