# Hymns of the Marshes

Hymns of the Marshes is a set of four poems by Sidney Lanier, extolling his love of the coastal marshlands of Glynn County in his native U.S. state of Georgia. Lanier composed these poems between 1878–1880 while he was living in Baltimore, Maryland. They were published posthumously as a set in 1882.
A complete volume of Lanier’s poetry was edited by his wife Mary D. Lanier and published posthumously in 1884. According to the notes in that volume:
    “Sunrise”, Mr. Lanier’s latest completed poem, was written while his sun of life seemed fairly at the setting, and the hand which first pencilled its lines had not strength to carry nourishment to the lips.
    The three Hymns of the Marshes which open this collection are the only written portions of a series of six Marsh Hymns that were designed by the author to form a separate volume.
    “The Song of the Marshes, At Sunset”, does not belong to this group, but is inserted among the Hymns as forming a true accord with them.
HYMNS OF THE MARSHES
SIDNEY LANIER
HYMNS OF THE MARSHES
Look how the grace of the sea doth go About and about through the intricate channels that flow Here and there, Everywhere,
HYMNS OF THE MARSHES
BY SIDNEY LANIER
ILLUSTRATED FROM NATURE BY HENRY TROTH
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
The Poems of Sidney Lanier Copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D. Lanier
Copyright, 1907, by Charles Scribner's Sons
THE DE VINNE PRESS
HYMNS OF THE MARSHES
PAGE
ILLUSTRATIONS
From photographs taken near Brunswick, Georgia, where the poet derived his inspiration for the Hymns of the Marshes
| Look how the grace of the sea doth go About and about through the intricate channels that flow Here and there, Everywhere, | Frontispiece |
| In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main. | FACING PAGE 4 |
| My gossip, the owl,—is it thou That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough, As I pass to the beach, art stirred? Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird? | 10 |
| And look where the wild duck sails round the bend of the river,— | 14 |
| And look where a passionate shiver Expectant is bending the blades Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades,— | 20 |
| Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud: Oh loiter hither from the sea. | 32 |
| Over the monstrous shambling sea, | 42 |
| Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,— | 46 ​ |
| Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods, Of the heavenly woods and glades, | 48 |
| Affable live-oak, leaning low,— | 50 |
| Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. | 52 |
| A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade, Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade, | 54 |
| And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow In the rose-and-silver evening glow. | 56 |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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