“

Daughter of the Marshes, the winds have told me you are sad. If I could, I would bear it for you, but there is no way by which one of us may take another’s burden.

“I wish I might come to you, but now, when you are troubled, I will not ask you for a signal, even for a flower on the gate-post. I would always have you happy, dear, if my love could buy it from the Fates—those deep eyes of yours should never be veiled by the mist of tears.

“Do you know where the marsh is, Iris? You have lived in East Lancaster for many years, so the gossips tell me, yet I doubt whether you could find it unless someone showed you the way. To reach it, you must follow the river, through all its turns and windings, for many a weary mile.

“Up in those distant hills, so far that I have never found it, the river begins—perhaps in some tiny pool of crystal clearness. It sings along over its rocky bed until it reaches a low, sandy plain, and here is the marsh. I was there the other day, just at sunset; my heart thrilled with the beauty of it because it is the beauty of you.

“How shall I tell you of the wonder of the marshes, those wide, watery plains embroidered with strange bloom? Tall, slender rushes stand there, bending gracefully when the wind passes, and answering with music to the touch. Have you ever heard the song of the marshes when the wind moves through the rushes and plays upon them like strings? Some day, I will take you there, and you shall listen, too, and tell me what you think it means.

“Here and there are pools, set like jewels among the rushes, with never a hint of growth. Sometimes you see a wide sweep of grass, starred with tiny yellow flowers, or a lily, surrounded by its leaves, drinking in the loveliness of the day and forgetting all the maze of slime and dark water through which it has somehow come. I think our souls are like that, Iris—we grow through the world, with all its darkness, borne upward by unfailing aspiration, until we reach the end, which we have been taught to call Heaven, but which is only blossoming in the light.

“But of all the radiant beauty of marshes, the best is this—that part of it which bears the purple flower of your name. In and out of the rushes, like the thread of a strange tapestry, it winds and wanders, hidden for an instant, maybe, but never lost. I have gathered an armful of the blossoms, and put my face down to them, closing my eyes, and dreaming that it was you—you whom I must ever hold apart as something too beautiful for me to touch—you, whom I can only love from afar.

“I have told you that I would come when the iris bloomed, but now, when the marsh is glorious with the purple banners, I dare not. It is not only because you are sad, though not for worlds would I trouble you now, but because I am afraid.

“Only in my wildest moments do I dare to hope—you were never meant for such as I. By day, I bow my soul before you in shame at my own unworthiness, but at night, like some flaming star which speeds across the uncharted dark, you light the barren country of my dreams.

“I think sometimes that I shall never dare to tell you; that it must be like this, year after year. If you knew your lover, who is so bold and yet so fearful, I think you would cast him aside in scorn. So it is better for me to believe, though that belief has no foundation,—better for me to hope than utterly to despair. Without you, I dare not think what life might be.

“Like the marsh, the years stretch out before me—a vast plain of which the uncertainty only is sure. They are full of strange pitfalls, of unsounded deeps and silences, of impassable barriers which I, disheartened and doubting, must one day meet face to face.

“Night lies upon it, and I cannot see the way. Storm beats upon me and turns me from my course. The clouded day ends in sunset, and the crystal pools, by which I thought to mark my path, become beacons of blood-red flame.

“The will o’ the wisp leads me into the mire, where the rushes cling tightly about me and keep me back. But the night wind blows from the east, where the dawn sleeps, and on the strings of the marsh grass breathes a little song. ‘Iris! Iris!’ it sings, then all at once my sore heart grows strangely glad, for whatever may come to me, I shall have the memory of you.

“Like the flags that glorify the marshes and spread their elfin sweetness afar, you shine upon the desert wastes of my life. I can never wholly lose you—you are there for always, and graven on my heart forever is the symbol of the fleur-de-lis.”