might have written much more, if his life had been prolonged, it is
doubtful whether he would have produced anything finer. Any further
effort at musical effects would probably have resulted in a kind of
ecstatic rhapsody. The first of the poems in question is the _Marshes
of Glynn_, descriptive of the sea marshes near the city of Brunswick,
Georgia.

"Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free--
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge, and good out of infinite pain,
And sight out of blindness, and purity out of a stain."

The other poem of his closing period, _Sunrise_, his greatest
production, was written during the high fever of his last illness. In the
poet's collected works, it is placed first in the series called _Hymns
of the Marshes_. At times it almost reaches the point of ecstasy. His
love of Nature finds supreme utterance.

"In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain
Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main.
The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep;
Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep,
Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting,
Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting,
Came to the gates of sleep.
Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep
Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep,
Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling: