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 our waking ken [101]
The forms that swim and the shapes that creep
Under the 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 marvellous marshes of Glynn.

____
Baltimore, 1878.



Notes: The Marshes of Glynn


Although Dr. Callaway noted in his preface the importance of this poem,
he did not include it for lack of space. This would seem to indicate
that when he published these "Selected Poems" in 1895,
"The Marshes of Glynn" had not yet achieved its later prominence
as the greatest of Sidney Lanier's poems -- as now seems to be the opinion.
The setting of the poem is the salt marshes surrounding
the coastal city of Brunswick, Georgia, which is in Glynn County -- an area
well deserving of the fame Lanier has given it -- and it was intended
as one installment in a series of "Hymns of the Marshes", of which four poems
were completed.

The text is taken from the 1916 edition of "Poems of Sidney Lanier".