a hymn of the marshes

Sidney Lanier, a well-known poet and musician, was born in Macon, Georgia in 1842. In 1878, he began to write a set of lyrical nature poems known as "Hymns of the Marshes". They described the beautiful and vast salt water marshes in Glynn County, Georgia. Glynn County includes Jekyll Island and the city of Brunswick. In the median of Hwy 17 in Brunswick, there is a huge oak tree with a marker commemorating the spot where Lanier sat and wrote one of his "hymns", "The Marshes Of Glynn".

To give you a taste of his work, here is one stanza:

"As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,

Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:

I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies

In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies:

By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod

I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God:

Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within

The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn."

Sidney Lanier, 1878

I became an admirer of Sidney Lanier in high school, years before I met my husband, who grew up in Brunswick. Interesting that the poet and I would cross paths in the classroom and in life!