Love Song for an Unlost Land

My husband and I have recently returned from an extended stay on one of the barrier islands of Georgia. I’ve been visiting this beloved part of the world my entire life, but this one island in particular for the past two decades, without a lost year among them. I honestly could not believe it when I realized that fact (and how keen we are to the signs and markers of our own existence!), but twenty years just seems like such a milestone to me. Such a tender vantage-point from which to consider not only who I’ve become over all that span of time, but also what this island has consistently meant to me–I love it like no other spot on earth. I’ve been making the attempt since I was seventeen to put into words the unique beauty of this place that is so much a part of me. Alas, never to my satisfaction–my journals are filled with half-fledged raptures and awkward attempts–but I’ve been trying, nonetheless. I can’t help it. I know this place, and I am known of it. I imagine the longing to express my love for it will haunt me for the rest of my life. And I’m so glad. But one of the things I wanted to do upon so meaningful an anniversary was to try and commit my feelings to verse. It’s not what I would like it to be, not nearly. Some things are just too precious to confine to words, and the greater my loves, the more I feel my inadequacies. I realized at the outset, though, that I can’t put everything this island is to me into one poem: it would take volumes to do that. So I honed it down, whittled my words into one clear channel. And what resulted was nothing more nor less than a love song for an Island. I hope you enjoy it.

Living God! Was there ever a world of such grace?
          The beauty of a thousand summers lives on here,
                    with the souls of all their flowers,
                              and the heady young glory of my own greening spring.

My past waits on through all the long winter of exile,
          brooding under moss-hung trees and haunting the cloistered shades
                    with a memory of joy too tender to be told.
I find it once more—and my own self with it—not in the slow gathering
          of unforgotten days, no quaint posey of remembrance, delicate and intentional,
                    but all in a rush, in one greedy draught of golden air,
                              sailing over the causeway like a homing bird.
It assails me with an embrace that takes my breath
          and never fails to summon a spring of tears.

How kindly this jeweled Isle has kept my times, whole days of deathless joys
          and hours so precious this world seems scarcely large enough to hold them.
Surely it was a dream: that age, that innocence, that marsh-skirted island itself—
          so my winter-soul speaks amid the cold despoiling of earth and tree.
                    Surely life was not meant for such sweetness.

But I have only to catch a wandering breath of jasmine on the breeze,
          or a lemon-thrill of magnolia, or even (or mostly)
                    the Maytime gift of lowly privet,
                              to doubt my own doubts and laugh my unbelief in the face.
Before such sweet convincing flee my land-locked thoughts,
          like wind-tossed foam scattering over a silver shore.

But, ah! To come—to feel the sun’s wealth falling warm upon my upturned face,
          To drink the cordial of the salt-laced air and see the curtained moss
                    waving and parting in welcome—
is resurrection; a revival of the deepest things, as real as the awakening fern
          that inhabits the boughs of these legend oaks, kissed alive by rain and dew,
                    furled fronds unwithering in a sudden flowering of green.
This is my gift, my grace of this undying place. My hoarde, my fairy gold,
          that makes me rich beyond compare.

All this, o Island-world, set like an emerald upon your filigreed marsh,
          you give without stint in astonishing candor, baring your verdant heart
                    to those who love you.
And who among such swains more ardent than I, who loves the very sand-loam
          of your soil, and your life-teeming shallows,
                    and the spring of your grass beneath my feet?

I remember that early wonder, leaping unfettered from an ingenuous soul,
          the first time I found you here, dreaming of your own youth
                    upon a golden-hazed sea.
I was young enough then to believe all the promises of spring, to feel without fear,
          so that the untested ardor of my overfull heart raced forth to greet you
                    in sister-love, lavish as you in my warmth.
No check on the reins of joy, save a maiden modesty, beneath which glowed
          the coals of a blossoming passion for life.

Oh, seventeen! To know once more your frank-eyed vision, your hopefulness
          for all life’s love! I meet you here again, amid my flowers and trees,
                    see your winsome face smiling back at me across a score of years—
unfathomable chasm! Sorrows sleep there little dreamt of in your sweet simplicity.
          But more mercies—oh, so many more—quickened and kindling to a blaze
                    by which my life is lighted.

You—whose quandaries could be settled over a cup of tea, whose starry eyes
          thought to comprehend the universe with a span—you could not know
                    what wine the world had to offer,
or with what brooding love your heart would be plowed and sown. I’d not give
          my dreams for yours, to have these losses unlearned or these mercies unmet.
                    No, not for the very stars your eyes had the witchery to command.

And yet, for all that, one liquid cadence, spilling in rapture from the throat of a bird,
          swinging low over the golden grass with a flare of scarlet wing,
                    and I am undone.
Shot through by an envoy flashing past, while he, unmindful of my wound, trails
          the music of my youth behind him in careless effulgence.
I rouse in rebellion, beating my wings against the cage of years,
          courting folly in the midst of wisdom with a mad longing for all that is past.

But if time is relentless, eternity is its thief, stealing back all our hours
          for one glorious whole, for which youth is but surety in pledge. If such
                    be the case—and joy itself teaches me it is so,
and beauty, and the clear eyes of a girl—then I’ll take such sweet stings and welcome,
          with a smile for all they signify.

Twenty years between that day and this, and I come no more alone, hedged round
          with fancy, eyes for none but my dreams. My heart has opened wide,
                    expanded, unfurled her reefed sails,
to welcome one other, dearer, o Island, than you, and you all the dearer in his light.
          I’ve given the honeysuckle of my girlhood for a womanly profusion of gardenia,
                    spilling a fragrance unlooked for, and safe visions have grown up into
                              vagabondry, even amid our quiet ways.

Lone bird no longer, I sail with him wing and wing, a twin-masted schooner,
          lithe and lighthearted, running with the wind down all that ecstasy
                    of unknown ways.
Many paths through the sea, many points of sail our lot, becoming more his
          and more my own as we chart our course through waters fair and fell.

And wander where we might, here kindly harbor awaits, where, resting
          on the green bosom of an island, we will remember all your sweet love
                    and the selves that we are in your arms.
And so, Island-love, I give back your gifts, lifting my heart as freely as yours. I’ve seen
          your marsh in full tide, offering up all that blue to the sky—serene and trusting—
                    and so you have taught me to live, unafraid.

17 Comments

  1. Words cannot describe the loveliness and inspiration this is to a (small) poet’s heart. It is a joy as always to hear expressed beauties I can’t describe, but long to. It is especially sweet as I am now seventeen, the age you were then, at the first.

    Thank you so much for allowing us to enjoy it too.

  2. It’s so beautiful, that I am dying to share it. You are no longer allowed to act like you are a shoddy poet!! You are a writer as well as a poet, true heart

  3. Whenever I read something of Lanier’s, I feel like I’ve just eaten a sumptuous meal. Tres magnifique! Lanier, I’m so glad my friend Olivia has left a comment. She’s a beautiful soul, and reminds me of you.

  4. I will never see the The marshy coast the same again. Beautiful. You still have a fresh and unfettered inspiration of youth in these words, 20 years removed or not!

  5. Lanier,
    Alternately catching my breath and holding back tears as I read this. Only you could have written this, it is so full of your spirit, and from the depths of your heart. I thought, “Shelley!” But, sweet Lanier, your heart is truer. How you’ve made me awestruck at your creation, and stirred dreams in the depths, dreams new and old, sweet and painful.

    When I read this:

    But if time is relentless, eternity is its thief, stealing back all our hours
    for one glorious whole, for which youth is but surety in pledge. If such
    be the case—and joy itself teaches me it is so,

    I came suddenly and unexpectedly face-to-face with my own heart and exclaimed in astonished dismay, “You don’t believe anymore! Your head does, but your heart doesn’t, or you wouldn’t be sad inside.” If I fight for nothing else this year, it will be for hope, and to believe most in what is enchanting. Perhaps I’ve been too long away from Elizabeth Goudge.

    Blessings,
    Josie Ray

  6. Thrilling and wonderful. Just like a modern-day Lucy Maud Montgomery. Your blog is so inspiring and beautiful, and it is because of your writing 🙂 Thank you for inspiring a young woman just on the verge of growing up. I recently graduated from a Christian high school, and I am in the throes of growing up and holding onto childhood. I have grown with your blog the last few years 🙂 Thank you for this poem; it enriches me and makes me ache with the beauty of it 🙂

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