Over the marsh the wild birds go, White herons, blue mallards, the dark jackdaws; Singeing the west, the sun burns low. Now the swift-running tide withdraws, Pulling the grasses, shadow-stirred. Deep in the marsh slow fireflies light As silence like a stricken bird Circles and plunges through the night.
Evening falls on a stretch of marshland, and the poem watches it happen one image at a time. Birds cross the sky, the sun burns low in the west, and the tide slides back out, tugging at the grasses as it goes. Then the light changes: fireflies begin to glow in the dark of the marsh, and silence takes over.
The speaker never says how they feel, and that restraint is part of the effect. We get a quiet observer, taking everything in without comment. Still, the mood is clear. It's calm, but with a faint edge of unease. The sun "singes" the sky, the grasses are "shadow-stirred," and the final image is the strangest: silence compared to a "stricken bird" that circles and plunges through the night. A wounded creature falling through the dark is hardly comforting, so the peace of the scene feels hushed and slightly haunted, a beautiful ending to the day that is also a little eerie.