In the freedom that fills all space ’twixt the marsh and the skies
By so many roots as the marsh-hen sends to the sod,
I will heartily lay me ahold of the greatness of God.
Like the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
This poet of southern Georgia gave, I thought, voice to a part of America, and it was a part I had tramped in too, a land of moss-hung forests and marshes, of marsh-blossoms and many birds. In that beautiful first verse how the word “secretly” in the first line enchants the ear, and then the wonderful effect of the phrase “greatness of God” when taken with wing-flight of birds rising o’er the reeds!
Talking of the modern poets, we agreed that a poem was little if there was not sound in it—melody—resonance. We found a common fellowship in Poe, and my companion rolled forth under a low and threatening heaven the cadences of “Ulalume,” his favourite poem, he averred.
Browning meant nothing to him, but he was fond of some of the early poems of Tennyson, especially of “Maud,” which greatly inspired him. Curiously enough, the latter poems of Tennyson were unknown to him—
On a midnight in mid-winter when all but the winds were dead,
“The meek shall inherit the earth” was a Scripture which ran through his head,