Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/443

Death, love, sin, sanity, Must in yon silence clear solution lie. Too clear! That crystal nothing who'll peruse? The blackest night could bring us brighter news. Yet precious qualities of silence haunt Round these vast margins, ministrant. Oh, if thy soul s at latter gasp for space, With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race Just to be fellowed, when that thou hast found No man with room, or grace enough of bound To entertain that New thou tell st, thou art, T is here, t is here, thou canst unhand thy heart And breathe it free, and breathe it free, By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty. The tide s at full: the marsh with flooded streams Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams. Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies Shine scant with one forked galaxy, The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast they lie. Oh, what if a sound should be made! Oh, what if a bound should be laid To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-spring, To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the string! I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam Will break as a bubble o erblown in a dream, Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night, Overweighted with stars, overfreighted with light, Oversated with beauty and silence, will seem But a bubble that broke in a dream, If a bound of degree to this grace be laid, Or a sound or a motion made.