A Marsh

Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful braided and woven
With intricate shade of vines that myriad cloven
Chamber the forks of the multiform boughs,--
Emerald twilights,--
Virginal shy lights,
................
Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire,--
Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,
Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves,--
Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood,
Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good; --

Excerpt: "The Marshes of Glynn" ~ Sidney Lanier