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J. N. Cameron

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The Marsh of Ages

The marsh of ages that a man may find
Deep in his mind,
It has a musty and an antique breath,
Being rank with death.
And yet in ancient times this was a mere
Fresh-water-clear,
Where monsters like great lumps of ambergris
Floated at peace.
Now all those early-time iguanodons
Are skeletons,
That sleep on their own droppings underneath;
And scissor-teeth,
Whose lightest graze could start a jet of blood,
Are gulphed in mud.
On top are piled the beasts of every age,
By stage on stage
And layer on layer, up to the outer rind
Of lessening kind,
Until their corpses choke up all the fen.
No wonder, then,
So putrid rich with fertilising time
The ancient slime
Makes keen as knives and coarse as canvas is
The rank grasses.
No wonder, then, the fen-fire dragons spy,
With necks awry
And hanging, wavering heads, like flowers on stalks,
On him who walks
Across the marshy surface—who must fear
These phantoms, mere
Children of vapours rising from the bed
Of dragons dead.

 

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