For Sidney Lanier Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

FOR SIDNEY LANIER

to Sidney Lanier for his poem The Marshes of Glynn


the rose refractions of this stained glass hour

fall about the grass in my tree cathedral

in the woods where in my mind

I always pray. in the midst of pines

in the later blue of the day

and with the twilight bells.

there in the long shadows of the moss green aisles

I lift my heart as once did Lanier in the Marshes of Glynn

and i seem to see him there

and his prayer is heavy with yellow stars

with yellow stars and the exaltations

of the marshes of glynn

and I in the scent of the pines remember everything

I ever heard have ever read of beauty.

beauty rarified in the stained glass hour

and now the stain of iris blue the purple of the evening hour

has hastened.

and I must haste too

though I dont know when from all these reveries

and the sound, the sounds of the marshes of glynn.

the birds arising.

mary angela douglas 8 may 2020