Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MARSH AND THE SEA, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MARSH AND THE SEA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The marsh is full of ocean. Proud, serene
Last Line: Down in the blessed deeps of life that you and god are one.
Subject(s): God; Sea; Swamps; Ocean; Bogs; Fens; Marshes


The marsh is full of ocean. Proud, serene,
As monarch seeks a queen,
The lordly blue has risen upon the green,
Has flooded all the runnels, brightly found
The darkest inner bound,
And to the farthest shade where lizards lie
Has brought the sea's wide reach, the mirrored glory of the sky.

The sedge is whelmed in saltness. Clear and pure,
Imperially sure,
The sea completes its calm investiture,
Subdues the ranks of rushes, buries deep
The flats where turtles sleep,
And to the shallowest places dimly brings
The thought of ocean caves, the consciousness of mighty things.

While we that look upon it, minded well
Of life's unfolding spell.
Think of the seasons when with God we dwell,
When heaven's purity and heaven's truth
And heaven's leaping youth
Possess our souls and lead them to the sun,
And we, unholy, weak, with God's almightiness are one.

Supreme those days, exultingly supreme,
Of vision and of dream,
When loftiest ideals closely gleam,
And all that we would be or dare to do
Is possible and true,
And all our days are seized and intershot
With endless time, nor is there any space where God is not.

Ah, but another fancy takes the sea!
Majestically free
Its tide withdraws by steady, slow degree;
The dripping reeds appear, the grasses show
Bent as the waters go,
And last, along the distant glimmering shore
"Farewell," the ocean seems to mock; "farewell for evermore!"

And now, deserted by the faithless flood,
See where the matted mud
Is dark with red, as wet by wounds and blood;
And see where crawling creatures, dazed and blind,
On slimy courses wind,
And where the shrunken currents try in vain
To image and rehearse the vanished glories of the main.

Too well the saddened soul discerns the sign;
Too well this heart of mine
Has known the ebbing tide of life divine;
Beholding where God's splendors at their height
Have bathed in love and light,
Now muddy wastes of weltering despair,
Where ugly creatures crawl and hidden foulnesses lie bare.

But oh, my soul! within the marsh's heart,
Down where the grasses start,
There lies a flood unmapped in any chart.
Forth from the sea, beneath the upper sand,
The ocean's waves expand,
And only surface waters, seeming harsh,
Desert the deeper bond, the ocean-marriage of the marsh.

And thus, my soul, be calm and comforted,
Though shallow joys have fled,
And all the fairness of your life is dead.
Be sure, though far withdrawn its breakers be,
Within you lies the sea;
Be sure, however surface currents run,
Down in the blessed deeps of life that you and God are one.





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