the green; it
reaches away to the sky where the clouds anchor, where the moon rises,
where the stars, like far-off lighthouses, gleam along the edge; and it
reaches out to the bay, and on, beyond the white surf-line of meeting, on,
beyond the line where the bay's blue and the sky's blue touch, on, far on.

Here meet land and river, sky and sea; here they mingle and make the
marsh.

A prairie rolls and billows; the marsh lies still, lies as even as a
sleeping sea. Yet what moods! What changes! What constant variety of
detail everywhere! In The Marshes of Glynn there was

A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade,
Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade,

but not in these Maurice River marshes. Here, to-day, the sun was blazing,
kindling millions of tiny suns in the salt-wet blades; and instead of
waist-high grass, there lay around me acres and acres of the fine rich
hay-grass, full-grown, but without a blade wider than a knitting-needle or
taller than my knee. It covered the marsh like a deep, thick fur, like a
wonderland carpet into whose elastic, velvety pile my feet sank and sank,
never quite feeling the floor. Here and there were patches of higher
sedges, green, but of differing shades, which seemed spread upon the grass
carpet like long-napped rugs.

Ahead of me the even green broke suddenly over a shoal of sand into tall,
tufted grasses, into rose, mallow, and stunted persimmon bushes, foaming,
on nearer view, with spreading dogbane blossoms. Off toward the bay
another of these shoals, mole-hill high in the distance, ran across the
marsh for half a mile, bearing a single broken file of trees--sentinels
they seemed, some of them fallen, others gaunt and wind-beaten, watching
against the sea.

These were the lookouts and the resting-places for passing birds. During
the day, whenever I turned in their direction, a crow, a hawk, or some
smaller bird was seen upon their dead branches.

Naturally the variety of bird life upon the marsh is limited; but there is
by no means the scarcity here which is so often noted in the forests and
wild prairies of corresponding extent. Indeed, the marsh was birdy--rich
in numbers if not in species. Underfoot, in spots, sang the marsh-wrens;
in larger patches the sharp-tailed sparrows; and almost as wide-spread and
constant as the green was the singing of the seaside sparrows. Overhead
the fish-hawks crossed frequently