The poem is too long for quotation, but may be found
in any edition of Mackay or in Garrett's `One Hundred Choice Selections:
Number Nine' (Phila., 1887).
17. The Macleans, for centuries one of the most powerful of Scottish clans,
have since the fourteenth century lived in Mull, one of the largest
of the Hebrides Islands. The two leading branches of the clan
were the Macleans of Dowart and the Macleans of Lochbuy,
both taking their names from the seats of their castles. The Lochbuy family
now spells its name MacLAINE. For a detailed history of the clan
see Keltie's `History of the Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans', etc.
(London, 1885). Interesting books about Mull and the Hebrides are:
Johnson's `A Journey to the Hebrides' and Robert Buchanan's `The Hebrid Isles'
(London, 1883). Instructive, too, is Cummin's `Around Mull'
(`The Atlantic Monthly', 16. 11-19, 167-176, July, August, 1865).
The Marshes of Glynn
Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven [1]
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, --
Emerald twilights, --
Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn; -- [11]
Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire, --
Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,
Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves, --
Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves,
Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood,
Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good; --
O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine,
While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did shine
Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine;
But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, [21]
And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,
And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem
Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, --
Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak,
And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke
Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,
And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,
And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within,
That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn
Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore [31]
When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore,
And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain
Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, --
Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face
The vast sweet visage of space.
Pages:
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152