THE GRAND RIVER MARSHES

Silvers and purples breathing in a sky

Of fiery mid-days, like a watching tiger,

Of the restrained but passionate July

Upon the marshes of the river lie,

Like the filmed pinions of the dragon fly.

A whole horizon's waste of rushes bend

Under the flapping of the breeze's wing,

Departing and revisiting

The haunts of the river twisting without end.

The torsions of the river make long miles

Of the waters of the river which remain

Coiled by the village, tortuous aisles

Of water between the rushes, which restrain

The bewildered currents in returning files,

Twisting between the greens like a blue racer,

Too hurt to leap with body or uplift

Its head while gliding, neither slow nor swift

Against the shaggy yellows of the dunes

The iron bridge's reticules

Are seen by fishermen from the Damascened lagoons.

But from the bridge, watching the little steamer

Paddling against the current up to Eastmanville,

The river loosened from the abandoned spools

Of earth and heaven wanders without will,

Between the rushes, like a silken streamer.

And two old men who turn the bridge

For passing boats sit in the sun all day,

Toothless and sleepy, ancient river dogs,

And smoke and talk of a glory passed away.

And of the ruthless sacrilege

Which mowed away the pines,

And cast them in the current here as logs,

To be devoured by the mills to the last sliver,

Making for a little hour heroes and heroines,

Dancing and laughter at Grand Haven,

When the great saws sent screeches up and whines,

And cries for more and more

Slaughter of forests up and down the river

And along the lake's shore.

But all is quiet on the river now

As when the snow lay windless in the wood,

And the last Indian stood

And looked to find the broken bough

That told the path under the snow.

All is as silent as the spiral lights

Of purple and of gold that from the marshes rise,

Like the wings of swarming dragon flies,

Far up toward Eastmanville, where the enclosing skies

Quiver with heat; as silent as the flights

Of the crow like smoke from shops against the glare

Of dunes and purple air,

There where Grand Haven against the sand hill lies.

The forests and the mills are gone!

All is as silent as the voice I heard

On a summer dawn

When we two fished among the river reeds.

As silent as the pain

In a heart that feeds

A sorrow, but does not complain.

As silent as above the bridge in this July,

Noiseless, far up in this mirror-lighted sky

Wheels aimlessly a hydroplane:

A man-bestridden dragon fly!