Sidney Lanier : Georgia's poet-musician, 1938

SIDNEY LANIER
georgia's Poet-t.Musician
"Music is love in search of a word." "Work is singing with the hand."
GEORGIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
ATLANTA M. D. COLLINS, State Superintendent of Schools
1938

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SIDNEY LANIER
Georgia's Poet-Musician
This publication is one of a series designed to furnish more complete information on topics of special interest to teachers - and pupils in
Georgia school.
Prepared and Issued by
DIVISION OF INFORMATION AND PuBLICATIONS STATE D EPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
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CURR1CULUf91 LABORATORY COLLEGE EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
Edited by WIGHTMAN F. MELTON, PH. D. Atlanta 1938

SIDNEY LANIER 1842-1881

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CONTENTS
Page Introduction . .. . ..... .. ..... . ..... . .. ..... ... .. . . ... .. . . 5 Sidney Lanier, Poem, by Wightman F. Melton . ..... . . ..... . 7 The Life of Lanier, by Henry W. Lanier .................. . 9

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Sidney Clopton Lanier, by Judge Lucien P. Goodrich ....... . 25

Sidney Lanier, Address, by Chancellor Walter B. Hill ....... . 26

The Spirit of Lanier, Poem, by Wightman F. Melton ... . .. . . 35

Sidney Lanier, Newspaper Article, by E lizabeth H. Hanna .. . 35

Liveoak Country, by Dr. James W. Lee . .. . .......... .. ... . 41

A Florida Tale, Editorial .. .... : . ..... .... . . ... . . . .... . .. . 42

Letters ..... ... ...... .. . . .. .... ..... .. . .... . .. .. . . . .. .. . 44

Lanier, Poet-Musician, by Ruby Richardson Walton ........ . 48
Lanier's Genius, by Asgar Hamerik ..... ........ . .... ... .. . . so
Lanier the Artist, by Harry Stillwell Edwards . .......... . . . . 51

Sidney Lanier as a Prose Writer . .. ..... .. .. ........... . . . . 54

Sidney Lanier Memorials ..... ..... . ...... . . .. . .... ..... . . 58

Sidney Lan,ier and the Johns Hopkins University, by Dr. John C. French, Hopkins Librarian .... ... . . 63

Poems by Lanier:

Song of the Chattahoochee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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My Springs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Corn. . . ... . ...... . ... . .. ... .. . ... . .. ............... 68

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The Mocking Bird. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The M arshes of Glynn... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

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CONTENTS

Page Poems by Lanier-Continued:
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Sunrise . ... . ....... . ... .. ............... .. ... . ..... . 77

Ireland .. .. ... .. . . .. . .. ...... . .. . .. . . . .. . .. .. . ..... . 83

A Ballad of Trees and the Master ........... . ..... ... . 83

Evening Song. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. .... . . .... . 84

Lan ier's Lighter Verse ... . .. ... .. ..... .. ............ ... . . 84

The Power of Prayer .. .. .... . . . .. . . .... ........ . .. .. . 85

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Thar's More in the Man th\:ln thar is in the Land . .... . . 87

Bibliography : University of Georgia Library.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Johns Hopkins University Library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Washington Memorial Library, Macon, Georgia ...... ... 101

Emory University Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Mercer University Library . . ... . . .. .. . . ........... .. . . 107

Wesleyan College Library . . . .. . .. ...... ..... . . . .... .. 109

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Library, Georgia School of Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

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Library, Oglethorpe University . . . . . .. .. . .. .... . . ... . .. 110

Library, Agnes Scott College .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Carnegie Library of Atlanta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Georgia State Library .. ..... ...... ... . . : . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
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Lanier Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

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Chronology of Sidney Lanier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

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INTRODUCTION
Sixty-five years ago Sidney Lanier was a struggling young author. practically unknown except in limited areas of Georgia and Alabama. In the summer of 1874 he wrote "Corn," which was published in Lippincott's Magazine, attracting national attention. Thirty years ago professors of English, even in Northern universities, began to wonder if the Georgian, Sidney Lanier, would not, eventually, take rank among the best secondary poets of America. Today the colleges and universities, north, south, east and west, regard Lanier as one of our greatest poets, the imaginative and musical qualities of his verse being unsurpassed.
Naturally, Georgia is proud of her two greatest poets, Lanier and Frank L. Stanton. Stanton, singing of simple things , a hd usually in simple language, encourages us to "Keep a-goin' ,"against all odds. Lanier immortalize.s our mountains and our marshes, our rivers, trees, and corn-fields in poems that lend themselves to orchestration; for Lanier was, first of all, a musician, recognizing and using to good effect the musical quality of vowel sounds.
In presenting this bullet in to the schools of Georgia, we wish to thank Charles Scribner's Sons for permission to use much copyrighted r() material, prose and verse; and we are grateful to the individuals ~ whose contributions add to the interest and usefulness of this pub( lication. Especially do we call attention to the address of the late
f' Chancellor Walter B. Hill, which, so far as we are aware, has never
'1 before been published. This bulletin is issued in the confident belief and hope that a more
intimate acquaintance with Lanier and his work will make us better parents, teachers, and pupils.
Division of Information and Publications.
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SIDNEY LANIER
My soul was a-quest for to find Lanier, And the little gray leaves said, "Once he was here." Then the meadow lands broad and the forests dim Declared that they still remembered him.
I questioned a mockingbird; first he was mute Then he trilled me some notes from a Boehmish flute And the riddle made plain- it was mockbird lore , Snatched from a gleeman gone before.-- -
The hills of Habersham heard my cry, And the Chattahoochee came rushing by In a torrent of grief; and corn and clover In the valleys of Hall, told 'me over and over:
"He is gone! He is gone!"
And out of the marshes, the marshes of Glynn, Came the pitiful wail of a wild marsh-hen; League-broad, waist-high, 'twixt the land and the main, The marsh-grass quivered with infinite pain.
Then a glad gold beam shot down from the sky, And my eager soul, with prayerful eye, Beheld-for the seer his wish had wonLanier afloat by his friend the Sun.
-WIGHTMAN F. MELTON. POEMS OF TREES: Sidney Lanier Memorial.
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THE LIFE OF LANIER
I. BOYHOOD-COLLEGE DAYS 1842-1860
A few years before the War Between the States there was living in the town of Macon, Ga., a boy named Sidney Lanier. He was a slender fellow, with large gray eyes which harbored dreams, yet easily tlashed into quick humor or set to an almost fierce intentness-eyes that could look unblinking into the full blaze of the sun. He joined enthusiastically in the games of Macon boys, from marbles to the all-year-round coasting down steep Pine Hill with barrel-stave sleds, on which one sped over the slippery pine needles almost as fast as a Canada boy covers the toboggan slide; with his brother or other companions he spent many a Saturday in the woods, marshes, and "old fields" near the river, looking for Indian arrow-heads, picking haws and hickory nuts, hunting doves, snipe, and rabbits; but every now and then he liked to get off alone on a fishing trip, frequently stealing out of the house by dawn with his lunch in his pocket, to spend a solitary day on the banks of the Ocmulgee. He brought home fish from these excursions, but hebrought also pictures of placid river and starry water-lilies and tangled thicket and clambering jessamine vines, and vague young dreams that nestled in these coverts.
He was a favorite with other boys. To begin with, he was quick, electric, flashing, full of jokes and gaiety, full of ideas. He could mimic to the life a travelling showman, the slow "Crackers," some negro fun-maker; with his flute he could imitate the birds' calls with bewildering exactness. When he was only six, his first circus incited him to get up a home performance with his brother and sister. At twelve, after reading Froissart and Scott, he had organized a military company, uniformed in white and blue, which was armed first with bows and arrows, then with wooden guns. And so faithfully were they drilled that on one memorable Fourth of July, when the Floyd Rifles and Macon Volunteers, many of them veterans of the Mexican and Indian Wars, paraded in state, the boys' company turned out too, and made such a creditable showing that they were all invited to the big dinner, and their leader was called on to answer to a toast. Then he was at once brave and gentle: a striking mixture of sensitiveness with a spirit that stopped at nothing when aroused. Fifty
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years after it happened, a boyhood friend told of his wonder at the way in which Sidney, then just a little fellow, stoQ9,_j;h_e_pain of an accident, when a wi_ndo~ fell on his finger and topk the end right o~i;;th;-;-cl"y fight his school fellO\~;s remember-a formal challenge o meet an sett e matters in the a\ e.y_after_sch.o~he other fellow;-fln:cling himseJrgettii1gthe worst of it, ulled ou~g__hadow kn'l e: the circleo f- watchers were too much awed to do anything
at first; but on seeing Sidney rush forward as determinedly as ever
and tackle his opponent in spite of this wicked looking weapon, they all closed in and separated the pair.
Another thing which marked him out among the boys who were getting ready for college at the" 'Cademy," was his native musical ability. Before he was six he would rattle a rhythmical accompaniment on the bones in perfect time to his mother's piano music; at seven he had made himself a reed flageolet,and when Christmas brought a little one-keyed yellow flute he would shut himself up after school and practice by the hour on this. His mother taught him the notes on the piano, and he promptly passed on this new knowledge tq John Booker, a musical negro barber of the neighborhood (who later had a famous troupe of darky minstrels which toured this country and Europe). Presently he had a minstrel troupe of his own among his boy friends, and learning to play passably well on half a dozen instruments before he could write legibly, he was always the centre of a gay quartet, an amateur band, or some more ambitious musical group.
Just before his fifteenth birthday he entered Oglethorpe College; but his father, who though devotedly fond of him, was always fearful of the quickness of his impulses and of his passion for music, withdrew him presently on hearing of him as leader in the serenading parties of the college boys. So he spent most of a year as a clerk in the Macon post-office, entertaining family and friends with a host of comical stories of the queer back-country folk who came in for mail; and then, in 1858, he returned to Oglethorpe, entering as a Junior.
There were many evidences during these years of an unusual combination of mental qualities. He had the true scholar's passion for exact knowledge (much fostered by contact with James Woodrow, a man of rare quality, who became interested in the alert _young student, and gave him something of his own confident outlook on the new world then opening in science through the work o ,Darwin
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and Huxley); hard work and quick intellect put him at the head of his classes, and he especially distinguished himself in mathematics; yet at the same time he was absorbing Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Tennyson, and the other great poets, and beginning on quiet walks in the woods to try to express some of the poetic fancies to which his reveries had given birth-efforts resulting at that time in "mere doggerel," according to one intimate; a keen delight in the picturesque romances of the days of chivalry, in the humor, whimsicalities' and conceits of Montaigne, Burton, Don Quixote and Reynard the Fox, went side by side with a profound satisfaction in the mystical and metaphysical speculations of German philosophers, to whom he was drawn through his pleasure in Carlyle; he had begun to play the violin with such effect upon himself that he would at times lose consciousness and come to his senses hours later, much shaken in nerves. His father was fearful of this musical stimulation, and induced him to give up that instrument; so, returning to the flute on which he had specialized since his childhood days, he soon had organized a quartet of gay flute and guitar players which, after much practicing together, would sally forth on Friday evenings to serenade the pretty girls of the village. On these excursions he was the musical leader and the life of th~ party. When things went wrong they laughed at themselves:
"I recall on one very cold winter night," says a college comrade' "when the serenading party, with benumbed fingers, had performed the three or four conve!)tional tunes of the serenade at the house of General Lamar, whose daughter was one of the local belles, that the gray-haired butler appeared at the door, not to invite the chilled troubadours into a warm parlor for refreshments, but to announce, 'Marsa an' de young ladies done been down to de plantation 'bout a week.'"
Often the group would meet in the evening, and Lanier would start forth on an improvisation; calling out the key, he would dash into an endless stream of melody, his friends accompanying as best they could- the whole frequently ending in some uproarious darky breakdown. He ~as in the thick of all the jokes; one morning, at the boarding-house, a passage of wits between him and an excitable companion proved too much for the other's nerves: he made an insulting remark. Lanier promptly struck him. The young man lost his head completely, pulled out a knife, and gave his adversary a bad cut in the back-the affair ending in a hearty reconciliation, with
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the knife-wielder nursing Lanier while he was laid up. In those days Southern boys had the old time idea of resenting affronts, but in spite of a naturally quick temper, this is the only personal difficulty related of Lanier's college days, and, with a group of devoted friends, he seems to have had no enemies.
These years of hard study, reading, dreaming, music, serenading and college larks passed away. Lanier was graduated at the head of his class, with' an ambitious essay on "The Philosophy of History," dividing first honors with a fellow-senior, and on the day of his graduation was appointed tutor by the authorities. After a delightful summer of hunting and fishing and friends and music at his grandfather's estate in the Tennessee.Mountains, he took up his new duties.
He was eighteen years old. The thoughtfulness which underlay his buoyant spirits is shown by a passage in his note-book at this time, when he was trying to decide upon his future.
"The point I wish to settle is merely by what method shall I ascertain what I am fit for. I am more than all perplexed by this fact that the prime inclination-that is, natural bent (which I have checked, though) of my nature is to music, and for that I have the greatest talent; indeed, not boasting, for God gave it me, I have an extraordinary musical talent, and feel it within me plainly that I could rise as high as any composer. But I cannot bring myself to believe that I was intended for a musician, because it seems so small a business in comparison with other things, which, it seems to me, I might do. Question here: 'What is the province of music in the economy of the world?'"
Sixty years ago, in Georgia, it would have been ludicrous to suggest music as a career for an ambitious young man. Lanier's look ahead presently resolved itself into a couple of years' hard study, mainly at Greek and German, while tutoring; then some more years in a German university ; and then a professorship at an American college, where he might be able to work out some of his creative dreams, especially a musical drama of the peasant uprising in France in 1358, The Jacquerie, of which he had long been thinking (and a fragment of which is to be found in his complete Poems). He set himself resolutely towards this, and the next six months was a period of earnest study and teaching. His flute was still his ever present means of expression, and a friend of those days writes:
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"Lanier's passion for music asserted itself at every opportunity. His flute and guitar furnished recreation for himself and pleasant entertainment for the friends dropping in upon him. As a master of the flute he was said to be, even at eighteen, without an equal in Georgia. 'Tutor Lanier,' I find myself recording at the time, 'is the finest flute- player you or I ever saw. It is perfectly splendidhis playing. He is far famed for it. . . Description is inadequate.' "
This life of scholarship and music did not last long. The tension between North and South grew to the breaking point in that fall of 1860. On December 1, South Caroliaa seceded. Georgia followed, January 16. There could be no question in the mind of a highspirited boy when the call sounded: practically every teacher and student at Oglethorpe enlisted in the Confederate army, and Lanier joined the Macon Volunteers in the Second Georgia battalion at Norfolk, Va.
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II. A SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR
1861-1865
It would be hard to imagine a human being more unfitted by nature to be a soldier. There was something in him that made it almost im-
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possible for him to hate a fellow human being; his imagination and sympathy were so quick that he had given up hunting after once watching a large-eyed deer stand motionless before him at close
range; it was no exaggeration for him to speak as he did in following
years, of the "sisterly leaves," or "Cousin Cloud," for his heart seemed to vibrate in accord with all created things. But the very foundation of his character was a gallant buoyancy in meeting adequately whatever responsibility l]Je set before him. In the face of convictions about war expressed in his one novel, "Tiger Lilies," and in the essay, "The Devil's Bombs," he set himself to discharge his new duties with all his powers.
During most of the first year the battalion was stationed near Norfolk, and Lanier's spare time was used in forming an orchestra of flutes, violins, 'cello, cornet and guitar, and in reading German and poetry. He enlisted again when the year's term of his company was up, was at the battle of Seven Pines, in the fighting around Richmond, and engaged in making entrenchments at Drewry's Bluffwith plenty of forced marches, weather hardships, and chills and fever. In the fall he and his brother were transferred to Major Milligan's battalion of signalmen, doing mounted scouting along the James River from Petersburg to within thirty-five miles of Norfolk. It was adventurous work, for the enemy was liable to swoop down on them at any moment. He wrote of this period:
"Our life was as full of romance as heart could desire. We had flute and guitar, good horses, a beautiful country, splendid residences inhabited by friends who loved us, and plenty of hairbreadth 'scapes from the roving bands of Federals who were continually visiting that Debatable Land."
Knowledge of the Federal movements was gathered by observation of their ships through a telescope, and from a spy who came at midnight once or twice a week from Fortress Monroe; while out on the river after fish to reinforce their scanty table, the scouts were frequently chased by a gunboat; their headquarters was shelled re-
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peatedly; and among the skirmishes was one in April, 1864, when the little band held back a landing party ten times its size, and Lanier and his brother were mentioned in Major Milligan's despatches for "conspicuous gallantry."
Companions of those days all testify to the dash, resourcefulness, and gay disregard of hardships with which he met mishaps; how he would do double duty to relieve his younger brother,-and half carried him for hours one desperate night on a fo~ced march through sleet and wind; how he refused promotion several times in order not to be separated from the latter; how the flute, which he managed to save always, was a sure comforter for himself and others in the cold, wet, hungry, weary evenings; how he kept on studying, and ever planned for the writing he was already beginning to experiment with in the shape of tentative poems and notes for his "Tiger Lilies."
In 1864 he was appointed signal officer on the blockade-runner Lucy, at Wilmington. She was captured in October by the FederaJ cruiser Santiago-de-Cuba, on her first attempt to steal out of the harbor. His fellow officers, Englishmen, begged him to change his uniform and declare himself a British subject, to avoid imprisonment. He refused. Then the captain directed him to distribute the ship's money among the crew; and finding-aLthe last moment that one old sailor had been overlooked, he gave him most of his own scanty share. With the rest of the crew he was taken prisoner and sent to Point Lookout.
A soldier's life in the field was paradise compared to those four months of horror in a military prison. Yet amid the darkness, filth, exposure, and despair, amid the recklessness of companions whose worst came out under the abandonment of hope, he again proved his mastery over any external conditions, translating German songs, reading poetry, and cheering his companions with his flute-playing. He got up concerts, with two or three other musical performers, for the benefit of the poorer prisoners. As one said afterwards:
"The flute of Sidney Lanier was our daily delight. It was an angel imprisoned with us to cheer and console us. Well I remember his improvisations, and how the young artist stood there in the twilight ...
"In all those dreary months, under the keenest privations of life, exposed to the daily manifestation of want and depravity, sickness and death, his was the clear-hearted, hopeful voice that sang what be uttered in after years."
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And Father Tabb, the poet, who was also a prisoner there, wrote: "There was no room for pretense or disguise. Men appeared what they really were, noble or low-minded, pure or depraved; and there did one trait single him out. In all our intercourse, I can remember no conversation or won;!. of his that an angel might not have uttered or listened to."
In February he bought his release with some gold smuggled into prison in a friend's mouth. Emaciated and ill, he almost died on the voyage to Fortress Monroe. But a child friend who happened to be on the boat heard of his presence, and her mother obtained permission to care for him:
"I can see his fellow prisoners now as they crouched and assisted to pass him along over their heads, for they were so packed that they could not make room to carry him through. . . .We got him into clean blankets, but at first he could not endure the pain from the fire, he was so nearly frozen. We gave him some hot soup and more brandy, and he lay quiet till after midnight. Then he asked for his flute and began playing. As he played the first notes, you should have heard the yell of joy that came up from the shivering wretches down below, who knew that their comrade was alive."
A few days later, carrying blanket, satchel, and his precious flute, he set out on foot for Georgia. A comrade of this painful journey says:
"I recollect one morning that we came up to a farmer, who was hauling cotton to hide away from the enemy. We had a chat and asked for assistance along our journey, but' this was refused. He, however, asked us up to his house t6 get refreshment, and while there Sidney took out his flute and began playing. The music was very sweet indeed, and so charmed the farmer and his wife that he at once hitched up a team and sent us on towards Edgefield, S.C., where we met up with a few Georgia cavalrymen. Sidney knew one of them who loaned us a horse.''
They finally reached Augusta, and Lanier took the train to Macon, reaching home to go down into illness for two months. His brother . returned from the war. His mother died.
"Then peace came, and we looked about over the blankest world imaginable."
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III. LOOKING FOR A VOCATION
1865-1873
It took some courage for a young man in the South to face either the present or the future in 1865. The war had changed comfort or wealth into poverty. Four million slaves, suddenly freed, were without provisions, and without prospect of labor in a land where employers were impoverished. Forty thousand Confederate soldiers had been disbanded after their terrible four years' struggle, at best to begin life over. Colleges, universities, and libraries were a thing of the past. The old governments were gone, and the new military rule was still chaotic. Every American can be proud of the way in which the mass of these men set to work to build upon the ruins.
Lanier's mind was full of poetry and music that clamored to be written down. But with his usual cheerful acceptance of life, he set about making a living in any way that offered. He tutored at a plantation near his home, thirty classes a day; he became clerk in a hotel in Montgomery, Ala., describing humorously to a friend the paralyzing deadness of business and of mental life; he buckled down to writing poems, essays, and his novel, "Tiger Lilies," making a trip North in 1867 to arrange for the publication of the latter.
In December of that year he was married to Miss Mary Day, whom he had met in Macon during his stay there on furlough in 1863; and that winter was spent as principal of an academy in Prattville, Ala., where drudgery and the first signs of his fatal disease, and the disheartening events of Reconstruction alike failed to keep him from his studies in German and Latin literature, or from pouring out his thoughts in essays on current happenings and metaphysical ideas, as well as in occasional poems.
Under his father's urging he went into the latter's law office late in 1868. Throwing his whole heart into the task, as usual, he was admitted to the bar, and for over three years he devoted himself to the intricacies of real estate titles, building and loan advances, trust estates, and other matter of legal principles and records. It was not work that would be chosen by a poet, musician and dreamer, longing for the field of scholarship and literature. But Chancellor Walter B. Hill, who joined the law firm later, declares: "I have had occasion to go over much work of that sort which he did, and I have been struck with its uniform correctness and carefulness. I never SilW
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deeds better drawn than his;" and the other members of the firm said that he introduced a system of order into the office which made it a different place.
During these years ill health drove him away several times for short changes of climate. Three trips of business and health, to New York, opened to him glimpses of a world toward which his deepest nature strained. He heard Nilsson sing, and Thomas's orchestra play the "Tannhauser" overture; and there kept growing in his mind a feeling that only in these fields of music and poetry and study could he fulfill his true reason for existence.
This belief, which was but the recognition of creative powers demanding expression, deepened to conviction in 1873. Consumption, contracted at Point Lookout and fought against ever since, became so serious that he was forced to try a change to the dry air of Texas; and at San Antonio he was so near death that the facts of life ranged themselves before him in unmistakable values.
All the while, he had been keenly observing the new people and places about him, developing his Jacquerie by study of Michelet's "France," reading and planning for a series of travel articles- one of which, on San Antonio, appears in his book, "Retrospects and Prospects." His health presently improved under influences of the air and of a rigorously followed course of medical treatment. He experienced the joy of a musical triumph, his flute solo before the Mannerchor producing a storm of applause amid which the leader, "an old man with long white beard and mustache," ran to him, grasped his hand and declared that he "hat never heerd de flude accompany itself pefore!" He wrote down one of the musical improvisations on nature themes with which he was wont to delight his friends, "Field-larks and Blackbirds." And when he returned to Macon in April his mind was made up.
That September he set out for the North, with flute and pen as weapons. He was thirty-one years old; a wife and three children were to be provided for; his first efforts in literature offered little encouragement financially; his family and friends thought that in his state of health such a hazard of new fortunes was folly. But he had faced all the facts and was sure. He writes his father from New York, November 29, 1873:
"I have given your last letter the fullest and most careful consideration. After doing so, I feel sure that Macon is not the place for me.
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If you could taste the delicious crystalline air, and the champagne breeze that I've just been rushing about in, Lam equally sure that in point of c:limate you would agree with me that my chance for life is ten times as great here as in Macon. Then, as to business, why should I, nay, how can I, settle myself down to be a third-rate struggling lawyer for the balance of my little life as long as there is a certainty almost absolute that I can do some other thing so much better? Several persons, from whose judgment there can be no appeal, have told me, for instance, that I am the greatest flute-player in the world; and several others, of equally authoritative judgment, have given me an almost equal encouragement to work with my pen. (Of course I protest against the necessity which makes me write such things about myself. I only do so because I so appreciate the love and tenderness which prompt you to desire me with you that I will make the fullest explanation possible of my Gourse, out of the reciprocal honor and respect for the motives which lead you to think differently from me.) My dear father, think how for twenty years, through poverty, through pain, through weariness, through sickness, through the ur1congenial atmosphere of a farcical college and of a bare army and then of an exacting business life, through all the discouragement of being wholly unacquainted with literary people and literary waysI say, think how, in spite of all these depressing circumstances, and of a thousand more which I could enumerate, these two figures of music and poetry have steadily kept in my heart so that I could not banish them. Does it not seem to you as to me, that I begin to have the right to enroll myself among the devotees of these two sublime arts, after having followed them so long and so humbly, and through so much bitterness?"
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IV. WRITER, MUSICIAN, AND LECTURER
1874-1881
Lanier's undoubted musica l genius won for him immediate recognition. On his way to New York he stopped in Baltimore and met Asger Hamerik, director of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. This distinguished leader and composer was so delighted with his playing of his own "Blackbirds" that he at 'once offered him the position of first flute in the new orchestra being formed at the Peabody, which position Lanier filled through this and succeeding seasons. He told a friend that when he entered the orchestra he actually did not know the value of a d otted note; yet his musical instinct not only enabled him to hold his own with trained musicians, but he was repeatedly assured by experts that he was the best sight reader they had ever met. He started to take lessons of the first flutist of Thomas's orchestra: after playing for this master, the latter complimented him, but told him he must get a Boehm flute and practice: "When you can do this, you'll pass," added the teacher, picking up his own instrument and executing some most difficult pyrotechnics. Without a word Lanier repeated the passage on his eight-keyed flute . The veteran stood open-mouthed. "Here," said he, "give up that old thing and take this Boehm. Aside from correcting some errors, there is nothing I can teach you."
Theodore Thomas arranged to offer him a place in his orchestra, a plan which failed because of Lanier's health at the time. Doctor Damrosch assured him he played his own "Wind Song" "like an artist," and that the performance was "wonderful" in view of his education. Director Hamerik said he had "not only the art, but an art above art," and afterwards wrote a striking picture of his triumph in a flute concerto with the Peabody orchestra. Whenever he played, with the orchestra, at church concerts, at the Germania Mannerchor, at private musicales, the story was the same.
His success only stimulated him to fresh efforts. He practiced and studied, beginning , as he writes, "in the midst of the stormy surges of the orchestra to feel my heart sure, my soul discriminating. : . presently my hand will be firm enough to hold the helm myself." He invented an improved long flute , which was about perfected when lack of strength and money forced him to stop pushing the obstinate workman who was making the model. He delved into the physics
20

of music, discovering a property of vibrating strings which helped to explain the difference in tone-color between wind and stringed instruments. He was full of a plan for a new form of orchestra to tour the smaller cities and educate people musically; and looked' forward to working with all his heart to advance the time when music should be considered one of the fundamentals of culture and religion to be studied in every college. (Here, as in many other things, he was merely ahead of his time.) His letters (in "Letters of Sidney Lanier"-"A Poet's Musical Impressions") and the essays collected under the title of "Music and Poetry" present some idea of the answer he himself finally gave to his boyish question: "What is the place of music in the economy of the world?" And one of his most important prose works, "The Science of English Verse," containing his theory that the laws of versification are simply special forms of the laws of music, could only have been written by one who had both felt music and studied it deeply. The same double artistic expression is, of course, shown most strikingly in one of his greatest poems, "The Symphony," where the essential character of each instrument in the orchestra is expressed in words with a subtlety rarely equalled.
In February, 1875, Lippincott's Magazine published "Corn," which first brought him to general attention as a poet-though a number of short poems in the Round Table during 1867 and 1868 had made a small circle of readers feel sure of his power. It was followed by the "Symphony," the cantata written for the opening of the Philadelphia Centennial, and the enlarged hymn of America which grew from this cantata, "The Psalm of the West." (The last was to have music written by himself.) These three long poems and some shorter ones were gathered into a volume in the fall of 1876, and the young author found himself welcomed by Bayard Taylor and others of the best known authors and writers as one who had won his literary spurs. Mr. Gibson Peacock, editor of the Philadelphia Evening Bulle~ tin, a man .of great knowledge and culture, gave him the most generous recognition and furthered his interests in many ways. "Corn" brought him, in addition, the friendship of that rare woman, Charlotte Cushman.
By the fall of 1877 he had also written a sort of inspired guidebook, "Florida," a series of articles descriptive of India, created by his quick imagination from a prodigious amount of hard work in the libraries, a number of other essays, and a dozen more poems,
21

though he was forced to drop his orchestral work in the fall of 1876 and go to Florida and Georgia for six months, to keep alive.

The following winter he was back in Baltimore with his family,

re-enforcing his knowledge of Elizabethan poetry with systematic

study of early and middle English literature at the Peabody library.

He wrote enthusiastically to Bayard Taylor: "The world seems twice

as large." The fruits of these new conquests of his eager mind were

,

given in lectures to private classes and at the Peabody Institute;

and much of his material is embodied in the posthumous work,

"Shakespeare and His Forerunners." His enthusiasm led him on

from this to the design of what he called "Schools for Grown People,"

an idea since carried out in popular lectures, University extension

work, Chautauqua courses and a hundred other ways. It was years

too soon for his plan, but his own power of making these things alive

to his hearers gave a most stimulating quality to his talks.

His success in this work led to his appointment as lecturer in English literature at Johns Hopkins University, where more than one of the students has testified to the magic sympathy and enthusiasm with which he made the dry bones of the literary past take on form and beauty and freshness and meaning. Here too were delivered the dozen lectures on "The Development of Personality from tEschylus to George Eliot," afterwards published as The English Novel.

Meanwhile he was writing "The Marshes of Glynn," "Sunrise," "The Crystal," "Individuality," "Owl Against Robin," and other of his greatest poems; editing the Boys' King Arthur, F roissart, Mabinogion, and Percy, planning buoyantly for the volumes of poems which crowded his mind, for new literary enterprises ever suggested by his vital interest in life and boo,ks- though it was clear that he was rapidly approaching the limit of his allotted working time.

In the spring of 1881 he went to the mountains of North Carolina for a final struggle with his old enemy.{ ,Up to the last he poured out his strength into the work at hand. And when in September the end came, he met it as he had met life )

The critics differ much as to Lanier's final rank as a poet. General appreciation of his work has steadily increased during the thirtythree years since his volume of collected poems was issued, and it seems at least settled that he belongs among the ten chief poets America has produced.

22

To read a poem is more illuminating than to read a whole volume about it. Yet there are a few definite characteristics worth noting. First of all, his poems always came from within. Whatever they are, they represent the surging feeling and true nature of the man, not a response to any external deinand. As he himself said: "The difficulty with me is not to write poetry."
He was a singer of America. And he followed his conviction that the poet must be a prophet, a seer, bringing to his fellows visions of their highest possibilities. Though he had been a soldier in the Confederate Army, though his captivity in Point Lookout had fastened on him a physical ball-and-chain for the rest of his life, though the bitterness of Reconstruction still lay heavy on the South, Lanier could write in 1876 a dream of America and its future as loft ild confident as was ever penned. His "Psalm of the West" s ision of the highest possibilities of freedom and true democracy, the brotherhood of man, the ultimate "birth of faith from knowing and living." He had no doubts about the "tall young Adam of the West":

"At heart let no one fear for thee:

.i

Thy Past sings ever Freedom's song,

Thy Future's voice sounds wondrous free."

The Jacquerie, too, which was in his mind, waiting a chance to

be written, for most of his working life, enthralled him because it

dealt with "the first time that the big hungers of the People appear

in our modern civilization." The most poignant note of the "Sym-

phony" is his cry for the poor:

.

"Wedged by the pressure of Trade's hand Against an inward-opening door That pressure tightens evermore:' '

He was a passionate democrat. His ideal of democracy was simply that of Jesus Christ-the inevitable result of loving one's neighbor as one's self. He says, in a fervent passage, rejecting mere bigness as an object of pride:
"A republic is the government of the spirit; a republic depends upon the self control of each member; you cannot make a republic out of muscles, and prairies, and Rocky Mountains; republics are made of the spirit."

23

He had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. His extraordinary sensitiveness to the delicate, halfhidden beauties of nature was never troubled for fear that all he could learn about trees, flowers, microscopic life, or meteorology might lessen the mystery or charm. Every fact of nature, of science, of art was vital to him, was food for poetry, was building material for the palace of Truth which he conceived as the only adequate aim of the poet. For some thousands of years the sun has been "rising" in poets' pictures of dawn; but in Lanier's "Sunrise,"

"The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring,unreeling, Forever revealing, revealing, revealing."

Surely there is but an increase of majesty in this adoption of one of the first facts of science. And the other stanzas in the same poem, hailing the sun as "Workman Heat"-

"Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet And be mixed in the death-cold oneness"-

are almost unique in poetry in their use of the knowledge of energy .and matter which modern scientists have built up.

Over and over he sang the responsibility of the artist for his work, his belief that more, not less, should be demanded of the genius than of the ordinary man. And while he delighted in vigorous, red-blooded life, he not only upheld in all his work an ideal of cleanness and absolute purity as the most manly of qualities, but he lived his doctrine as few men have lived it.

And finally, everything he wrote is transfused with a belief in the best of man's nature. "Every man is as good as his best," was one of his favorite sayings. Everywhere there is humor, bravery, magnanimity, knightliness, hope, faith, love. For he saw God in everything-or where he could not see, he trusted. His vision of the end of humanity was ever that of

"the Catholic man who hath mightily won God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain And sight out of blindness, and purity out of stain."

w. -HENRY

LANTER,

Introduction to Selections from Sidney

Lanier, Charles Scribner's Sons.

24

SIDNEY CLOPTON LANIER, OF GRIFFIN, GEORGIA
By juDGE LuciEN P. GooDRICH
The name of Sidney Lanier is familiar to all Georgians, and to lovers of poetry everywhere. But what about Sidney Clopton Lanier?
Robert S. Lanier, the father of Sidney L~nier, began the practice of law in Macon, Georgia, in partnership with Judge David Clopton, under the firm name of Lanier & Clopton. (Biographical Sou- . venir of Georgia, 1889).
Sidney Lanier was born in Macon, February 3, 1842; but Clifford, the next child, was born in Griffin, April 24, 1844. In the article on Clifford Lanier, in the Library of Southern Literature, it is stated that Robert S. Lanier returned to Macon in 1846.
The records of the Presbyterian Church of Griffin contain the following entry: "March 12, 1844. Rev. Mr. Deane baptised the infan.t son of Mr. and Mrs. RobertS. Lanier, Sidney Clopton."
The Tax Digests of the City of Griffin for the years 1845 and 1846, which are preserved in the Hawke's Library, show that Robert S. Lanier was a citizen and taxpayer of Griffin during each of those years, paying both a poll tax and a property tax. The other Digests have been lost or destroyed.
(
The Record of Deeds in Zebulon, Pike County, show that Robert S. Lanier sold the lot on North H'ill Street, Griffin, now known as No. 441, to Dr. W. H. Prichard in 1847. '
And in the Poems of Sidney Lanier; edited by his wife and published by Charles Scribner's Sons, the ode to corn is dated "Sunnyside, Georgia, August, 1874."
These are all documented facts, corroborating the following narrative, which otherwise rests on tradition.
Before he entered upon the practice of law, Robert S. Lanier was employed by the old Monroe Railroad and Banking Company as a telegraph operator, and was stationed in Griffin in that capacity. I have been unable to find just when Mr. Lanier moved to Griffin, but it was eyidently after February 3, 1842, and prior to March 12, 1844.
25

RobertS. Lanier lived in Griffin until1846, when, the Monroe Railroad and Banking Company having failed, he returned to Macon and entered upon the practice of law.
While living in Griffin, Sidney Lanier was a playmate of the late Mr. Sam Deane, to whom I am indebted for some of my facts. He was the son of the Rev. Henry L. Deane, the Presbyterian minister, who was a neighbor of the Laniers.
The home in which the Laniers lived in Griffin has been torn down( as well as the old Presbyterian Church in which Sidney was baptised. But several oak trees, relics of the ancient forest, under which he played as a child, are still standing out on North Hill Street.
In 1874 Sidney Lanier returned to Griffin to visit the scenes of his childhood, and was a guest of Capt. John Mcintosh Kell, at his home near Sunnyside in Spalding County. While at the home of Captain Kell, or possibly while spending the summer in a cottage near the Kell home, Lanier wrote his famous ode to Corn.
The fact that his father had been a telegraph operator, may explain why Sidney became connected with the signal service of the Confederate Army. As a boy, he no doubt picked up the science of telegraphy from his father.
And the fact that his father was a friend and partner of Judge Clopton, explains why he christened his son Sidney ~n, as shown by the church records. But that is the only reference to Sidney's middle name that I have ever been able to find.
SIDNEY LANIER
By WALTER B. HILL (Chancellor, University of Georgia, 1899-1905)
Lanier is the type "in a nineteenth century way" of the union of musical and p-oetic functions in the old-time bard or minstrel. But in his case the vehicle of expression in each art was different. And the real significance of his musical genius lies in the enrichment of poetic inspirations rather than of metrical forms. The apparent implication by many critics that he consciously and elaborately trans-
26

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --- --- -- ---- --- ---------.<0--------~
ferred to the business of verse building his delicate sensibility to musical effects does him injustice. He did not attempt to jingle the bells of rhyme. And he would never have sat down to cull out all the words in the language that would go with the croaking voice of the raven that evermore said nevermore. His poems are indeed musical, but they are not more remarkable for this quality than are some of Tennyson's, Moore's, or Mrs. Browning's. It is well known that in the Cantata, in the composition of which there was a strong temptation to sing sweet sounds for the general ear, he has subordinated musical effects to what he has believed to be the higher laws of art. Without doubt, however, his musical gift was serviceable to him as a poet.
The charm of silence,-a charm like "the happiness that makes the heart afraid" was never more aptly conveyed than in these lines from "Sunrise":
"Oh, what if a sound should be made Oh, what if a bound should be laid
To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-spring To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the string."
(Concerning the following two paragraphs it should be mentioned that Dr. Hill submitted his manuscript to the wife of Sidney LanierMary Day Lanier-with this statement: "I do not 'feel that I am competent to make such an estimate and would be glad to have your assistance." On the opposite margin of the page Mrs. Lanier replied: "With at all confiding in my own competence,. I must say that I am quite in accord with your views here, , . . " M. D. L).
To his musical culture he :was doubtless indebted for the suggestion of his theory of the Science of verse as well as for the technical knowledge which enabled him to work it out. His lectures on this subject, published in the form of a treatise on The Science of Verse are an attempt to find a scientific basis in the physical laws of Music for the laws of rhythm and poetical expression. Perhaps no one who d~es not possess the knowledge he had of the two arts is fully competent to form a correct estimate of the truth and value of his hypothesis of the relation of the two arts to each other. But it must strike the mind at once that there are strong analogies in its favor and that his reduction of rhythm to terms of music and his argument for thfl unity of their relation are in the direction of the trend of scientific! thought. The entire originality of his conception is admitted, while
27

yet it is too early to say what acceptance it will finally receive. He protested earnestly against the almost universal misunderstanding of the aim and scope of the book, declaring that nine out of ten of his reviewers had treated it as a manual for making verses. This was like taking Sartor Resartus as a treatise on swallow tail coats.
It was an attempt on his part "To draw from Art's unconscious act, Art's conscious laws," not to formulate the hitherto unconscious laws as recipes for conscious elaboration. The study led him to explore and estimate the musical value of words and the subtler adaptations of poetical forms. And while he never condescended to "apt alliteration's artful aid," for its own sake only, yet there runs through .his verses an onomatopoeia as delicate as the suggestion in the "Book of Perfumes" in which each page breathes out the odor which the words describe.
"Music is Love in search of a word." He finds that word and lo! it is poetry. Examples abound,-in "The .Marshes of Glynn" is this exquisite description of the sea-line:
"Sinuous Southward, and sinuous northward the shimmering band
Of the sand beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land
Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach lines linger and curl,
As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl."
The initial stanzas of the Psalm of ~he West afford a charming instance of twined and overlapping melodies of speech.
One of the most striking characteristics of Lanier's poems is their spiritual purity and loftmess. Lapses there are from art; but he wrote no line which the recording angel would blush to give in at Heaven's Chancery. Each one of his ambitious poems is high pitched as a ps.illm.,_ He believed in and sung the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood ...of man, fello~hip of Nature. But his poems are abSOlutely fre.e.._from didactic inculcations? The only thing he could not tolerate was intolerance: he flames out with fervid zeal against religious narrowness. He had no sort of patience with the usual religious books-books which map out the progressive steps in the conversation of a soul from sin to holiness with something like the detail of
28

a military commander explaining the plan of a battle. But "over

Thomas a'Kempis" his wife writes: "He brooded by the hour in

large holy calms of love and faith. In 1880, when our Robin was

newly come to us in West Chester, another revelation was granted

to him. A friend placed in his hands Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living

a nd Dying.' He came back to me in rapture. 'Prayer is for religion,'

he joyfully exclaimed, 'not for the getting of sure returns.' The

lonely worshipper, athirst for his fellow man, had found a companion

in a father of the Church.''



"Prim creed, with categoric point forbear To feature me my Lord by rule and line."

In "The Crystal," Christ is set above all the great spirits of all time, the only perfect mirror he of wholeness. Without a formal assent to any creed, or reducing God to the littleness of human speech, he pleads with a passionate insistence, surpassing that of the "sacred" poets, for faith and love:

"Go, trembling song and stay not long Thou art only a gray and sober love But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.''

Singing with him was only living aloud. He was first himself, as in Milton's conception, a true poem. In a letter written to his son, John B. Tabb said: "There is one period of your father's career,- the time we were in prison together at Point Lookout, of which I believe no one can inform you except myself: and hence it is that I now write you of it. To realize what our surroundings were, one must have lived in a prison camp. There was no room for pretense or disguise. Men appeared what they really were, noble or lowminded, pure or depraved: and there did one trait of your father's character single him out. In all of our conversation I can remember no word of his that an angel might not have uttered or listened to. Set this down in your memory, Charlie, and let it be told when the record is made of your father's life. It may throw light upon many other points and prove the truth of Sir Galahad 's words:

"My strength is as the stren~th of ten, Because my heart is pure."
It is not long after the crystal mountain brook glides: "Out of the hills of Habersham Out of the valleys of Hall"

29

ere another stream of yellow and dingy hue joins in its current; and for awhile they flow together, their waters merged but not blended, the type of the two lives that most men lead, one bearing the stain of the earth, the other bright with the blue of the sky. But our poet's life flowed pure and undimmed to the sea,
"With its lapful of stars and dreams."
It is not meant here to imply that Lanier was a creature too bright and good for human nature's daily food . He was one of the free-est and brotherliest of men. It occurs to me here to say that nearly all of the critics who have reviewed the new book of poems have fallen into a mistake. They speak of the appreciative memorial by his friend, Dr. Ward. Friend he was; but not after the flesh: he never saw him. The heart of the strong New England scholar was drawn to the struggling Southern poet by the spiritual beauty of, his life and ,.JleLSe T~auty shines all the brighter for its contemporary contrasts. Compared wtth "Leaves of Grass," these poems remind one of "a violet by a mossy stone." Unlike the strains of Morris, "the idle singer of an empty day," they tremble with the stress of their inspiration. So far from Swinburne's internal teaching,
"The lilies and langours of virture The roses and raptures of sin,"
they teach us the holiness of beauty and the beauty of holiness.
Lanier was a pathfinder; not a follower in beaten ways. His strong originality was thoroughly sane, never degeneFating into eccentricity; and catholic, never degenerating into the idolatry of a single idea. In reply to the question: "From what poets did Mr. Lanier draw most nutriment?," his wife says: "I never asked myself: it seemed to me that he laid hold of nature, of music, of love, of God, of all art of the ~hole universe 'by as many fingers of desire as the roots whereby green ,grass layeth h~ the earth,' and dre -- direcrfrom all. ' He appeared never to accept anything that was written (or acted) because of the name that went with it, but he sat in sober, pious judgment upon each work of man, free (as I once complained to him) from any 'reverence for authorities.' There is an autobiography in his description of the poet in 'Corn':
'Thou hast built up thy hardihood With universal food, Thou took'st from all that might'st give to all.'"
30
..

~ t is rare to find a character upon which the accidents of birth,
education, and environment have imposed so few limitations. There was wholly wanting in him one thing which it would have been natural to expect,-a certain consciousness of his relation to Southern lit erature. His mind seems to have been too broad for any aspect of the sectional question. We do not find him invoking upon his labors the dew of Southern skies, nor bewailing the sad mischance by which it was not contrived that he should be born in Boston, nor do we find him bidding for Northern recognition by unexpected surrenders of Southern tradition, which leave small standing room for self respect. He was among the very few in any part of the Union, who "got over the war" as soon as it ended.
The hundred years of our national life produced no poet upno whom the writing of the Centennial Cantata would have imposed a deeper sense of the piety of the task. He entered upon it with a heart full of purest and most reverent love for the land and the people whose history was to be "summed in song." The all but universal mockery with which the Cantata was received gave him a rude shock. "Tense Keats, with angel's nerves" had hardly a severer ordeal. Judged by popular standards the Cantata was a failure. The public wanted to hear about the star-spangled banner and the drum taps of Revolutionary battles. His fine poem in the Psalm of the West, on the battle of Lexington ,-the best that has been written, shows that he might have done excellently what the public expected the author of the Cantata to do. As it was intended for the popular heart, it seems to us that he should not have overshot his audience. But the fundamental conception of the framework of the poem, Columbia seated on her hundred-terraced height, is an image not readily taken into the imagination: the elaboration of the details demands even more of mental effort. Out of his own mouth he might be told that here was,
"Needless overtax of speech Which had as lief be plain."
Of course it could not be popular, and Philistinism saw its opportunity. Beautiful was the spirit in which he received the howling of the newspapers. Ln a letter he says:
"The whole agitation has been of infinite value to me. It hsa taught me, in the first place; to lift my heart absolutely above all expectations save that which finds its fulfillment in the larger con-
31
CURRICULUM LABORAiCH~Y COLLEGE OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

. . . . . . . ----~ ------~====================~~~~----
sciousness of faithful devotion to the highest ideal in art. ~his enables one to work in tranquility. In the second place, it has naturally caused me to make a merciless arraignment and trial of my own artistic purposes; and an unspeakable content arises out of the revelation that they come from the ordeal confirmed in innocence and clearly defined in their relations with all things. I do not hate the people who have so cruelly maltreated me; they know not what they did, and my life shall be of some avail if it shall teach even one of them a consideration that may bloom in tenderer treatment of any future young artist.''
Note. "On account of the previous offer to Literary Life of this portion of the letter to Clifford Lanier, it could not be printed elsewhere beforehand. C. L. will know when it has appeared, if it does appear. M. D. L."
The poem contains one stanza which met all the requirements of his own artistic conception and of the popular taste:
"Long as thine Art shall love true love, Long as thy Science truth shall know, Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove, Long as thy Law by law shall grow, Long as thy God is God above, Thy brother every man below, So long, dear Land of all my love, .Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow."
Lanier's d_ctrin~Lt.h~credness_ of personality ~~s the key to all hi Yiews of man. No one more strongly than he has emphasized the lesson which is taught in the Christian hyperbole that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without moving the Divine heart. This doctrine involves a deep sense of responsibility expressed in the fine poem "Individuality": a large tolerance, bespoken somewhat too strenuously in "Remonstrance," and a love for men which pleads in behalf of the toiling, moiling masses, not only for bread, but for some beauty to be shed upon their narrow lot.
"Alas for the poor to have some part In yon sweet living land of Art, Makes problem not for head, but heart, Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it Plainly the heart of a child could solve it."
32

"His heart the lowliest duties on herself did lay." He sought to be of use, whenever he could touch the practical needs of his time. He was moved with pity and wrath at the system of Southern farming under which the ox did not know his owner, because of mortgages that made ownership doubtful, nor the ass his master's crib because it was in the far West. A protest against this wretched policy is heard in "Corn," and in his best dialect poem, which has furnished a phrase that has become part of the vernacular:
''There's more in the man Than there is in the land."
For Nature his own love is that which speaks in the flute voice in the "Symphony":
"All men are neighbors,' so the sweet Voice said, So when man's arms had circled all man's race, The liberal compass of his warm embrace Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space; With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature'? grace, Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face: Yea, man found neighbors in great hills and trees And streams and clouds, and suns and birds and bees, And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these."
Nature's ~r_ oi..!p inistry to man is wrought out in the "Ballad of the Trees and the Master." The-unsung aspects of Nature have inspired his best poems. He was the first that ever burst. . .See
"Lanier had a passion for the exact truth." H~ was never content unless he could go to the root of a matter. He wa~ not satisfied to use the flute merely as an instrument for the production of musical sounds, but he must investigate its mechanism and spend many hours upon an invention to increase its power, an invention which he did not live to perfect. So it was not enough for him to know as a poet that
"Trochee trips from long to short Iambics march from short to long."
He must needs go deeper and find out wherefore and why these mertical feet affect the ear with these peculiar results.
' 3J

But with him the highlight of truth finds its prism in the imagination. The soul would never cease to
"Demand of Science whence and why Man's tender pain, man's inward cry When he doth gaze on earth and sky."
It is not easy to locate Lanier's place in literature by comparison with other poets, nor is it easy to find traces in his poems of the shaping influences impressed upon him by his great predecessors in song. There is a wide range in the faculties which he employs, in his forms of poetic utterance, in the subjects which appealed to his imagination.
In the high correctness of his Art, he reminds us most of Tennyson: in a delicate classicism, of Keats: in spiritual intensity of Mrs. Browning. His poems are
"Of imagination all compact."
and while there is in them none of the mysticism by which one can test his sanity as did Theodore Hook by that of Browning's "Sordello," yet they are so compact in their structure that they will give most pleasure to those who are willing to study them; not to those whose demand of poetry, something which he who runs may read.
It is too early to attempt to define Lanier's place in literature. But as the present writer has an opinion, he may as well express it, using another's words: (Quotation from Judge Blecklh , used before) "His reputation which is now a mere germ will grow into one of the tall cedars of the poetic Lebanon." It is evident that his title to immortality is not dependent simply on what he might have done. On the other hand it is equally true that his title to fame cannot be tested by the full measure of his capacity, as in the case of those poets who have lived the full round of a working life. But in art, quality avails more than quantity. Quotation used before. It was said of some poet that he goes down to posterity with a small book under his arm. The same may be told of Lanier. The book is very small but it is very precious.
He has gone to "join the choir invisible, whose music is the gladness of the world."
34

THE SPIRIT OF LANIER
(Sidney Lanier was graduated from Oglethorpe University, Milledgeville, Georgia. His diploma, presented by Mrs. Lanier to the revived Oglethorpe, in Atlanta, now hangs in the office of the president.)
Yon trim Shakespeare on the cope of Lupton Hall, Calls through the sunny hours:
"Oglethorpe, Oglethorpe, Where' s Lanier? Where's Lanier? Is he here? Is he here? Here - here - here - here?"
And the solemn chimes give answer: "Here he hath been, is, and will be, Evermore - Forevermore!"
And in the quiet moonlight, When the winds speak of Okmulgee, Then the mockingbird, in memory Of his master's silver flute, Trills the echo of a spirit, Catholic and heaven-high, That will not die, That - will - not - die!
-WIGHTMAN F. MELTON.
SIDNEY LANIER
Statesmen, soldiers, historians, and poets have played their part in the progress of the State of Georgia. In this distinguished company, no name stands out with greater distinction than that of Sidney Lanier, who sang the song of the Chattahoochee, and with his gifted pen illustrated the lessons of beauty and profound religious philos-l ophy taught by fiefdS-of growing plants and by the mystenous Marshes of Glynn I anier was essentially a poet of nature, one who "Looked Through Nature Up to Nature's God." He wrote of the mockingbirds, of the Tampa robins, of "The Trees and the Master." A deeply spiritual and rc:ligious nature is seen in all his works.
Sidney Lanier was of French descent. As far back in English annals as the sixteenth century the family of Laniers were noted
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musicians, well received at the court of Queen Elizabeth. Following the succeeding centuries, we find the descendants of this musical family still popular at the courts of Charles 1st, Charles 2nd and James 2nd. In 1716 the Laniers of that day emigrated to Virginia, and following the course taken by many newcomers they slowly drifted through the Carolinas, until the grandfather of Sidney settled at Macon. Here the father of Sidney engaged in the study and the practice of law.

The mother of the future poet was a Virginian of Scotch ancestry,

and the religious atmosphere of the home was Presbyterian. Into

this household were born three children-Sidney, Clifford and a

sister, Mary, of whom Sidney has written, "My sister Mary never

drifted from her native home, which was Heaven." The unselfish

devotion of the two brothers, Sidney and Clifford, formed a beautiful

episode in the lives of both. While in the army, Sidney several times

was offered promotion, which he declined, not wishing to be sepa-

rated from his brother.



It goes without saying, that with such an ancestry, Sidney Lanier was a born musician. At the very early age of seven years, he played on every instrument, and almost without instruction, except what he received from his mother:. .A toy flute presented to him on Christmas became his delight. It was very smaU: a:nd had but one stop, yet he practiced incessantly.;' and with rare skill. He could draw acceptable music, from the guitar, the banjo and the violin. The latter instrument he really preferred, but yielded to the wish of his father, who feared that he might become too much absorbed in the study of this instrument, and asked him to concentrate his musical efforts on the flute.

But music was not all his llfe. Many of his leisure hours were given to books. He was a voracious reader. The family library was in his father 's office, which adjoined that residence. Here side by side with dusty law books, Sidney found the King Arthur Treasure House, the tales of King Arthur, and the Knights of th~ Round Table, the Ballads of Bishop Percy, Froissart arid other work~ of a like romantic character. Such reading, no doubt, had much to do in shaping the character and career of the man. In later years, when literature had become his profession, and hack work for a livelihood sometimes became a necessity, he prepared several of these books for the pleasure of young people, especially young boys, with the following

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introduction, to the Percy Ballads, "He who walks in the way these ballads point, will learn: To be manful in necessary fight; fair in trades; loyal in love; generous to the poor; tender to the household; prudent in living; plain in speech, merry upon occasion; simple in behavior; and honest in all things." With such a standard for his own conduct, what could be lacking to complete a beautiful, pathetic and gifted life.
For one year, Lanier was a student at Oglethorpe College; then a clerk in the Macon post office. He again entered college, at 17, and graduated from Oglethorpe at 18. This was in 1860. A year later the War Between the States began. Sidney enlisted in the Second Georgia Battalion; a little later he was joined by his brother then only 17 years old.
The brothers entered the service as privates. They refused promotion many times, because they did not wish to be separated. It is said that Sidney was in several skirmishes near Richmond. Camp life did not wholly interrupt his reading and more serious studies, for he himself relates that in self-preservation, he tried to set some of Tennyson's songs to music, and that at night after currying his horse, he would study the German language, and translate Heine, Goethe and Schiller. At one time, by a sudden attack on his camp, the Federals carried off, not only cooking utensils and clothing, but what was much more serious, his German glessary, his Heine, Aurora Leigh and Les Miserables; which shows that the thoughts of the studious young soldier still turned occasionally to romance.
As the war progressed, the two brothers were separated. Sidney became a scout, then a member of the signal service, and finally in 1864 he was placed as an officer on a blockade runner. On the first run out of East Inley, near Fort Fisher, the boat was captured. All his fellow officers were English. They urged him to put on an English uniform and claim English protection, but he refused.
He was sent as a prisoner to Point Lookout, a most unsanitary prison, where the seeds of disease of which later he was to die, were planted. Here his flute, which he had managed to conceal on his person, became his only solace. With its sweet tones he cheered the prison hours of his companions in misfortune, among those was a kindred spirit in the future poet priest, Father Tabb. After five months Lanier was released, and taken to City Point to be exchanged. The weather was bitterly cold, and he was thinly clad. A serious
37

illness followed of which he came near dying. Thus enfeebled, his flute and a twenty-dollar gold piece, his only possessions, he made his way back home to Macon. Prison life and other privations had been too much for his strength. A six weeks' illness followed , and he rose from a sick bed to witness the death of his mother from consumption, and to realize his own condition, very serious, with pronounced congestion of one lung.
Broken in health and fortune , he sought employment wherever opportunity offered- as tutor in a private family; later, clerk in a hotel in Montgomery, Ala.; but throughout all these changes and disappointments, he kept up his studies, and his literary efforts. While in camp he had begun the writing of a novel, "Tiger Lilies." This work completed, in 1867 he went to New York in search of a publisher. Returning to Macon he entered his father's office and began the study and the practice of law. For five years he labored in this new field, always out of sympathy with its dull and exacting facts and forms.
In 1868 he married Miss Mary Day, of Macon. It was an ideally happy marriage. In his fine poem, "My Springs," he wrote a heartfelt tribute to her many virtues.
About this time he wrote his poem, "Corn,'~ the first of his works to obtain recognition from northern critics. _.'He now determined to devote himself to music and literature, and writes to his father: "Does it not seem to you as to me, that I begin to have the right to enroll myself among the devotees of these two sublime arts, music and poetry, having followed them so long and so blindly, and through so much bitterness?"
Through the aid of his father, and the unselfish devotion of his wife he was enabled to carry out this plan. In 1873 he went to Baltimore, where he obtained employment as first flute in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; this, with teaching, writing for newspapers, and other hack work, enabled him to meet necessary expenses.
In 1879 came his a ppointment as lecturer in English literature at John Hopkins University. In this connection his most enduring literary work was done. The disease which was sapping his strength had now made great progress. His failing health compelled him to seek rest in the more favorable climate of San Antonio, Texas. In a literary way, he profited by this, writing a most interesting history
38

of Texas, and the "Tragedy of the Alamo." Later he traveled in Florida in the employ of a railroad company, and wrote a charming account of Florida scenery from a boat on the Oklawaha River.
He was now fully launched in a literary career, and had obtain!:'d the recognition of famous writers and well-known literary critics. He delivered his lectures at John Hopkins under almost insurmountable difficulties, owing to his rapidly failing health. His lectures on "The Science of English Verse" and the "Development of the English Novel" are probably considered his best. These and many of his other works are now considered standard. In 1876 he wrote the Cantata for the opening of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia.
One of Lanier's critics writes: "It often happens that English critics discover our stars before their existence has dawned upon us. 'The Spectator' was one of the first to assign to him (Lanier) his rightful place among the poets of America. They class him as our Wordsworth and our Keats. He was essentially a poet of nature. The songs of birds, the buzzing of bees, the multipled shapes of the leaves, the fragrance of the flowers-all filled him with a soul satisfaction which finds expression in his verse. No one who has ever sojourned in the north Georgia mountains, in spring and summer, can read the 'Song of the Chattahoochee' and not visualize the little mountain streams rippling over their rocky beds, and flowing between banks laden with fragrant rh<?dodendron. What lover of music will not be intrigued by the tale each instrument in a symphony orchestra can tell of human experience, and human interest, or who would not be moved by their powerful appeal for justice to the working man? No one except a being half poet and half musician could have written the symphony."
Another critic writes: "He is the only man of l~tters in America who has adequate appreciation of the value of music in the culture of the modern world. Surely, Sidney Lanier must be classed among America's greatest poets."
Sterling Lanier, the grandfather of Sidney Lanier, settled in Macon, but bought, in the mountains of east Tennessee, at Montvale Springs, a large estate on which he built a fine hotel. Here he was visited in summer by all his children and grandchildren, to the number of twenty-five. Here came the little schoolboy, and in after years, the young graduate from college facing manhood's duties. "How fortunate," says Mims, "that Lanier had the opportunity of seeing, at its best, the life of the old South, just before it vanished
39

in the cataclysm of the Civil War." In his one novel, "Tiger Lilies," he seems to have laid bare his soul. "It is impossible to know him," continues Mims, "without having read this book." As a literary venture, it was not successful, and has long been out of print.
In a short period of seven years, Lanier's work had to be done. He now ran a race with death. In 1881 his health failed completely. Accompanied by his brother, Clifford, he sought relief in the mountains of North Carolina, near Asheville, where he was joined by his wife. Here September 7, he died. He was buried in Baltimore, which city was his home during the last years of his life. In Johns Hopkins University, the following tablet has been placed to his memory:
Aspiro dum Expiro Sidney Lanier-Poet Lectured here on Literature- 1879-1881.
The City of Atlanta has not been unmindful of the poet. Through the efforts of a number of patriotic women , among whom was Mrs. Livingston Mims, a great lover of art, there was placed in a sheltered nook in Piedmont Park, a marble bust of Sidney Lanier.
Atlantians whom time has spared to a ripe old age will no doubt recall with pleasure that red letter day in the early sixties, when Sidney Lanier appeared on the program of one of the fine concerts given by the old Beethoven Society of Atlanta, an organization remarkable at any time, and especially so for those early post-war days, for the wonderful aggregation of musical talent that composed its membership. ThrQugh all these intervening years, they will tell you they still remember the notes of liquid melody that flowed from his magic flute.
Sidney Lanier was the father of four sons. In 1928, the widow of Sidney Lanier, Jr., delivered a beautiful address on the poet, before the Highland Book Club of Birmingham, Ala. It was a rare occasion, for the intimate knowledge of her subject enabled the speaker to combine with a keen appreciation of the value of his work, most interesting details of his private life, and the man as only those near and dear to him could know him.
By ELIZABETH H. HANNA (The Atlanta Journal, Sunday, March 27, 1932.)
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LANIER'S "AFFABLE LIVE-OAK" COUNTRY

A little patch of territory, ten miles long and six miles wide, surrounded by water, near Brunswick, Ga., known as St. Simon's Island, is, because of its association with great people, given a larger place on the map of genius than to all Michigan with territory enough to make perhaps ten thousand St. Simon's Islands.

There is no other pinch of a Paradise, gleaming in Western seas, that has ever had the opportunity of shipping its history to the future in the spirits of so many great people, as this little island. By means of association with distinguished men and women, St. Simon's Island is identified with the Battle of Bloody Marsh through General James E . Oglethorpe, who was victorious over the Spaniards there.

It is identified with the sermons of John Wesley, who preached to the soldiers there, and with the songs of Charles Wesley, private secretary to the first governor of Georgia, who lived there.

It is identified with botany through John Bartram, who made discoveries there, and with geology through Sir Charles Lyell, who discovered there the first remains of a horse ever found in America.

It is identified with "The Deserted Village" through Oliver Gold-

smith, who described St. Simon's Island in his famous poem, and with

the writings of the popular Swedish novelist, Frederika Bremer, who

lived there for a time.

.

.

-

.

.

It is identified with the court of Queen Victoria, through one of

her maids of honor, the Honorable Amelia M. Murray, who was

there in 1855, and with the untimely death of Alexander Hamilton

by the hand of Aaron Burr, who spent several months there after

the duel with his political enemy.

It is identified with opposition to African slavery through the writings of Frances Kemble, the brilliant English actress, who spent a year with her husband, Pierce Butler, there in 1839, and with "Lady Baltimore" and "The Virginian" through Owen Wister, the grandson of Frances Kemble, and with Hereford, England, through the Dean, the Honorable and Very Reverend James Wentworth Leigh, the third son of Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh Abbey, Kenilworth, who married the youngest daughter of Frances Kemble, and who engaged in the work oLfarming for a time on St. Simon's Island.

It is identified with the British Parliament through John Bright, who made the great speech against the recognition of the Southern

41

Confederacy, based on facts recorded in a book written there by Frances Kemble Butler, entitled "Life on a Georgia Plantation."
It is identified with perhaps the most brilliant poem ever written by an American, entitled "The Marshes of Glynn," in which every blade of tall grass growing around St. Simon's Island is set aflame with light from the soul of Sidney Lanier, and with the cotton gin thro'lgh Eli Whitney, who invented it there, and with the Revolutionary War through General Nathanael Greene, who lived and died there; and through "Lighthorse" Harry Lee, who died while visiting the home of General Greene's family in the neighborhood of St. Simon's Island; and with the Southern Confederacy through General Robert E. Lee, who visited his father's grave there just before he passed away.
From The Geography of Genius, ]AMES W. LEE, St. Louis, Mo.
A FLORIDA TALE (Editorial)
MIAMI DAILY NEWS
In the winter of 1874-75, Sidney Lanier visited Florida, rambled around the state and wrote a book entitled: "Florida: Its Scenery, Climate and History."
Viewing St. Augustine in April, he wrote: "Practically the town belongs for 23 hours of each day to the 16th century. The 24th hour, during which the 19th claims its own, is when the little locomotive whistles out at the depot three-quarters of a mile off, the omnibus rolls into town with the mail-there are no passengers-the people gather at the postoffice, and everybody falls to reading the Northern papers."
But that was April. And Mr. Lanier had visited Jacksonville in January, which was a different thing. For "Jacksonville not only belongs to the 19th century, but practically to the last 10 years of that; for previous to the War Between the States it was a comparatively insignificant town," but now "the resident population is between 12 and 14 thousand, and the number is largely increased during the winter.
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"Jacksonville is as it were a city ):milt to order~ and many provisions have been made for employing the leisure of its winter visitors. A very good circulating library is to be found in Astor's building, at the corner of Bay and Hogan Streets. A pleasant sort of exchange for visitors is also to be found in the reading room of Ambler's bank. ". . . . Beyond this, a few doors, is the postoffice . At the sign 'Boats to let,' on the wharf, not far below the Grand National, one can find pleasant sailboats for hire at prices ranging from 75 cents an hour upward. Several good livery stables offer first class turnouts, in the way of saddle-horses, buggies and carriages; and there are two shell roads which afford pleasant drives."
The wandering poet apparently had never heard of Tampa but Miami's renown was too great to suppress. In a chapter devoted to Key West, "The most populous city in Florida next to Jacksonville, having about 8,000 inhabitants,'' Sidney Lanier relates: "There are settlements in Dade County, at the mouth of the Miami River, along Biscayne Bay and at Key Biscayne, the latter being the countysite . . . Dade County is ~:parsely inhabited, and the facilities for reaching its settlements, outside of private boats, are confined mostly to occasional sail from Key West. Those desiring to know more of this portion of Florida would doubtless be cheerfully informed upon application by letter or otherwise to Rev. W. W. Hicks at Fernandina, Florida, or Hon. W. Gleason, Miami, Florida, who seem to be the stirring men of Dade County."
And so we leave Sidney Lanier and the placid pathways he trod in 1875. It remains only to point out that this was Florida before all the unpopular Northern capital which the present "recovery" bill seeks to drive away, had begun to develop the state.
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LETTERS
San Antonio, Texas, January 30, 1873.
Last night at eight o'clock came Mr. Scheidemantel, a genuine lover of music and a fine pianist, to take me to the Maennerchor, which meets every Wednesday night for practice. Quickly we came to a hall, one end of which was occupied by a minute stage with appurtenances, and a piano; and in the middle thereof a long table, at which each singer sat down as he came in. Presently, seventeen Germans were seated at the singing-table, long-necked bottles of Rhine-wine were opened and tasted, great pipes and cigars were all afire; the leader, Herr Thielepape,-an old man with long white beard and mustache, formerly mayor of the city,-rapped his tuningfork vigorously, gave the chords by rapid arpeggios of his voice (a wonderful, wild, high tenor, such as thou wouldst dream that the old Welsh harpers had, wherewith to sing songs that would cut against the fierce sea-blasts), and off they all swung into such a noble, noble old German full-voiced lied, that imperious tears rushed into my eyes, and I could scarce restrain myself from running and kissing each one in turn and from howling dolefully the while. And so. . . all the time worshipping. . .with these great chords. . .we drove through the evening until twelve o'clock. After the second song I was called on to play, and lifted my poor old flute in air with tumultuous, beating heart; for I had no confidence in that or in myself. But, du Himmel! Thou shouldst have heard mine old love warble herself forth. To my utter astonishment, I was perfect master of the instrument. Is not this most strange? Thou knowest I had never learned it; and thou rememberest what a poor muddle I made at Marietta in playing difficult passages; and I certainly have not practiced; and yet there I commanded and the blessed notes obeyed me, and when I had finished, amid a storm of applause, Herr Thielepape arose and ran to me and grasped my hand, and declared that he had never heert de flude accompany itself pefore! I played once more during the evening, and ended with even more rapturous bravos than before, Mr. Scheidemantel grasping my hand this time, and thanking me very earnestly.
My heart, which was hurt greatly when I went into the music room, came forth from the holy bath of concords greatly refreshed, strengthened and quieted, and so remaineth to-day. I also feel better
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than in a long time before. Moreover, I am still master of the flute, and she hath given forth to me to-day such tones.as I have never heard from a flute before.
For these things I humbly thank God.
San Antonio, Texas, February 14, 1873.
Last night I went to the party of Colonel W__. I found a very elegant-looking company of ladies and gentlemen-among the most so, General A_ _ and his daughters-already assembled.
First came some very good concerted pieces for violin and piano, then a piano solo, then a song. Then they called for the flute. I had not played three seconds before a profound silence reigned among the people, seeing which, and dreaming wildly, and feeling somehow in an eerie and elfish and half-uncanny mood, I flew off into all manner of trills, and laments, and cadenza-monstrosities for a long time, but finally floated down into "La Melancolie" (which on the violin, ran everybody crazy some weeks ago, here at a concert), which melted itself forth with such eloquent lamenting that it almost brought my tears- and to make a long story short, when I allowed the last note to die, a simultaneous cry of pleasure broke forth from men and women that almost amounted to a shout, and I stood and received the congratulations that thereupon came in, so wrought up by my own playing with (hidden) thoughts, that I could but smile mechanically, and make stereotyped returns to the pleasant sayings, what time my heart worked falteringly, like a mouth that is about to cry.
I would there were some other chronicler to tell thee of this success- for I cannot but seem to blow mine own horn therein !-but I know it will give thee pleasure, and therefore, failing others, I tell it thee.
Brooklyn, New York, November 16, 1873.
On Wednesday I played the flute trios with Mr. P__ and Mr. Y__, We sat down to a bound volume of Kuhlau's trios at three o'clock and played, without leaving our seats, until five. They gave me first flute . .. I had taken Mr.__ there with me. He could
45

scarcely contain himself-newspaper hack that he is!-as we breathed these miraculous harmonies, and unearthly, dainty melodies, and his great eyes got as deep as the sea, and nigh as moist. Think, Mr. y __,who has been playing in New York for years, among the very best professional flutists, and who is certainly the best reader I ever saw, says I am the best he ever saw- I, who, surely as thou knowest, have scarcely read a half-dozen new pieces in any year of my musical life, before this last month or so! How splendid it is. I could never tell how I enjoy such things; for it is not I, but always one in whom, for thy sake, I have much interest.
Brooklyn, New York, November 17, 1873.
Last night I played at another church concert in New York City, far up town, to a very pleasant audience, with very pleasant testimonials of success. My first piece, a concertina of Briccialdi's .. . brought down the house, in an enthusiastic encore, to which I re~ sponded with the inevitable "Blue Bells of Scotland." My last piece was the "Swamp Robin," which I ventured only as an experiment. 'Twas a curious psychologic study to note how it puzzled most of the audience, and how the few who did get into it, began, as it were, to look about them and to say-like a man who has suddenly ridden into a strange and unexpected road-Heigh, Heigh! what's this? Somebody saith every original writer has to educate his readers gradually to himself. How true this is in New York! Here the people are at once the boldest and the timidest in the world. When the new presents itself here, each one waits for the other one to pronounce decisively; of course, at first, no one speaks; finally, some generous and qpen heart says, "This is a good thing"; and then straightway all the people join and push the good thing to heaven.
Once give them a start-these singular New Yorkers-and they will go any length.
May 8, 1876, writing to his father from New York City, Sidney Lanier said:
"My experience in the varying judgments given about poetry . .. has all converged upon one solitary principle, and the experience of the artist in all ages is reported by history to be of precisely the same direction. That principle is, that the .artist shall put forth, humbly and lovingly, and without bitterness against opposition, the very
46

best and highest that is within him, utterly regardless of contemporary criticism. What possible claim can contemporary criticism set up to respect-that criticism which crucified Jesus Christ, stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for a madman, tried Luther for a criminal, tortured Galileo, .bound Columbus in chains, drove Dante into a hell of exile, made Shakespeare write the sonnet, 'When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,' gave Milton five pounds for 'Paradise Lost,' kept Samuel Johnson cooling his heels on Lord Chesterfield's doorstep, reviled Shelley as an unclean dog, killed Keats, cr-acked jokes on Gluck, Shubert, Beethoven, Berli~z, and Wagner, and committed so many other impious follies and stupidities that a thousand letters like this could not suffice even to catalogue them?"
The poet-musician, Sidney Lanier, almost an invalid, and desperately poor, in a letter of September 24, 1873, addressed to his wife, expressed the hope that he might secure employment in a Baltimore orchestra. "It is, therefore, a possibility. . . that I may be first flute in the Peabody Orchestra, on a salary of $120 a month, which, with five flute scholars, would grow to $200 a month, and so . . . we might dwell in the beautiful city, among the great libraries, and midst the music, the religion, and the art that we love:_and I could write my books, and be the man I wish to be."
The realization of this dream is described in the .following letter:
33 Denmead St., Baltimore, Md., January 6, 1878.
The painters, the whitewashers, the plumbers, the locksmiths, the carpenters, the gas-fitters, the stove-put-upers, the carmen, the pianomovers, the carpet-layers,-all these have I seen, bargained with, reproached for bad jobs, and finally paid off. I have also coaxed my landlord into all manner of outlays for damp walls, cold bathrooms, and other like matters. I have furthermore bought at least three hundred and twenty-seven household utensils which suddenly came to be absolutely necessary to our existence. I have moreover hired a colored gentlewoman who is willing to wear out my carpets, burn out my ranges, freeze out my water-pipes, and be generally useful. I have also moved my family into our new home, have had a Xmas tree for the youngsters, have looked up a cheap school for Harry and Sidney, have discharged my daily duties as first flute of the Peabody
47

Orchestra, have written a couple of poems and part of an essay on Beethoven and Bismarck, have accomplished at least a hundred thousand miscellaneous nothings, and have not, in consequence of the aforesaid, sent to you and my dear Maria the loving greetings whereof my heart has been full during the whole season. We are in a state of supreme content with our new home ; it really seems to me as incredible that myriads of people have been living in their own homes heretofore as to the young couple with a first baby it seems impossible that a great many other couples have had similar prodigies. It is simply too delightful. Good heavens, how I wish that the whole world had a Home!
I confess I am a little nervous about the gas-bills, which must come in, in the course of time; and there are the water-rates and several sorts of imposts and, taxes; but the dignity of being liable for such things(!) is a very supporting consideration. No man is a Bohemian* who has to pay water.::rates and a street-tax. Every day when I sit down in my dining-room- my dining-room !- I find the wish growing stronger that each poor soul in Baltimore, whether saint or sinner, could come and dine with me. How I would carve out the merry thoughts for the ole hags! How I would stuff the big wall-eyed rascals till their rags, ripped again! There was a knight of old times who built the dining-hJll of his castle across the highway, so that every wayfarer must perforce pass through: there the traveller, rich or poor, found always a trencher and wherewithal to fill it. Three times a day, in my own chair at my own table, do I envy that knight and wish that I might do as he did.
*Bohemian: A term applied to footloose poor artists a~d writers without a home of their own. It originally meant gipsy.
SIDNEY LANIER-POET-MUSICIAN
RUBY RICHARDSON WALTON
(Little Rock, Arkansas)
Sidney Lanier possessed a rare and happy combination of talentsmusic and poetry. Each strove for supremacy in his soul, but he was forced to give leeway to music in order to earn a livelihood for his family. Even so, fate stood him in good stead, for music and his marvelous flute-playing proved to be the sesame to the doors of wealthy and influential families who later helped him in his literary work.
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Who will not agree with Lanier, that "Music is love in search of a word;" and that "Prose is a wild variety of verse"?
Lanier, undoubtedly, possessed potent qualities as a poet. His "Science of English Verse" is a standing testimony to his scholarship, his shrewdness as a thinker, and his fine reasoning powers. After reading this treatise on versification, even the most skeptical would agree that the melody of verse approximates the melody of music. Lanier's unusual sense of melody and mastery of sound place him among master craftsmen in music and poetry.
It is next to impossible to determine whether Lanier was greater as poet or as musician. That he was a great musician, is a fact recognized by all his biographers; that he was a great poet, we shall decide for ourselves.
A poet's true greatness is measured by his ability to inspire his readers somewhat as he, himself, has been inspired. Is there any better illustration of this than "Marshes of Glynn"? Out of a maze of insecurity and injustice, Lanier s~w _the truth and wrote the immortal lines which stand as a perpetual memorial to his unwavering faith:
"As the marsh hen secretly builds on the watery sod. Behold, I will build me a nest on the greatness of God.
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod, I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God."
Here is faith in all its glory; inspiration in all its magnitude; a poet as great as his o wn soul!
As a student, Lanier was 'a voracious reader. Such romantic tales as "King Arthur," "The Knights of the Round Table," "The Ballads of Bishop Percy," and "Froissart," no doubt had much to do with the shaping of his fine character, a character which, naturally, was the basis of a brilliant career.
After years of preparation, and just as he was beginning to feel some degree of financial security, Lanier, who had chosen Nature for his theme-song, was standing on the threshold of success. Every student of literature knows the tragic story of his untimely end. How sad that death should hush the voice of this sweet singer just as it was reaching its crescendo!
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Browning, in "Abt Vogler," says,
''On the earth the broken arcs; Iri. the heaven a perfect round."
Of Lanier it may be said,
''On the earth the broken chords; In the heaven a symphony."
LANIER's GENius
The following recognition of Lanier's genius is from Asger Hamerik, his director for six years in the Peabody Symphony Orchestra of Baltimore:
"To him as a child in his cradle Music was given: the heavenly gift to feel and to express himself in tones. His human nature was like an enchanted instrument, a magic flute, or the lyre of Apollo, needing but a breath or a touch to send its beauty out into the world. It was indeed irresistible that he should turn with those poetical feelings which transcend language to the penetrating gentlepess of the flute, or the infinite passion of the violin; for there was an agreement, a spiritual correspondence between his nature and theirs, so that they mutually absorbed and expressed each other. 'In his hands the flute no longer remained a mere material instrument, but was transformed into a voice that set heavenly harmonies into vibration. Its tones develop~d colors, warmth, and a low sweetness of unspeak-
asable poetry; they were not only true and pure, but poetic, allegoric it were, suggestive of the depths and heights of being and of the delights which the earthly ear never hears and the earthly eye never sees; No doubt his firm faith in these lofty idealities gave him the power to present them to our imaginations, and thus by the aid of the higher language of Music to inspire others with that sense of beauty in which he constantly dwelt.
"His conception of music was not reached by an analytic study of note by note, but was intuitive and spontaneous; like a woman's reason: he felt it so, because he felt it so, and his delica~e perception required no more logical form of reasoning.
"His playing appealed alike to the musically learned and to the unlearned-for he would magnetize the listener: but the artist felt in his performance the superiority of the momentary living inspi-
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ration to all the rules and shifts of mere technical scholarship. His art was not only the art of art, but an art above art.
"I will never forget the impression he made on me when he played the flute-concerto of Emil Hartmann at a Peabody symphony concert in 1878: his tall, handsome, manly presence, his flute breath-
ing ~oble sorrows, noble joys, the orchestra softly responding. The
audience was spellbound. Such distinction, such refinement! He stood, the master, the genius."
In the one novel which he wrote at the age of twenty-five, he makes one of his characters say:
"To make a home out of a household, given the raw materialsto wit, wife, children, a friend or two, and a house-two other things are necessary. These are a good fire and good music. And inasmuch as we can do without the fire for half the year, I may say music is the one essential." "Late explorers say they have found some nations that have no God; but I have not read of any that had no music." "Music means harmony, harmony means love, love means- God!"
LANIER THE ARTIST By HARRY STILLWELL EDWARDS (The Atlanta Journal, Thursday, Feb.3, 1938)
Many men, and very many more women and girls, have given expression to their estimates of the South's beloved poet, Sidney Lanier, in the half century back through memory of these I do not find one adverse criticism of any product of his pen, the "Centennial Cantata" excepted, or of the man himself. Time, bringing full understanding of the "Cantata," rebuked its critics. With his work he stands in history wholly approved. Is there a parallel to this anywhere? I know of none. Certainly never has there lived a poet whose life was more in harmony with its literary expression.
But in all this wealth of appreciation and tribute, writers address themselves, so far as I have observed, to the thought, the dream, the emotions of the poet, with little note of the superb art he employed/. in their expression. They are visitors to a gallery of pictures losing themselves i~ the beauty of subject and scene, forgetting the media.
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Perhaps the fact that the art of Lanier is so generally overlooked is, at last, the best evidence of its perfection.
THE SCRUPULOUS CRAFTSMAN
The poems of Sidney Lanier are priceless as a legacy for the spiritual-minded, but his ' "Science of E nglish Verse" is a treasure, too, and one of special appeal to the serious student. I am of the opinion that very few readers will ever measure the poems justly,who have not studied the textbook. When one has mastered, step by step, the "Science of English Verse," the poet becomes vividly apparent; the secrets of his perfection revealed. With this added education one may reread all poet-authors with new appreciation.
Lanier's text-book bases poetry on music, taste, tone, word-color and rhythm. Taste dominates his selection of words, deft and infallible . Just the desired and necessary word for the expression of his thought and fancy rises with beautiful precision, and fits into the line with perfection . Try to substitute another for any .word in the little poem, "Ballad of Trees and the Master." It cannot be done without loss of something indefinably necessary. Have some good reader render this poem and listen with closed eyes for the tonal effects. So exquisitely perfect is the taste, the tone, the word-color, one feels the deep solemnity of the hour and envisions the scenes described. The very simplicity of the short words employed harmonize with the meek and lowly J esus.
Comparatively few words in our language lend themselves to the expression of exalted spiritual moods. Perfectly respectable .and high necessary, words used daily in conversation and in prose writings are, many of them, uncouth when brought into poetry. The reader, without training, may con a verse conscious that it fails to satisfy and yet be unable to arrive at the cause. With training of the right kind, he will come easily to perceive that the trouble-if, indeed, it lie not in the commonplace or in the paucity of imagination- may lie in a badly chosen word, or group of words- words that, while they convey the meaning intended, are out of harmony with the spiritual mood of the poet, or bring to the reader's consciousness, from his own experience, a discordant note. Akin to this is the fact that there are thousands of words in daily use that neither "sing" nor can be sung effectively. As the painter depends less on primal colors than on shades and tints born of it, so the master poet works with words and their synonyms.
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MUSIC BEFORE POETRY
Lanier's training as a poet began with the study of music. It was through music that he cultivated to the nth degree his exquisite sense of proportion, a quality inseparable from all fields of art. It is a sense that in every creative artist who possesses it to a great degree protests when he departs from truth in line, or colors, or perspective, should he be painter ; in curve and perspective if sculptor; in measure, rhythm, taste and tone if poet; in drama, selection, truth and logic if novelist. Indeed, so universal is the application of the mysterious laws of proportion to the life and the affairs of the human race I am assured that lasting success is not possible for any man or woman who is wholly lacking a sense of proportion, which may otherwise be called an instinctive conception of perfection. And this brings us very near to conscience.
The curve seems to lie at the base of all art. It is in the line of beauty, as Hogarth named it. It is in nature either a visible or audible record. Visible in all natural forms, somewhere: the grain of the tree, stone strata, the sands of the beach, the rise and fall of tides, the rise and fall of sap, the recurring seasons. Audible in the winds a nd seas and the songs of birds. Speech itself is based on it. Our speech is a group of songs derived from sea and forest.
Lanier's first response to the appeal of nature and the infinite, as an artist, was in music. No man may with exactitude trace the birth of any genius, but Lanier apparently never lost from his subconscious memory the voice of the winds in the pines heard along the shores of the Ocmulgee in early youth; the voice that rises to crescendo and diminishes rhythmically. It is in his " Hymns to the Sunrise" and "Song of the Chattahoochee," where it mingles with the voice of falling, hurrying waters. It is perfectly reproduced in "The Marshes of Glynn," written when his flute had become a part of a great orchestra. The whole of this poem is orchestral in construction and effect. No poem has ever conveyed to me so vividly a sense of the infinite and Nature's mystery.
MASTER OF RHYTHM
As evidence of how the poet responded to the magnetism of his environment, witness a footnote in his textbook which refers to "patting time" by slaves on southern plantations, and how, by "rests" a nd syncopation (though he did not use that word), rhythmic effects could be produced by them. H ere, with him, was clearly the birth
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and beginning of his knowledge of rhythm. So thoroughly did he rp,._aster rhythm, in the end, all his verse was built on the symbols of music. Though he wrote no scores for his poems, somewhere in the universe floats the music for each of them, broadcast from a great soul. At least so I believe. And that, in the higher development of the race, some other soul, divinely wrought, will hear and record them for the happiness of all. Shakespeare has told us through the lips of Hamlet that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. And undoubtedly there are more between them, awaiting the interpreter.
SIDNEY LANIER AS A PROSE WRITER
In thinking of Sidney Lanier as one of America's greatest poets and musicians, we should not overlook the fact that he was a master of prose. Proof of this statement is to be found in his only novel, "Tiger Lilies," especially in such selections as "The War Flower," and ''The Charge of Cain Smallin ;" and in miscellaneous articles, such as "The Oklawaha River," "The Tragedy of the Alamo," "The Story of a Proverb," "The Legend of St. Leonor," "Bob: The Story of Our Mocking Bird," and "An English Hero of a Thousand Years Ago."
Lanier's sustained power as a prose-writer, however, is probably best illustrated by his scholarly books, "The Science of English Verse," and "The English Novel"-lectures delivered to classes in Johns Hopkins University.
From "The English Novel," we select the story of Silas Marner, as illustrating Lanier's prose style at its best:
"The fulness of George Eliot's mind at this time may be gathered from the. rapidity with which one work followed another. A book from her pen had been appearing regularly each year. . . . In some respects 'Silas Marner' is the most remarkable novel in our language. On the one hand, when I read the immortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village functionaries, the butcher, the furrier, the parish clerk and so on are discussing ghosts, bullocks and other matters over their even-ale, my mind runs to Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shakespeare were sitting somewhere not far off. On the other hand, the downright ghastliness of the young Squire's punishment for stealing the long-hoarded gold of Silas Mar-
54

ner the weaver always carries me straight to that pitiless "Pardoner's Tale" of Chaucer in which gold is so cunningly identified with death. 1 am sure you will pardon me if I . . . recall the plots of these two stories so far as concerns _their point of contact.
"In Chaucer's 'Pardoner'3 Tale' three riotous young men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern. In the midst of their merriment they hear the clink of a bell before a dead body which is borne past the door on its way to burial. They learn that it is an old companion who is dead; all three become suddenly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; and they rush forth to slay him wherever they may find him. Presently they meet an old man, 'Why do you live so long?' they mockingly inquired of him. 'Because,' says he,
" 'Deth, alas, ne will not han my !if; Thus walke I like a resteles caitif, And on the ground, which is my modres gate, I knock with my staf erlich and late And say to hire 'Leve moder, let me in.' "
(Before proceeding with this story, it might be well to translate this bit from Chaucer into modern English: The earth or ground is my mother's gate, and though I walk like a restless coward, tapping, early and late, at the gate, begging mother-earth to let me in, Death will not accept my life.)
"'Where is this Death of whom you have spoken?' furiously demanded the three young men. The old man replied, 'You will find him under an oak tree in yonder grove.' The three rush forward; and upon arriving at the oak find three bags full of gold coin. Overjoyed at their good fortune they are afraid to carry their treasure into town by day lest they be suspected of robbery. They therefore resolve to wait until night and in the meantime to make merry. For the latter purpose one of the three goes to town after food and drink. As soon as he is out of hearing the two who remain under the tree resolve to murder their compani-on on his return so that they may be the richer by his portion of the treasure; he, on the other hand, whilst buying his victual in town, shrewdly drops a great lump of poison into the bottle of drink he is to carry back, so that his companions may pt;rish and he take all.
"To make a long story short, the whole plot is carried out. As soon as he who was sent to town returns, his companions fall upon
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him and murder him; then they proceed merrily to eat and drink what he has brought; the poison does its work; presently all three lie dead under the oak tree by the side of the gold, and the old man's direction has proved true: they found death under that tree.
"In George Eliot's story the young English Squire also finds death in finding gold. You will remember how Dunstan Cass in returning )ate at night from a fox-hunt on foot-for he had killed his horse in the chase- finds himself near the stone hut where Silas Marner the weaver has long plied his trade, and where he is known to have concealed a large sum of gold. The young man is extraordinarily pressed for money; he resolves to take Marner's gold; the night is dark and misty, he makes his way through mud and darkness to the cottage and finds the door open, Marner being, by the rarest of incidents, away from the hut. The young man quickly discovers the spot in the floor where the weaver keeps his gold; he seizes the two heavy leathern bags filled with guineas, and the chapter ,ends, 'So he stepped forward into the darkness.'
"All this occurs in Chapter IV. The story then proceeds: nothing more is heard of Dunstan Cass in the village for many years; the noise of the robbery has long died away; Silas Marner has one day found a golden head of hair lying in the very spot of his floor where he used to finger his own gold; the little outdst who had fallen asleep with her head in this position, after having wandered into Marner's cottage, had been brought up by him to womanhood; when one day, at a critical period in Silas Marner's existence, it happens that in draining some lower grounds the pit of an.old stone quarry, which had for Y.ears stood filled with rain-water near his house, becomes dry, and on the bottom is revealed a skeleton with a leather bag of gold in each hand. The young man plunging out into the dark, laden with his treasure, had fallen in and lain for all these years to be afterward brought to light as another phase of the frequent identity between death and gold. Here.too, one is obliged to remember those doubly dreadful words in 'Romeo and Juliet,' where Romeo having with difficulty bought poison from the apothecary cries:
" 'There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murder in this loathsome world Than these poor compounds which thou mayest sell. I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none. Farewell: buy food a~d get thyself in flesh.'
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"I must also instance one little passing picture in 'Silas Marner' which, though extremely fanciful, is yet a charming type of some of the greatest and most characteristic work that George Eliot has done. Silas Marner had been a religious enthusiast of an obscure sect of a small manufacturing town of England; suddenly a false accusation of theft in which the circumstantial evidence was strong against him brings him into disgrace among his fellow-disciples; with his whole faith in God and man shattered he leaves his town, wanders over to the village of Raveloe, begins aimlessly to pursue his trade of weaving, presently is paid for some work in gold; in handling, the ~oin he is smit with the fascination of its yellow radiance, and presently we find him pouring out all the prodigious intensity of his nature, which had previously found a fitter field in religion, in the miser's passion. Working night and day, while yet a young man he fills his two leather bags with gold; and George Eliot gives us some vivid pictures of how, when his day's work would be done, he would brighten up the fire in his stone hut which stood at the edge of the village, eagerly lift up the particular brick from the stone floor under which he kept his treasure concealed, pour out the bright yellow heaps of coin and run his long white fingers through them with all the miser's ecstasy. But after he is robbed the utter blank in his soul-and one can imagine such a blank in such a soul, for he was essentially religious-becomes strangely filled. One day a poor woman leading her little goldenhaired child is making her way along the road past Marner's cottage; she is the wife, by private marriage, of the Squire's oldest son, and after having been cruelly treated by him for years has now desperately resolved to appear with her child at a great merry-making which goes on at the Squire's to-day, there to expose all and demand justice. It so happened, however , that in her troubles she has become an opium-eater; just as she is passing Marner's cottage the effect of an unusually large dose becomes overpoweriqg; she lies down and falls off into a stupor which this time ends in death. Meantime the little golden-haired girl innocently totters into the open door of Marner's cottage during his absence, presently lies down, places her head with all its golden wealth upon the very brick which Marner used to lift up in order to bring his gold to light, and so falls asleep, while a ray of sunlight strikes through the window and illuminates the little one's head.
"Marner now returns: he is dazed at beholding what seems almost to be another pile of gold at the familiar spot on the floor. He takes this new treasure into his hungry heart and brings up the little girl
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who becomes a beautiful woman and a faithful daughter to him. His whole character now changes and the hardness of his previous brutal misanthropy softens into something at least approaching humanity.

"Now it is fairly characteristic of George Eliot that she constantly

places before us lives which change in a manner of which this is typ-

ical; that is to say, she is constantly showing us intense and hungry

spirits first wasting their intensity and hunger upon that which is

unworthy , often from pure ignorance of anything worthier, then

finding where love is worthy, and thereafter loving larger loves, and

living larger lives."

'

SIDNEY LANIER MEMORIALS
A few years ago, when the school children of Macon and Bibb County provided the funds with which a boulder was placed in the "Open Air Westminster Abbey," at Fletcher, North Carolina, Harry Stillwell Edwards published the following article in his column in The Atlanta Journal:
"Again the world has come to celebrate the genius of Sidney Lanier by meetings, programs, memorials, songs and poems, on his birthday anniversary, February 3. For half a century his body has slept in Baltimore, the city he loved, and with reason; but annually, for one day he rises to move among the scenes he knew so well, a living conscious power. The hearts of the people there, children and grandchildren of those who knew him in the flesh go out to him. They repeat his words, breathe his songs, gaze on mementoes of him with dimming eyes; lay reverent hands upon the things he cherished. This is history in its highest form, immortality on earth.
"But above all history, beyond the ability of men and women to measure and record, beyond even consciousness are the melody and beauty he awoke in their minds, the heavenly truths he planted.
"Through the untiring devotion of Mr. Oliver Orr, of Macon, Lanier sanctuaries throughout America have been kept; and with undiminished zeal Mrs. Walker D . Lamar, backed by Macon's and Georgia's U. D. C., has broadened the record, all efforts focalizing on the placing of a bust in the American Hall of Fame.
"Macon honors the poet with two high schools named for him, and with two busts in her Washington Memorial Library: one m mar-
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\1
ble, seeking to represent the spmt of youth, the other of bronze, presenting the mature man. A marble seat erected to the poet's memory in front of Wesleyan Conservatory recalls the years when Wesleyan College had as a pupil Mary Day, who afterwards became Mrs. Sidney Lanier.
"The Wesleyan College at Rivolli has the law desk that Sidney Lanier used when he practiced law in Macon. This college has an ' impressive collection of Lanieriana most pleasing and instructive to those studying Lanier.
"The quaint little city of Milledgeville, has retained through the care of Mrs. H . D. Allen, the old building known as Thalian Hall. It was there that Sidney Lanier attended school and boarded at Oglethorpe College and graduated and went to the war in the '60's. Oglethorpe University, near Atlanta, has a Sidney Lanier diploma granted by Oglethorpe College at Milledgeville.
"Atlanta has remembered the poet with a monument in Piedmont Park, and at the Wren's Nest, the Joel Chandler Harris homeplace, there is a stone for Lanier in the moral walk of famous authors.
"At Brunswick, overlooking the 'Marshes of Glynn,' which inspired the poet's great work under that name, is the Lanier Oak of magnificent dimensions, with a marble marker nearby in memory of the poet. In Brunswick, too, Mary Day had been born and had lived during her childhood.
"Rollins College, in Winter Park, Fla., has placed a stone from Sidney Lanier's birthplace along its 'Walk of Fame.' The poet spent many weeks in search of health in Florida, and there wrote a notable history of the state.
"In Montgomery. Alabama, there is a most impressive memorial to Lanier, a high school bearing his name. Clifford Lanier, his brother, was for many years superintendent there.
"In Prattville, Ala., the old Prattville Academy, where the poet taught, is still standing, and the Alabama division of the U. D. C. is working to make it a memorial in his honor.
"In San Antonio, Texas, we find a notable memorial, the Hotel Menger, where the poet lived at one time. The rooms he occupied are kept intact as used by him. On the walls, a T exas division of U. D. C. has placed -a bronze marker in his honor.
"The same city has a junior and senior Sidney Lanier High SchooL
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"Houston, Texas, has a Sidney Lanier High School, a beautiful building, with a portrait of him.
"In Tulsa, Oklahoma, q Sidney Lanier elementary school specializes in studies pertaining to his poetry and prose.
"In Los Angeles, Sidney Lanier is honored by a library bearing his name. On anniversaries of his birth and death, exercises are held, and notable speakers are brought in from other sections.
"In Fletcher, North Carolina, the Open Air Westminster Abbey shows many boulders placed in memory of great Southerners. The Lanier boulder was erected by the school children in Macon and Bibb County, Georgia.
"In Trion, North Carolina, is a beautiful Lanier library with attractive mementoes of the poet.
"At Westchester, Pennsylvania, at the Turks Head Inn, there is a room kept intact where the poet spent some of his days.
"Johns Hopkins University gave unto the poet in life encouragement and incentive to climb to greater heights. In the library there the greatest collection of Lanieriana may be found. There the Lanier anniversaries are always appropriately observed.
"Not far from Johns Hopkins, in Greenmount Cemetery, the dust of Sidney Lanier reposes. Upon the boulder over his grave is carved his name and the rays of the rising sun." ,
SAN ANTONIO MEMORIALS TO SIDNEY LANIER ,
Sidney Lanier, bard of the Old South, soldier of the Confederacy, musician and scholar, lived in San Antonio from November, 1872, until April, 1873. To commemorate that sojourn, the Texas D"ivision, United Daughters of the Confederacy, tomorrow will unveil a bronze tablet marking the Menger Hotel as the poet's home.
That will be a peculiarly fitting memorial. Many of the Nation's great have lived in San Antonio at some time or other and have contributed to the city's history. It is the community's duty to keep alive their influence.
Both city and State owe a special debt to Lanier's memory. Perhaps naming a San Antonio public school for him pays sufficient hon-
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or to the man of letters, and , patriotic soCieties doubtless hold the soldier in particular esteem. However, while in San Antonio, Lanier fell under the spell of the Alamo; so he retold the story of Travis and his men in noble prose, which breathes something of their ardor for a cause and the high courage that fights unto death . That was a monument which Lanier raised to Texas' immortals. One memorial for another is a fair exchange.
This State has other reasons for perpetuating Lanier's fame. In the Old World he has been called a thoroughly Southern poet-"the greatest that section has yet produced." Much of Texas is in his verse- live-oak beautifully braided, fronded fern and keen-leaved cane, the m_ocking-bird's song and the ripple of clear streams. Lanier's daring, original conception of poetry as an art; the diligent practice of his theory, and particularly his sense of music in words, suggest Edgar Allan Poe. An unflagging industry despite a losing fight against a deadly malady, recalls Robert Louis Stevenson.
(San Antonio Express, about 1930)
NEW SHRINE TO SIDNEY LANIER
-By HARRY STILLWELL EDWARDS (The Atlanta Journal, Sunday, Sept. 2, 1928)
Sidney Lanier died at Tryon, North Carolina, in 1881. As associate editor of the Macon Telegraph at that time, I wrote a brief report of his passing. It is hard to realize that nearly half a century has elapsed since that suqlmer day when I gathered the few known facts of his history and put them in print.
At that time I knew Mr. Lanier slightly, but his family well. His literary work I knew almost not at all. Few people in Macon did. He had not lived much in Macon after the War Between the States; and then, as a struggling young lawyer. His literary work, then not extensive , was published in distant periodicals; and Macon took few magazines in those days of impoverishment. For long he was better known outside of Georgia-even in England- than in his native city. It has been said that Sidney Lanier's fame extended around the world before it echoed clearly in his boyhood home. This is not wholly true, for always in Macon there was a small circle of cultivated peo-
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pie, closely associated with his family, that kept him in view, and felt the uplift of his genius. A large circle remembered him as a shy, lovable friend, and musician.
But nowhere today in the world is there a finer appreciation of Sidney Lanier, and the qualities of his manhood, and his transcendent genius, than in the city of his birth. In every possible way the city has honored his memory and his works enter into every school and college there.
Illustrating the love and veneration in which he is held in Macon, is the plan and program for a monument to him at Fletcher, North Carolina, where the last few weeks of his life was spent. This monument takes the shape of granite boulder, in keeping with other memorials in the churchyard of Calvary Church, called the "Open Air Westminster." The tablet of bronze will be inscribed as follows:
SIDNEY LANIER 1843-1881
Poet and Musician,
Who Spent His Last Days Among These Hills,
"THYSELF, THY MoNUMENT."
Erected, 1928, by the School Children of Lanier's Birthplace, Macon, Bibb County, Georgia.
The dedication of this memorial will take place on Sunday, the 9th of September, at the hands of a distinguished delegation of Macon citizens, who will journey to North Carolina for that purpose. The exercise will take place partly in church, and partly in the churchyard: and will consist of specially written music, with addresses, and invocation. and the recital of lines from Lanier's poems. It is also planned, if arrangements can be perfected, to broadcast the musical number of these services from Asheville in the evening, in recognition of the widespread interest in the occasion, and the worldwide fame of Lanier.
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On the memorial in the churchyard, will be placed a wreath of leaves and flowers from the marshes of Glynn; gift of the Chamber of Commerce of St. Simon's Island. The island is, itself, a part of the marshes of Glynn, and now a popular summer resort.
Calvary Church, where the Lanier memorial is to be placed, is a quaint building in a beautiful grove, and is familiarly known as "the friendly church." It fronts the main highway between Hendersonville and Asheville, about twelve miles from the last named, and is open at all hours of the day. Many tourists stop there to view the memorials already placed. One of these commemorates Edgar Wilson (Bill) Nye, who was a member of the church. Another commemorates the life of George Westfeldt, at whose home, "Rugby Grange," Sidney Lanier visited just before his death; and to whomhe dedicated "Sunrise." The church was consecrated in 1859, and used as a hospital for sick and wounded soldiers in the war that followed two years later. Its pastor is Rev. Clarence Stuart McClellan, whose ambition is to gather into its groves boulder memorials to Southerners great in the South's history. Brilliant success has rewarded his efforts. He has a long list of names to be commemorated, among them Frank 0. Tichnor, the Georgia poet of the "sixties."
SIDNEY LANIER AND THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
By joHN C. FRENCH, Ph.D., Librarian, Johns Hopkins University.
While he was a college student and a soldier Sidney Lanier cherished as his life ambition, not music and poetry but scholarship, for he hoped to go, like Ticknor and Gildersleeve, to a German university for advanced study and to return to a professorship in an American university. Among other disastrous effects of the War was the complete destruction of this hope. Teaching he did, indeed, but in an elementary school; and when ill .health forced him to give up the law, he determined to devote what few years of life seemed likely to be left to him to music and to literature.
He was in Baltimore and immersed in these pursuits when it became apparent that the new Johns Hopkins University was to be,
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not another Harvard or Princeton, but a graduate institution such as then did not exist in America. The old hopes revived. He had not been able to go to a university but a university was coming to him. He would willingly have joined the notable group of original fellows-the most distinguished assemblage of young scholars the country had ever seen__:_but his preparation was inadequate. However, he was already enthusiastically studying in the excellent Peabody library, and Gilman, always an astute judge of men, recognizPd him as a desirable addition to the university faculty. Lanier was appointed lecturer in English literature in 1879; and though he brought to his lectureship incomplete training and little real experience in research he made a marked impression as poet and teacher and his unti~ely death in 1881 was regarded as a serious loss.
A few weeks after Lanier's death a notable memorial meeting was held in Hopkins Hall with Gilman as chairman. Two years later a bronze tablet was erected in his memory and in 1888 the Keyser bust of Lanier was unveiled in a ceremony in which the chief literary personages of the country had a part either in person or by letter.
Years passed, the University moved to its new site at Homewood, and in 1926 prepared to ce lebrate its fiftieth anniversary, in which it was felt that a special commemoration of Lanier should be included. Dr. Wightman F . Melton had urged the establishment of a professorship of American Literature, and the Reverend Dr. Oliver Hucke! had suggested a Lanier alcove in the library for the preservation of books and manuscripts of the poet. Early in 1926 a Lanier committee was formed to plan for a publ\c meeting and an appropriate permanent memorial.
The celebration centered around February 22, the actual anniversary; but it was formally begun on February 4, the day after Lanier's birthday, when in the hall of the Peabody Institute there was held a large public meeting in commemoration of Lanier, with addresses by President Goodnow, the poet Lizette Woodworth Reese, and the Reverend Dr. Oliver Hucke!, with a musical program by the Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra. This meeting, which was broadcast, had been arranged by the Lanier Memorial Committee; and this committee proposed, as a permanent memorial, a Lanier book-fund, a definitive edition of Lanier, and ultimately a Lanier professorship of American Literature endowed with $150,000. The
64

book-fund was soon a reality, with an endowment of well over $4,000, and although the depression of 1929 put a stop to efforts to raise money for the larger projects, these have been only temporarily abandoned.
Meanwhile two tangible memorials have been created at Homewood. On the south wall of Gilman Hall the class of 1915 planted ivy from the grave of Lanier and marked it with a bronze tablet, and years later ivy from his birthplace in Macon, Georgia, was planted and similarly marked by the class of 1925. Other planting has completed what is now an outdoor memorial to the poet. Indoors in the main reading room is the Lanier Alcove, in which is housed the best known collection of Lanier letters, manuscripts, first editions, clippings, and photostats. The 1881 tablet, the Keyse.- bust, and various other memorabilia of the poet are assembled here, and in the cases there is a growing collection of American poetry, with emphasis on the South, all marked by a Lanier memorial bookplate and preserved for the use of future scholars.
Lanier's association with the Johns Hopkins faculty is thus permanently memorialized. The ideals for which he strove so bravelythe high worth of scholarship, the love of beauty and belief in its essential righteousness, the enduring value of poetry and music and the need for the diffusion of these arts- are still the ideals of the University and they still inspire the young men who come and go in the beautiful room in which his memory is preserved.
POEMS OF TREES MEMORIAL
Poems of Trees: Sidney Lanier Memorial, Curtiss Printing Company, Inc. Atlanta-an annual publication-edited and published by Wightman F. Melton, of Georgia's State Department of Education, is a memorial to which poets in practically all the States of the Union, the District of Columbia and Canada have contributed original poems. Six volumes have been published and the seventh is now (September, 1938) being assembled. The growth of the idea is indicated by the fact that the first volume, 1932, contains 65 pages, and the sixth volume, 1937, contains 218 pages. Many of the leading poets of America are represented in these volumes, which are to be found in a number of the principal libraries of the country.
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SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE
Out of the hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall, Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover's pain to attain the plain Far from the hills of Habersham, Far from the valleys of Hall.
All down the hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried Abide, abide, The willful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and fondling grass said Stay, The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide, Here in the hills of Habersham, Here in the valleys of Hall.
High o'er the hills of Habersham, Veiling the valleys of Hall, The hickory told me manifold Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, These glades in the valleys of Hall.
And oft in the hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, And many a luminous jewel lone -Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
66

Ruby, garnet and amethystMade lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of the valleys of Hall.
But oh, not the hills of Habersham, And oh, riot the valleys of Hall Avail: I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices of Duty callDownward, to t<?il and be mixed with the main, The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, Calls through the valleys of H all.
1877.
MY SPRINGS
ln the heart of the Hills of Life, I know Two springs that with unbroken flow Forever pour their lucent streams Into my soul's fair Lake of Dreams.
***
Not larger than two eyes, they lie Beneath the many-changing sky And mirror all of life and time, -Serene and dainty pantomime.
Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare completeBeing heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet, -1 marvel that God made you mine, For when He frowns, 'tis then you shine!
Baltimore, 1874.
67

CORN
To-day the woods are trembling through and through With shimmering forms, that flash before my view, Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness; The copse-depths into little noises start, That sound anon like beatings of a heart, Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart. The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song; Through that vague wafture, expirations strong Throb from young hickories breathing deep and long With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring
And ecstasy of burgeoning. Now, since the dew.:.p la~e~ road of morn is dry, Forth venture odors of more quality And heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry,
Long muscadines Rich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines, And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines.
I pray with mosses , ferns and flowers shy That hide like gentle nuns from human eye To lift adoring perfumes to the sky. I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and green Dying to silent hints of kisses keen As far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen. I start at fragmentary whispers, blown From undertalks of leafy souls unknown, Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone.
Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides, between Old companies of oaks that inward lean To join their radiant amplitudes of green
I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass Up from the matted miracles of grass Into yon veined complex of space Where sky and leafage interlace So close, the heaven of blue is seen Inwoven with a heaven of green.
68


I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense, Contests with stolid vehemence
The march of culture, setting limb and thorn As pikes against the army of the corn.
There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyes Take harvests, where the stateiy corn-ranks rise,
Of inward dignities And large benignities and insights wise,
Graces and modest majesties. Thus, without theft, I reap another's field; Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield, And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed.
Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands,
And waves his blades upon the very edge And hottest thicket of the battling hedge. Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk, Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime That leads the vanward of his timid time And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme-
Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow By double increment, above, below;
Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee, Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry That moves in gentle curves of courtesy; Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,
By every godlike sense Transmuted from the four wild elements.
Drawn to high plans, Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's, Yet ever piercest downward in the mould
And keepest hold Upon the reverend and steadfast earth
That gave thee birth; Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave,
Serene and brave,
69

With unremitting breath

Inhaling life from death,

Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,

f

Thyself thy monument.

As poets should, Thou hast built up thy hardihood With_universal food,
Drawn in select proportion fair From honest mould and vagabond air; From darkness of the dreadful night,
And joyful light; From antique ashes, whose departed flame In thee has finer life and longer fame; From wounds and balms, From storms and calms, From potsherds and dry bones
And ruin-stones.

Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wrought Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought;
Yea, into cool solacing green hast spun White radiance hot from out the sun. So thou dost mutually leaven Strength of earth with grace of heaven; So thou dost marry new and old Into a one of high mould; So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold,
The dark and bright, And many a heart-perplexing opposite,
And so, Akin by blood to high and low, Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part, Richly expending thy much-bruised heart In equal care to nourish lord in hall
Or beast in stall : Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all.

0 steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot Where thou wast born, t hat still repinest notType of the home-fond heart, the happy lot!-

70

Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land

Whose flimsy homes, built' on the shifting sand

Of trade, for ever rise and fall

With alternation whimsical,

Enduring scarce a day, 1

Then swept away

By swift engulfments of incalculable tides

Whereon capricious Commerce rides.

Look, thou substantial spirit of content!

f.

Across this little vale, thy continent,

_.-/i~/J /J-cY

To where, beyond the mouldering mill, I :jJY 0

.']JJ Y{)n old deserted Georgian hill

v--:v,,~ ~

i/t? _Jfl Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest

J.

And seamy breast,

~~

By restless-hearted children left to lie

Untended there beneath the heedless sky,

As barbarous folk expose their old to die.

Upon that generous-rounding side,

With gullies scarified

Where keen Neglect his lash hath plied,

Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil,

And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil.

Scorning the slow reward of patient grain,

He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain,

Then sat him down and waited for the rain.

He sailed in borrowed ships of usury-

A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea,

Seeking the Fleece and finding misery.

Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance He lay, content that unth; iitGrcumstance Should plough for him the stony field of Chance. Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell, He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell, And turned each field into a gambler's hell. Aye, as each year began, My farmer to the neighboring city ran; Passed with a mournful anxious face Into the banker's inner place; Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace; Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust. the grass;
71

Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass;

With many an oh and if and but alas

Parried or swallowed searching questions rude,

And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood.

At last, small loans by pledges great renewed,

He issues smiling from the fatal door,

And buys with lavish hand his yearly store

Till his small borrowings will yield no more.

Aye, as each year declined,

With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind

He mourned his fate unkind.

In dust, in rain, with might and main,

He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain,

Fretted for news that made him fret again,

Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,

And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail-

In hope or fear alike for ever pale.

And thus from year to year, through hope and fear,

With many a curse and many a secret tear,

Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,

At last

He woke to find his foolish dreaming past,

And all his best-of-life the easy prey

Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way

With vile array,

From rascal statesman down to petty knave; Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave,

'1
}

A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave.

Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest,

He fled away into the oblivious West,

Unmourned, unblest.

Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hoary Lear Whom the divine Cordelia of the year, E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer-
King, that no 'subject man nor beast may own, Discrowned, undaughtered and aloneYet shall the great God turn thy fate, And bring thee back into thy monarch state
And majesty immaculate. Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,
72

Thou givest from thy-vasty sides forlorn Visions of golden treasuries of cornRipe largesse lingering for some bolder heart That manfully shall take ~hy part,
And tend thee, And defend thee, With antique sinew and with modern art.

fl~,~,

Sunnyside, Georgia, August, 1874.

THE MOCKING BIRD
Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray That o'er the general leafage boldly grew, He summ'd the woods in song; ortypic drew The watch of hungry hawks , the lone dismay Of -languid doves when long their lovers stray, And all bi~ds' passion plays that sprinkle dew At morn in brake or bosky avenue. Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say. Then down he shot, bounced airily along The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again. Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain: How may the death of that dull insect be The life of yon trim Shakespeare on the tree?

HYMNS OF THE MARSHES
THE MARSHES OF GLYNN
I.
Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,Emerald twilights,Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
73

When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods, Of the heavenly woods and glades;
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within The wide sea-marshes of Glynn;-
Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire,Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire, Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of
leaves,-
\ Cells for the passionatepleasure of prayer to the soul that gneves, Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood, Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good;-
0 braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine, While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did
shine Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine; But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream,Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the
oak, And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound
of the stroke Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, And belief over masters doubt, and I know that I know, And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within, That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes
of Glynn Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of
yore When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitter
ness sore, And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain,Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face
The vast sweet visage of space.
74

To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn,
For a mete and a mark To the forest-dark:So:
Affable live-oak, leaning low,Thus-with your favor- soft, with a reverent hand, (Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!) Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand On the firm-packed sand,
Free By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea.
Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band
Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land.
Inward and outward to northward and southward the beachlines linger and curl
As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl.
Vanishing, swerving, evermore curbing again into sight, Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of
light. And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods
stands high? The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and
the sky! A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in
the blade, Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a
shade, Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain, To the terminal blue of the main.
Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea? Somehow my soul seems suddenly free
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin, By the length and the breadth and tfie sweep o
of Glynn.
75

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing withholding and free
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
( Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain. And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain

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 ofGod 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.

And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty

the sea

,.

Pours fast: full soon the time o(tl;J..e flood-tide must be:

Look how the grace of the sea doth go

About and about through the intricate channels that flow

Here and there,

Everywhere,

Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the

low-lying lanes, And the marsh 1~ meshed with a million veins,

That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow

In the rose-and~silver evening glow.

Farewell, my lord Sun!

The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run

'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass

stir:

Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr;

Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run;

And the sea and the marsh are one.

How still the plains of the waters be! The tide is in his ecstasy.
76

The tide is at h~s highest height: And it is night.
And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep Roll in on the souls of men, But who will reveal to our waking ken The forms that swim and the shapes that creep
Under the waters of sleep? And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the
tide comes in On the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes of
Glynn. Baltimore,1878.
HYMNS OF THE MARSHES
SUNRISE
. IV.
In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main.
The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep; Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of
sweep, Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting,
Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting, Came to the gates of sleep.
Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, Upstarted, by twos and threes assembling:
The gates of sleep fell a-trembling: Like as the lips of a lady that doth falter yes,
Shaken with happiness: The gates of sleep stood wide.
I have waked, I have come, my beloved! I might not abide; I have come ere the dawn, 0 beloved, my live-oaks, to hide
In your gospelling glooms,-to be As a lover in heaven, the marsh my marsh and the sea my sea.
77

Tell me, sweet burly-bark'd, man-bodied Tree That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow?
They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps. Reason's not one that weeps. What logic of greeting lies
Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes?
0 cunning green leaves, little masters! like as ye gloss All the dull-tissued dark with your luminous darks that
emboss The vague blackness of night into pattern and plan,
So, (But would I could know, but would I could know,) With your question embroid'ring the dark of the question of man,So, with your silences purfling this silence of man While his cry to the dead for some knowledge is under the ban,
Under the ban,So, ye have wrought me Designs on the night of our knowledge, yea, ye have taught me,
So, That haply we know somewhat more than we know.
Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms, Ye consciences murmuring faiths and forms, Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves, Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves, Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me \Nisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me,Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet That advise me of more than they bring ,- repeat Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath From the heaven-side bank of the river of death,Teach me the terms of silence,-preach me The passion of patience,-sift me,- impeach me,-
And there, oh there As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air,
Pray me a myriad prayer.
78

My gossip, the owl, -is it thou That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough,
As I pass to the beach, art stirred? Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird?
********
Reverend Marsh, low-couched along the sea, Old chemist, rapt in alchemy, Distilling silence,-lo,
That which our father-age had died to knowThe menstruum that dissolves all matter-thou
Hast found it: for this silence, filling now The globed clarity of receiving space, This solves us all; man, matter, doubt, disgrace, Death, love, sin, sanity, Must in yon silence, clear solution lie. Too clear! That crystal nothing who'll peruse? The blackest night could bring us brighter news. Yet precious qualities of silence haunt Round these vast margins, ministrant. Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for space, With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race Just to be fallow'd, when that thou hast found No man with room, or grace enough of bound To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art,'Tis here, 'tis here thou canst unhand thy heart And breathe it free, and breathe it free, By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty.
The tide's at full: the marsh with flooded streams
Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams.
Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies Shine scant with one forked galaxy,The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast they lie. Oh, what if a sound should be made! Oh, what if a bound should be laid To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-
spring,To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the
string I I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam
79

a Will break as a bubble o'er-blown in dream,-
Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night, Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light, Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem
But a bubble that broke in a dream, If a bound of degree to this grace be laid,
Or a sound or a motion made.
But no: it is made: list! somewhere,-mystery, where? In the leaves? in the air?
In my heart? is a motion made: 'Tis a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade. In the leaves 'tis palpable; low multitudinous stirring Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly conferring, Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so; they are still; But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill,And look where the wild duck sails round the bend of the
nver,And look where a passionate shiver Expectant is bending the blades Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades,And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting,
Are beating The dark overhead as my heart beats,-and steady and
free Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea-
(Run home, little streams, With your lapfulls of stars and dreams),And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak, For list, down the inshore curve of the creek How merrily flutters the said,And lo, in the East! Will the East unveil? The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed A flush: 'tis dead; 'tis alive: 'tis dead, ere the West Vvas aware of it; nay, 'tis abiding, 'tis unwithdrawn: Have a care, sweet Heaven! 'Tis Dawn.
Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is up rolled: To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling gold
_Is builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from out of the sea:
80

The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee, The star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee, Of dazzling gold is the great Sun-Bee
That sha ll flash from the hive-hole over the sea.

Yet now the dew-drop, now the morning gray, Shall live their little lucid sober day Ere with the sun their souls exhale away. Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew The summ'd moon shines complete as in the blue Big d ~w-drops of all heaven: with these lit shrines O'er silvered to the farthest sea-confines, The sacramental marsh one pious plain Of worship lies. Peace to the ante-reign Of Mary Morning, blissf~l mother mild, Minded of nought but peace, and of a child.

Not slower than Majesty moves, fora mean and a measure

Of motion,-not faster than dateless Olympian leisure

Might pace with unbk>wnample garments from pieasure to
Pl eas ure,~

The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring, unreeling,

Forever revealing, revealing, revealing,

Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise,- 'tis done!.

Good-morrow, lord Sun!

With several voice, with ascription one,

The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul

Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth

roll ,



Cry good and past-good and most heavenly morrow, lord

Sun.

0 Artisan born in the purple,-Workman Heat,Parter of passionate atoms tll.qJ_ travail to meet And be mixed in the death-cold oneness,-innermost Guest At the marriage of elements,-fellow of publicans,-blest King in t he blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er The idle skies yet laborest fast evermore,Thou , in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat Of the heart of a man, thou Motive, -Laborer Heat: Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news,

81

With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea blues, Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest perfectest hues Ever shaming the maidens, - lily and rose Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that shine,
It is thine, it is thine:
Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl Or a flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl In the magnet earth,- yea, thou with a storm for a heart, Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light, Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright Than the eye of a man may avail of :-manifold One, I must pass from the face, I must pass from the face of the
Sun: Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown; The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town: But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done;
I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun: How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run,
I am lit with the Sun.
Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas Of traffic shall hide thee,
Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories Hide thee,
Never the reek of the time's fen-politics Hide thee,
And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge abide thee,
And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried thee, Labor, at leisure, in art,-till yonder beside thee
My soul shall float, friend Sun, The day being done.
Baltimore, December, 1880.
82

IRELAND
(Written during the Irish famine, 1880.)
Heartsome Ireland, winsome Ireland, Charmer of the sun and sea,
Bright beguiler of old anguish, How could Famine frown on thee?
As our Gulf-Stream, drawn to thee-ward, Turns him from his northward flow,
And our wintry western headlands Send thee summer from their snow,
Thus the main and cordial current Of our love sets over sea,-
Tender; comely, valiant Ireland, Songful, soulful, sorrowful Ireland,-
Strea'ming warm to comfort thee.
Baltimore, 1880.
A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER
Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. B t tp_e olives they were not blind to Him, Tlie little gray leaves were kind to Him, The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods He came. Out of the woods my Master went, And He was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, Content with death and shame. When Death and Shame would woo Him last, From under the trees they drew Him last; 'Twas on a tree they slew Him-last 'When out of the woods He came.
Baltimore, November, 1880.
83

EVENING SONG
Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands, And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands. Ah! longer, longer, we.
Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun, As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine,
And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done, Love, lay thine hand in mine.
Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart; Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.
0 night! divorce our sun and sky apart Never our lips, our hands.
1876.
LANIER'S "LIGHTER" VERSE
In his wholly serious poem, "Corn," written at Sunnyside, Spalding County, Georgia, in the summer of 1874, Sidney Lanier pioneered in the idea of diversified farming. Five years earlier (1869), at his home in Macon, Georgia, his semi-humorous poem, "Thar's Mora in the Man than Thar is in the Land," shows that the author was also a pioneer in the idea of intensified farming.
When the Lanier brothers, Sidney and Clifford, got together, whether in Macon, Georgia; Montgomery or Prattville, Alabama; or Baltimore, Maryland, they had a jolly time playing with verse. "The Power of Prayer; or the First Steamboat on the Alabama," produced by the brothers in Baltimore (1875), is a fine example of their exuberance of spirit when they got together.
Usually, Irwin Russell (1853-1879), of Port Gibson, Mississippi, is credited with being "the first to represent in convincing form the literary possibilities of the Negro"-quoted from Stark Young's A Southern Treasury of Life and Literature, 1937, Charles Scribner's Sons~but Russell's greatest Negro poem, "Christmas Night in the Quarters," was published in Scribner's Magazine, January, 1878; whereas, the Lanier poem was produced in 1875-three years earlier.
84

Both Russell and theLaniers present Negro philosophy in convincing form, but none of them ~quals Joel Chandler Harris and Frank L. Stanton in perfecting the Negro dialect, and using it consistently. For example, the Laniers and Russell use "like" for "lak." Stanton's "Mighty Lak a Rose" illustrates the point in question; but, come to think of it, Harris also uses "like." Anyhow, Russell, Harris, and Stanton always say "de" for "the," "dis" for "this," "dat" for "that," "dey" for "they," etc., wh~reas Edgar Allan Poe and the Laniers use "de" and "the" in the same line of dialect.
Even so, where will we find finer Negro philosophy than this by the Laniers? "What use de wheel, when hub an' spokes is warped an' split an'
rotten? What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life done picked de cotton? I's like a word dat somebody said, an' den done been forgotten."
THE POWER OF PRAYER; OR, THE FIRST STEAMBOAT UP THE ALABAMA By SIDNEY and CLIFFORD LANIER
You, Dinah! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet. De Lord, He made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat. Umph, dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' ole nigger's feet.
It 'pear' to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' June. I 'dar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de fiddle soon! Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ringin' in de moon.
Well, ef dis nigger is been blind for fo'ty year' or mo', Dese ears, dey sees de world, like, th'u' cracks dat'sin de do', For de Lord has built dis body wid de windows 'hind and fo'.
I know my front ones is stopped up, and things is sort o' dim, But den, th'u' dem, temptation's rain won't leak in on ole Jim! De back ones show me earth enough, aldo' dey's mons'ous slim.
And as for Hebben,-bless de Lord, and praise His holy nameDat shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de same As ef dat cabin padn't nar' a plank upon de frame!
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Who call me? Listen down de ribber, Dinah! Don't you hyar Somebody holl'in, " Hoo, Jim, hoo?" My Sarah died las' y'ar; Is dat black angel done come back to call ole Jim f'om hyar?
My stars, dat cain't be Sarah, shuh! Jes' listen, Dinah, now! What kin be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a row? Fus' bellerin' like a pawin' bull, den squealin' like a sow?
De Lord 'a' mussy sakes alive, jes' hear, ker-woof, ker-woofDe Debbie's comin' round dat bend, he's comin' shuh-enuff, A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his hoof!
I's pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run away; I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed d ay. You screech, and swish de water, Satan! I's a-gwine to pray.
0 hebbenly Marster, what thou wiliest, dat mus' be jes' so, And ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some nigger's bound to go. Den, Lord, please take ole Jim , a nd lef young Dinah hyar below!
'Scuse Dinah, 'scuse her, Marster; for she's sich a little chile, She hardly jes' begin to scramble up de homeward stile, But dis ole traveller's feet been tired dis many and many a mile.
I's wufless as de rotten pole of las' year's fodder-stack. De rheumatiz done hi t my bones; you hear 'em crack and crack? I cain't sit down 'clout gruntin' like 'twas breakin' o' my back.
What use de wheel, when hub and spokes is warped and split and rotten?
What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life done picked de cotton? I's like a word dat somebody said, and den done been forgotten.
But, Dinah! Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry tree, De sap's jes' risin' in her; she do grow owdaciousleeLord, ef you's clarin' de underbrush, don't cut her down, cut me!
I would not proud persume--but I'll boldly make reques': Sence Jacob had dat wrastlin'-match, I, too, gwine do my bes'; When J acob got all underholt, de Lord he answered Y,es!
86

And what for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow away de bread, J es' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis ole bald head? T'ink of de 'conomy, Marster, ef dis ole Jim was dead!
Stop;- ef I don't believe de Debbie's gone on up de stream! Jes' now he squealed down dar;-hush; dat's a mighty weakly scream! Vas, sir, he's gone, he's gone;-he snort way off, like in a dream!
0 glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on high! De Debbie's fai'ly skeered to clef, he done gone flyin' by; I know'd he couldn't stand dat pra'r, I felt my Marster nigh!
You , Dinah, ain't you 'shamed, now, dat you dido' trust to grace? I heered you thrashin' th'u' de bushes when he showed his face! You fool, you think de Debbie couldn't beat you in a race?
I tell you, Dinah, jes' as shuh as you is standin' dar, When folks starts prayin', answer-angels drops down th'u' de a'r. Yas, Dinah, whar 'ould you be now, jes' 'ceptin' fur dat pra'r?
Baltimore, 1875.
THAR'S MORE IN THE MAN THAN THAR IS IN THE LAND
I knowed a man, which he lived in Jones, Which Jones is a county of red hills and stones, And he lived pretty much by gittin' of loans, And his mules was nuthin' but skin and bones, And his hogs was flat as corn-bread pones, And he had 'bout a thousand acres o' land.
This man-which his name it was also JonesHe swore that he'd leave them old red hills and stones, For he couldn't make nuthin' but yallerish cotton, And little o' that, and his fences.was rotten, And what little corn he had, hit was boughten And dinged ef a-livin' was in the land.
87

And the longer he swore the madder he got, And he riz and he walked to the stable lot, And he hollered to Tom to come thar and hitch Fur to emigrate somewhar whar land was rich, And to quit raisin' cock-burrs, thistles ahd sich, And a-wastin' the'r time on the cussed land.
So him and Tom they hitched up the mules, Pertestin' that folks was mighty big fools That 'ould stay in Georgy the'r lifetime out, Jest scratchin' a livin' when all of 'em mought Git places in Texas whar cotton would sprout By the time you could plant it in the land.
And he driv by a house whar a man named Brown Was a-livin', not fur from the edge o' town, And he bantered Brown fur to buy his place, And said that bein' as money was skace, And bein' as sheriffs was hard to face, Two dollars a' acre would git the land.
They closed at a dollar and fifty cents, And Jones he bought him a waggin and tents, And loaded his corn, and his wimmin, and truck, And moved to Texas, which it tuck His entire pile, with the best of luck, To git thar and git him a little land.
But Brown moved out on the old Jones farm, And he rolled up his breeches and bared his arm, And he picked all the rocks from off'n the groun', And he rooted it up and he plowed it down, Then he sowed his corn and his wheat in the land.
Five years glid by, and Brown, one day (Which he'd got so fat that he wouldn't weigh), Was a settin' down, sorter lazily, To the bulliest dinner you ever see, When one o' the children jumped on his knee And says, "Van's Jones, which you bought his land."
88

And thar was Jones, standin' out at the fence, And he hadn't no waggin, nor mules, nor tents, Fur he had left Texas a-foot and cum To Georgy to see if he couldn't git some Employment, and he was a-lookin' as hum-
ble as ef he had never owned any land. But Brown he axed him in, and he sot Him down to his vittles smokin' hot, And when he had filled himself and the floor Brown looked at him sharp and riz and swore That "whether men's land was rich or poor There was more in the man than there was in the land.
Macon, Georgia, 1869.
89

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA LIBRARY
BooKs BY SIDNEY LANIER
The English Novel: A study in the development of personality. Revised edition Scribner, N. Y., 1900.
Hymns of the Marshes: Illustrated from nature by Henry Troth. Scribner, N. Y., 1907. Contents-Sunrise, Individuality, Marsh Song, At Sunset, The Marshes of Glynn.
Music and Poetry: Essays upon some subjects and inter-relations of the two arts. Scribner, N. Y., 1898.
Poems: Lippincott, Philadelphia. Poems of Sidney Lanier: Edited by his wife, with a Memorial by William Hayes Ward. New edition, Scribner, 1905. Same as above: Scribner, 1920. Retrospects and Prospects: Descriptive and historical essays. Scribner, 1899. (Contents-Retrospects and Prospects, San Antonio de Bexar, Confederate Memorial Address, The New South, Sketches of India). Shakespeare and His Forerunners: Studies in Elizabethan poetry and its development from early English. Doubleday, N. Y., 1908. Science of English Verse: Scribner, N.Y., 1901. Froissart, Jean. The Boys Froissart: Being Sir John Froissart's Chronicles of adventure, battle and custom in England, France, Spain, etc., edited for boys with introduction by Sidney Lanier, illustrated by Alfred Kappes. Scribner, N.Y., 1882. Mabinogion. Knightly Legends of Wales: or, The Boys' Mabinogion , being the earliest Welsh tales of King Arthur in the famous red book of Hergest; edited for boys with an introduction by Sidney Lanier, illustrated by Alfred Fredericks. Scribner, N. Y., 1881. Malory, Sir Thomas. The Boys' King Arthur: Being Sir Thomas Malory's History of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Edited for boys with introduction by Sidney Lanier, illustrated by Alfred Kappes. Scribner, N.Y., 1881. Percy, Thomas. The Boys' Percy: Being old ballads of war; adventure and love, from Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Edited for boys with introduction by Sidney Lanier, with fifty illustrations from original designs by E. B. Bersell. Scribner, 1882. The English Novel and the Principle of Its Dezelopment: Scribner, N.Y., 1883.
90

Lanier Book: Selections in prose and verse; edited by Mary E. Burt. Scribner, 1904.
Poem Outlines: Scribner, 1908. St. Augustine in April: The Ocklawaha in May. (In Edward Strahan, Sidney Lanier, Edward A. Pollard and others, some highways and byways of American travel, p.107-131). Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1878. Select Poems: Edited with an introduction, notes and bibliography by Morgan Callaway. Scribner, N. Y., 1878. Selections, Prose and Verse: Introduction and notes. Edited by Henry W. Lanier. Scribner, N. Y., 1916. Tiger Lilies: A Novel. Hurd & Houghton, N.Y., 1867. 1776-1876. By appointment of the U. S. Centennial Commission. The Centennial Meditation of Columbia. A cantata for the inaugural ceremonies at Philadelphia, May 10, 1876. Poem by Sidney Lanier of Georgia. Music by Dudley Buck of Connecticut. G. Schirmer, N.Y., 1876.
BOOKS BY SIDNEY LANIER, NOT IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF GEORGIA LIBRARY
Bob; the Story of Our Mocking Bird: Scribner, N.Y., 1899. Florida: It's Scenery, Climate and History. Lippincott, N.Y., 1877. Poems: Edited by M. Lanier, with a memorial by William Hayes Ward. (Scribner series of modern poets) new edition. Scribner, N.Y., 1916. Song of the Chattahoochee: (Eight page classics), Parker Pub. Co. English Novel: (In W. M. Payne's "American Literary Criticism," p. 273-96).
From Bacon to Beethoven: (In J. R. Boward's "Best American
Essays," p.327-43).
BOOKS NOT IN UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA LIBRARY-
ABOUT SIDNEY LANIER
Davidson, James W. Living Writers of the South: p. 321. Carleton, N.Y., 1869.
Williams, S. T. Lanier: (In J. A. Macy's "American Writers on American Literature," 327-41). Liveright, 1931.
91

BooKs ABOUT SIDNEY LANIER
Beeson, Mrs. Leola (Selman). Sidney Lanier at Oglethorpe University: Introduction by Mrs. John W. Daniel. Macon, Ga., The
J. W. Burke Co., 1936.
Bradford, Gamaliel. Sidney Lanier: (In his "American Portraits," 1875-1900, p. 59-83}. N. Y., Houghton, 1932.
Clarke, George Herbert. Some Reminiscences and Early Letters of Sidney Lanier: With an introduction by Harry Stillwell Edwards. Published under the auspices of the Sidney Lanier Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Macon, Ga., The J. W. Burke Co., 1907.
Lanier, C. A. Sonnets to Sidney Lanier. Huebsch, 1915. Mims, Edwin . Sidney Lanier. N.Y., Houghton, 1905. Squires, W. H. T. Sidney Lanier: (In his "The Land of Decision," p. 104-128) Portsmouth, Va., Printcraft Press Inc., 1931. Starke, Aubrey Harrison. Sidney Lanier, a Biographical and Critical Study: Chapel Hill, University of N.C. Press, 1933. Strong, A. H. Sidney Lanier: (In his "American Poets and their Theology," p. 369-418). Phil Griffeth and Rowland Press, 1916. Wayland, John Walter. Sidney Lanier at Rockingham Springs: Where and how the "Science of English Verse" was written; a new chapter in American letters. Dayton, Va., Ruebush-Elkins Co.,1912. Westfeldt, G. R . Fifteen Minutes with Sidney Lanier: Gustaf R. Westfeldt, New Orleans, La.
BooKs ABOUT LANIER-IN THE DERENNE (U. oF GA.) LIBRARY
Hubner, Charles William. Representative Southern Poets: N. Y., Neale Publishing Co., 1906.
Lanier Memorial Meeting. Baltimore, 1881. Sidney Lanier. (Pamphlet).
West Charles Nephew. A Brief Sketch of the Life and Writings of Sidney Lanier: An address before the Georgia Historical Society,
(
at Savannah on the 5th of December, 1887. Savannah, Ga., Townsend, printer and binder, 1888.
Gates, Merrill Edwards. Sidney Lanier: A paper by President Merrill E. Gates. Presbyterian Review, v. 117, October, 1887.
Wells, George Stockton. Sidney Lanier; His Life and Writings: Publication of the Southern History Association, v.3, no. 3, July, 1899.
92

BooKs ABOUT LANIER-NOT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GA. LIBRARY
Clark, T. A. Sidney Lanier: Parker Publishing Company. Flournoy, Mrs. Mary H. Sidney Lanier: (In her "Essays: Historical and Critical," p. 89-96). Baltimore, Norman Remington Company, 1928. Lorenz, Lincoln. Life of Sidney Lanier: N. Y., Coward-McCain, 1935. Mayfield, J. S. Sidney Lanier in Texas: R. Ashley, Box 227, S.M. U. Station, Dallas, Texas. Snyder, H. N. Sidney Lanier: Methodist Book Co., 1906. Allen, G. W . Sidney Lanier: (In "American Prosody," p. 277306). American Book Company, 1935. Myers, J. A. Sidney Lanier: (In his "Fighters of Fate," p. 174181.) Williams&Wilkins, 1927. Wood, Clement. Sidney Lanier: Music Weds Poetry: (In his "Poets of America," p. 68-81.) Dutton, 1925. Dewey, T. A. Sidney Lanier: (In his "Poetry in Song," p. 46-73.) Orgain, K. A. Sidney Lanier: (In his "Southern Authors," p9-23.) Stedman, E. C. Eulogy : (In his "Genius and Other Essays," p. 250-253 .) Moffat, 1911. Le Gallienne, Richard. Sidney Lanier: an English appreciation. (In his "Attitudes and Avowals," p. 342-350.) Lane, 1910. Foerster, Norman. Lanier: (In his "Nature in American Literature," p. 221-237.) MacMillan, 1923. Chubb, E. W. Sidney Lanier: (In his "Stories of Authors," p. 344-48.) MacMillan, 1926. Burton, Richard. Life and Literary Genius of Lanier: (In his Literary Leaders of America," p. 296-309.) N. Y. , Chautauqua Press, 1903. Brenner, Rica. Sidney Lanier: (In his "Twelve American Poets Before 1900," p. 296-320.) Harcourt, 1933.
ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIDNEY LANIER
Shepherd, H. E. Character of His Work: Current Lit. V. 32: 108-10. January, 1902.
Mabie, H. W. Estimate. Portrait: Outlook. V. 71: 235-9. May 24, 1902.
Le Gallienne, R. Poetry of Lanier: Living Age. V. 224: 840-3 . March 31, 1900.
93

Clarke, G. H. Early Letters and Reminiscences: Ind. 61: 1092-8. NovemberS, 1906.
Place of Lanier in American Poetry: Por. Current Lit. V. 40: 36-8. January, 1906.
Northrup, M. H. Recollections and Letters: Por. Lippincott, V. 75: 302-15. March, 1905.
Macy, J. American Writer. Spirit of America: Lit. 309-23.
Pickett, L. C. Sunrise Poet: Lippincott, V. 88: 851-8. December, 1911.
Foerster, N. Lanier as a Poet of Nature: Nation, V. 108: 981-3. June 21, 1919.
Bradford, G. Portrait of Sidney Lanier: N. American Rev., V. 211: 805-17. June, 1920.
Thorpe, H. C. Sidney Lanier: A Poet for Musicians: Music Quarterly, V. 11, 373-82. July , 1925.
Starke, A. Agrarians Deny a Leader: American Rev. V. 2 :534-53. March, 1934.
Ransom, J. C. Hearts and Heads: Reply to A. Starke. Amer. Rev. V. 2: 554-71, March, 1934.
Warren, R. P. Blind Poet: Amer. Rev. V. 2: 27-45, November, 1933.
Starke, A. H. Sidney Lanier as a Musician: Bibliog. facsim. Music Quarterly, V. 20: 384-400. October , 1934.
Tate, A. Southern Romantic: New Repub. V. 76: 67-70, August 30, 1933.
Melton, W. F. Poems of Trees: Sidney Lanier Memorial, Vols1., II., III. , IV., V., VI., Curtiss Printing Company, Atlanta, 1932. 1937.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
The following is a partial list of the contents of the Lanier Collection in the Library of Johns Hopkins University. Dr. John C. French, Librarian, says, "I think we have about everything that Lanier is known to have published, and in practically all editions, and an extensive list of critical works that deal with him. There is also a considerable clipping collection.''
94

BooKs BY SIDNEY LANIER

Poems: Philadelphia, London, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1877.

The Science of English verse : New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1880.

- - - 1893.

- - - 1894.

Music and poetry: Essays upon some aspects and inter-relations

of the two arts. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1898.

- - - 1914.

Poem outlines: New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1908.

Poems: E dited by his wife; with a memorial by William Hayes

Ward. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1884.

1885.

1904.

1888.

1905 .

1896.

1915.

1901.

1916.

1920.

The English novel and the principle of its development: New York,

C. Scribner's Sons, 1883.

Shakespeare and his forerunners: Studies in Elizabethan poetry

and its development from early English. New York, Doubleday,

Page & Co ., 1902.

- - - 1908 (Complete in one volume).

Tiger-lilies. A novel: New York, Hurd and Houghton , 1867.

Hymns of the marshes: Illustrated from nature by Henry Troth.

New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1907.

The Lanier book: Selections in prose and verse from the writings

of Sidney Lanier; edited by Mary E. Burt. New York, C. Scrib-

ner's Sons, 1914.

Letters of Sidney L anier: Selections from his correspondence,

1866-1881. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1899.

- - - 1902.

Retrospect and prospects: D escriptive and historical essays. New

York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1899.

Select poems: Edited with an introduction, note and bibliography

by Morgan Callaway. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1895.

- - - 1898.

Selections from his poems: With bibliographical and critical sketch

by Richard Burton. In Warner's Library of the World's best litera-

ture, V. 15: 8891-8902.

Bob; the story of our mocking-bird: New York, C. Scribner's Sons,

1899. New York, 1910.

95

Selections from Sidney Lanier: Prose and verse, with an introduction and notes, edited by Henry W. Lanier. New York, Chicago (etc.) C. Scribner's Sons (cl916).
Malory, Sir Thomas, The boy's King Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory's history of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, edited for boys by Sidney Lanier; illustrated by N. C. Wyeth . New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1933. - - - 1880. - - - 1925.
Froissart, Jean, The boy's Froissart: Being Sir John Froissart's Chronicles of adventure, battle, and custom in England, France, Spain, etc: Edited for boys with an introduction by Sidney Lanier. Illustrated by Alfred Kappes. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1879.
Mabinogion, The boy's Mabinogion: Being the earliest Welch tales of King Arthur in the famous Red book of Hargest. Edited by Sidney Lanier. New York, 1881.
Some highways and byways of American travel: By Edward Strahan (pseud.) Sidney Lanier, Edward A. Pollard, and others. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1878.
Florida: its scenery, climate, and history: With an account of Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, and Aiken, and a chapter for consumptives; being a complete hand-book and guide. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., (c1875). - - - 1876.
BooKs ABOUT LANIER
Mims, Edwin, Sidney Lanier-Baston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1905.
Lorenz, Lincoln, The Life of Sidney Lanier- New York, CowardMcCann, Inc., 1935.
Phelps, William Lyon, Sidney Lanier- Washington, D. C., 1937. Mayfield, JohnS., Sidney Lanier in Texas- With an introductory note by the late George Edward Woodberry. Dallas (Tex.) The Boyd Press, 1932. Reprinted in part from the Southwest Review. Clark, Thomas Arkle, Sidney Lanier- Biography and selections from his writings, written especially for school reading. Taylorville, Ill., 1914. Clark, George Herbert, Some Reminiscences and Early Letters of Sidney Lanier-With an introduction by Harry Stillwell Edwards. Published under the auspices of the Sidney Lanier Chapter of the
96

United Daughters of the Confederacy. Macon, Ga., The J . W. Burke Company, 1907.
Dixon, Amzi Clarence, Sidney Lanier, the Johns Hopkins PoetAn appreciation, by A. C. Dixon. Baltimore, 1925.
Lamar, E. Dorothy (Blount), "Mrs. Walter Douglas Lamar," Sidney Lanier, Musician, Poet, Soldier-Macon, Ga., 1922.
Corner, William, compiler and editor, San Antonio de Bexar- A guide and history, compiled and edited by William Corner. Illustrated. San Antonio, Texas, Bainbridge & Corner, 1890. San Antonio de Bexar, by Sidney Lanier: p. (68)- 94.
Baskerville, William Malone, Sidney Lanier: Nashville, Tenn. (c1896). (His: Southern writers, Biographical and critical studies, nos. 4, 5 and 6.)
Flournoy, Mrs. Mary H., Twin patriots: Washington & Lee: Baltimore, 1929. Contents:-Bacon's rebellion (etc., etc.) Sidney Lanier.
Gates, Merrill Edwards, Sidney Lanier: A paper. (New York, 1887) "From the Presbyterian review for October, 1887."
Smith, Charles Forster, Sidney Lanier as poet: (n. p., 1902) "Reprint from the Methodist review, March-April, 1902."
Snyder, Henry Nelson, Sidney Lanier: New York, Eaton & Mains; Cincinnati, Jennings & Graham, (c1906) (Modern poets and Christian teaching).
Spencer, Thomas Edwin, Sidney Lanier; a study i"n personality an appreciation: Saint Louis, Mo., 1930.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier, a biographical and critical study: Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1933.
United Daughters of the Confederacy; Alabama Division. Sidney Lanier, poet, musician, soldier. (n.p., n.d.) Foreword signed: Mrs. C. W. Daugette, historian, Alabama Division, U. D. C.
Wayland, John Walter, Sidney Lanier at Rockingham Springs: \\There and how the "Science of English verse" was written a new chapter in American letters. Dayton, Va., Ruebush-Elkins Co.,1912.
West, Charles Nephew, A brief sketch of the life and writings of Sidney Lanier: An address delivered before the Georgia Historical Society, at Savannah, on the 5th of December, 1887. Printed for the Society. Savannah, Ga., Townsend, printer and binder, 1888.
Westfeldt, Gustaf R., Fifteen miJJ,utes with Sidney Lanier: A paper read February 10, 1903, on the occasion of unveiling a bust of the poet at Tulane University, New Orleans. (New Orleans, Meade and Sampsell, print 1915) Bibliography: p. (15).
97

Turnbull, Frances Hubbard (Litchfield) "Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull," The Catholic man, a study: Boston, D. Lothrop Company (c1890) . ''The chief character is a study of Sidney Lanier, the poet.''Who'sWhoinAmerica, 1906-1907,p. 1814.
Birss, John Howa rd, A humorous quatrain by Lanier: American Literature 5:270, November, 1933.
(Blanc, Mme. Marie Therese (de Solms)), Un musicien poete, Sidney Lanier: (In : Revue des deux mondes, Paris, 1898. Tome 145: (307) 341).
Cady,FrankW.,SidneyLanier: So.Atl.q.13:156-73. April,1914.
Dunlap, Knight, The problem of adjusting human beings to their social environments: The Johns Hopkins alumni magazine 21: 232. March, 1933.
Fagin, N. Bryllion, Sidney Lanier: Poet of the South: The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine, 20: 232-41. March, 1932.
French, John Calvin, First drafts of Lanier's verse: Modern language notes, 48:27-31. January, 1933.
Garland, Hamlin, Roadside meetings of a literary nomad: Meetings with "Sidney Lanier." The Bookman 70: 403-6. December, 1929.
Gilman, Daniel Coit, Personal recollections of Sidney Lanier: Our continent 1:130. Apri l12, 1882.
Gilman, Daniel Coit, Sidney Lanier: reminiscences and letters: South Atlantic Quarterly, 4 : 115-22. April, 1905 .
Goodnow, Frank J ., Lanier and the University: (An address delivered at the "Sidney Lanier Commemoration" held in the concert hall of the Peabody Institute on the evening of February 4, 1926. The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine 14:482-84. June, 1926.
Greenlaw, Edwin Almiron, A Sidney Lanier professorship at Johns Hopkins: (Baltimore, 1929) "Reprinted from the Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine . .Vol. 17, no. 2, January, 1929."
Hucke!, Oliver, The genius of the modern in Lanier: (An address). The Johns Hopkjns Alumni Magazine, 14 :484-503, June, 1926.
Jackson, Lena E., Sidney Lanier in Florida: In: The Florida Historical Society Quarterly. Tallahassee, Florida, 1936. Vol. 15, no . 2, p. (118-124).
Kuhl, Ernest Peter, Sidney Lanier and Edward Spencer: (Chapel Hill, 1930.) "Reprinted from Studies in Philology, Vol. 27, no. 3, July, 1930."
98

Malone, Kemp, Sidney Lanier: (Baltimore, 1933.) "Reprinted from the Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine, vol. 21, no. 3, March, 1933."
Matthews, Brander, Sidney Lanier on the English novel: (In: The Century, illustrated monthly magazine. New York (etc.) 1884. Vol. 27, p. 957-958.)
Melton, Wightman F., Poems of Trees: Sidney Lanier Memorial, Vols.l., II., III., IV., V., VI., 1932-1937.
Rede, Kenneth, Lanier's "Owl against Robin": American collector 3:27-30,0ctober, 1926.
Reese, Lizette Woodworth, The spirituality of Lanier: (An address). The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine 14: 482-84, June, 1926.
Snoddy, James S., Color and motion in Sidney Lanier: Poet-lore o. s. 12:558-70. October-December, 1900.
Snoddy, James S., Sidney Lanier: the poet of "Sunrise": Poet-lore o. s. 15: 89-94. Winter no., 1934.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier and Paul Hamilton Hayne: Three unpublished letters. American Literature 1:32-9, March, 1929.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier as a musician: The Musical Quarterly 20: 384-400, October, 1934.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, An uncollected sonnet by Sidney Lanier: American Literature 7:460-63. January, 1936.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, William Dean Howells and Sidney Lanier: American Literature 3: 79-82. March, 1931.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier: man of science in the field of letters: The American Scholar 2:389-97. October, 1933.
Thorpe, Harry Colin, Sidney Lanier, a poet for musicians: Musical Quarterly 11:373-82. July, 1925.
United Daughters of the Confederacy: A brief addressed to the electors of the Hall of Fame, New York University, N.Y., in behalf of Sidney Lanier, poet and musician, by the United Daughters of the Confederacy of thirty-eight states; edited by Mrs. Walter D. Lamar. Macon, Ga., 1935.
Ward, William Hayes, Sidney Lanier, poet: (In: The Century, illustrated monthly magazine. New York (etc.) 1884. Vol. 27, p. (816)-821.port.) .
White, Edward Lucas, Reminiscences of Sidney Lanier: The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine 17 : 329-31. June, 1929.
99

Wills, George Stockton, Sidney Lanier-his life and writings: (In: Southern History Association. Publications, Washington, D. C., 1899. Vol. 3, p. (190)-211). Bibliography: p. 194-211.
Woolf, Winfield P., The poetry of Sidney Lanier: Sewanee Review 10:325-340. July, 1902.
Lanier, James Franklin Doughty, Sketch of the life of J. F. D. Lanier: (Printed for the use of his family only.) 2d edition. (New York,1877). Appendix: Letter from Sidney Lanier containing a short genealogy ofthe Lanierfamily: p. 75-87.
Beeson, Mrs. Leola (Selman), Sidney Lanier at Oglethorpe University: Introduction by Mrs. John W. Daniel. Macon, Ga., The
J. W. Burke Company , 1936.
Carroll, Charles Chauncey, The synthesis and an analysis of the poetry of Sidney Lanier: (Owensboro, Ky., Messenger Job Printing Co., c1910.)
Johns Hopkins University, Sidney Lanier: (Baltimore, 1881.) "(Proceedings of) a meeting of the trustees, faculty, and other members of the Johns Hopkins University. . .held in Hopkins Hall on October 22, 1881. . . "
Johns Hopkins University, The forty-sixth birthday of Sidney Lanier: 1842-February 3-1888. Baltimore, 1888. Bibliography by Richard E. Burton: p. (53)-56.
Woolf, Winfield P., Sidney Lanier as revealed in his letters: ~cw2ne Review8:346-64. July, 1900.
SPECIAL ARTICLES ON LANIER POEMS
A Song of Love: (In: The ~entury, illustrated monthly magazine. NewYork(etc.),1884. Vol.27:559.)
Psalm of the West: (In: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science. Philadelphia, 1876. Vol. 18:39-53.
An Ode to the Johns Hopkins University: (With: Gilman, D.C. The Johns Hopkins University. From J. H. Y. Circular, April, 1880.)
My Springs: (In: The Century, illustrated monthly magazine. New York (etc.), 1882. Vol. 24: 838-839.)
How Love Looked for Hell: (In: The Century, illustrated monthly magazine. New York (etc.), 1884. Vol. 27: (733)-734.)
100

WASHINGTON MEMORIAL LIBRARY MACON, GEORGIA
Sidney Lanier, 1842-1881
BooKs BY LANIER
Bob: the story of our mocking-bird: Illustrated in color. Scribner, 1889.
Boy's Froissart: Edited for boys with an introduction. Scribner, 1879.
The Lanier Book: Selections in prose and verse from the writings of Sidney Lanier. Scribner, 1904.
The English Novel: And the principle of its development. Scribner, 1883.
Florida; its scenery, climate, and history: With an account of Charleston, Savannah, Augusta, and Aiken; a chapter for consumptives; various papers on fruit culture; and a complete hand-book and guide; with numerous illustrations. Lippincott, 1876.
The Homestead: Page taken from the Southern Farm and Home, dated August 1871. Not included in the collection of Lanier's poems.
Letters of Sidn,ey Lanier: 1842-1881-Selections from his correspondence, 1866-1881. Scribner, 1899.
Poem Outlines: 1842-1881-By Sidney Lanier. Scribner, 1908. Poems: Edited by his wife, with a memorial by William Hayes Ward. Scribner, 1923. Retrospects and Prospects: 1842-1881- Descriptive and historical essays, by Sidney Lanier. Scribner, 1899. Science of English Verse: Scribner, 1908. Selections from Sidney Lanier: Prose and verse with an introduction and notes by Henry W. Lanier. Scribner, 1916. Tiger-lilies: Hurd, 1867.
ABOUT LANIER
Sidney Lanier: Clippings from the Asheville, N.C., Citizen, August 16, 1926.
Bernd, Aaron Blum; Sidney Lanier: By Coleman Hill, pseud. (Bound with Bickers, D. G., Sidney Lanier, poems. Clippings from the Macon Telegraph, February 3, 1926.)
Berryman, Mrs. Annie Lowry, Sidney Lanier's Anniversary: (Clippings from the Macon Telegraph.)
101

Boifeuillet, John T ., Sidney Lanier for Hall of Fame: (Clippings from The Atlanta Journal.)
Browne, William Hand, Sidney Lanier: A biographical sketch read before the Trustees, Faculty, and other members of Johns Hopkins University on October 22, 1881. Johns Hopkins University, 1881.
Bound with Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier and Paul Hamilton Hayne: Three unpublished letters reprinted from American Literature, March, 1929.
Clarke, George Herbert, Some reminiscences and early letters of Sidney Lanier: By George Herbert Clarke, with an introduction by Harry Stillwell Edwards. Published under the auspices of the Sidney Lanier Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Macon, Georgia, The J . W. Burke Co., 1907.
Ellis, Theodore W., Captain Sidney Lanier: A Christmas idyll for boys. (Clippings).
Clarke, Thomas Arkle, Sidney Lanier: Biography and selections from his writings; written especially for school reading. Parker, n. d. il.
A Festival program to honor Sidney Lanier: (1842-1881) - 0n the afternoon of Sunday, August 15 , 1926, at four o'.clock in Calvary Episcopal Church, Fletcher, N.C.
Horder, William Garrett, Sidney Lanier and his poetry: The Quarto, 1896.
The Johns Hopkins University, Sidney Lanier Commemoration: Sidney Lanier, February 3, 1842-September 7, 1881. Lecturer in English Literature, 1879-1881. February 4,' 1926, exercises held in the fiftieth academic year, to commemorate the poet and his association with the University. In the coricert hall of the Peabody Institute at 8 P.M.
Karsten, E . Pickard, Sketches of Sidney Lanier: (Clippings from Macon News, 1926.)
Lamar, Eugenia Dorothy Blount, (Mrs. Walter D.), Sidne')' Lanier: Musician, poet, soldier: Burke Co., 1922.
Lamar, Eugenia Dorothy Blount, editor (Mrs. Walter D. Lamar). A brief address to the Electors of the Hall of Fame-in behalf of Sidney Lanier, Poet and Musician, by the U. D. C. of thirty-eight states. Macon, Ga., 1935.
Beeson, Leola ~elman, Sidney Lanier at Oglethorpe University: J. W. Burke Co., Macon, Georgia, 1936.
102

Lorenz, Lincoln, The life of Sidney Lanier: Coward-McCann, 1935. Macy, John, Spirit of American Literature: Boni, c1913, p.309-323. Mayfield, JohnS., Sidney Lanier in Texas: Boyd, c1932. Mims, Edwin, 1872, Sidney Lanier: Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1905. Painter, Franklin Verzelius Newton, Poets of the South: A series of biographical and critical studies with typical poems, annotated. American Book Co., 1903. Pickett, LaSalle Corbell, "Mrs. G. E. Pickett," 1848, Literary hearthstones of Dixie: By LaSalle Corbell Pickett. Philadelphia and London, Lippincott, 1912 . Reese, Lizette Woodworth, The spirituality of Sidney Lanier. Scott, W. J., Lectures and essays: Constitution Pub. Co., 1889, p . 7-30. Short, J. Saulsbury, Sidney Lanier at Johns Hopkins : In Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine, November, 1916. The association, 1916, p. 7-24. Starke, Aubrey Harrison, William Dean Howells and Sidney Lanier: Lanier. (Reprinted from American Literature, Vol. III. , no. 1, March 1931.) Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier; a biographical and critical study: Univ. of N.C. Press, c1933. Starke, Aubrey, Sidney Lanier- Walt Whitman: In The American Scholar, October, 1933 . Ward, William Hayes in Poems of Sidney Lanier: Scribner, 1923. West, Charles N., Brief sketch of the life and writings of Sidney Lanier: Georgia Historical Society, 1888. Wills, GeorgeS., Sidney Lanier: In the publication of The Southern History Association, July, 1899. The Association, 1899, p. 190-211.
EMORY UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
BooKs BY LANIER
(Only first editions of separate publications are listed.)
Bob: the story of our mocking-bird: With 16 illustrations in color. C. Scribner's Sons, 1899.
103

A commencement address: (Before the Furlow Masonic Female College, delivered June 30, 1869) reprinted from American Literature, January, 1931.
The English novel: A study in the development of personality. N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1883.
Florida: its scenery, climate, and history: A complete handbook and guide. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1876.
Letters: selected from his correspondence: 1866-1881. N . Y., Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1899.
Music and Poetry: Essays upon some aspects and inter-relations of the two arts. N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, (c1898).
Poem outlines: N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1908.
Poems: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott; 1877.
Poems of: Edited by his wife, with a memorial by Wm. Hayes Ward. N. Y., Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1884.
Retrospects and prospects: Descriptive and historical essays. N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1899.
Science of English verse, The: N. Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1880.
Select poems of: Edited with an introduction, notes, and bibliography by Morgan Callaway, N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1895.
Selections from: Prose and verse, with an introduction and notes, edited by Henry W. Lanier, N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, (c1916).
Shakespeare and his forerunners: Studies in Eli;mbethan poetry and its development from early English. N. Y., Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902.
Tiger-lilies: A novel, N.Y., Hurd and Houghton, 1867.

As EmToR:

The boy's Froissart: Edited, with an introduction by Sidney Lanier. N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1879.

The boy's King Arthur: Edited, with an introduction by Sidney

Lanier. N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1880.



The boy's Percy: Edited, with an introduction by Sidney Lanier. N.Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1882.

The boy's Mabinogion: Edited, with an introduction by Sidney Lanier.N. Y., C. Scribner's Sons, 1881.

104

BooKs ABOUT LANIER:
Lorenz, Lincoln, The life of Sidney Lanier: N.Y ., Coward-McCann, 1935.
Mims, Edwin, Sidney Lanier: Boston, Houghton, 1905. Snyder, Henry Nelson, Sidney Lanier: N. Y., Eaton & Mains; Cincinnati,]ennings & Graham (c1906) . Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier, a biographica l and critical study: Chapel Hill, The Univ. of N . C. Press, 1933.

PAMPHLETS ABOUT LANIER:
Clarke, Geo. Herbert, Some reminiscences and early letters of Sidney Lanier: With an introduction by Harry Stillwell Edwards; Macon,]. W. Burke Co., 1907.
Wayland, John Walker, Sidney Lanier at Rockingham Springs: Where and how the "Science of English Verse" was written. Dayton, Va., Ruebush , Elkins Co., 1912.

SKETCHES OF LANIER IN:

Baskervill, Wm. Malone, Southern writers: biographical and critical studies: Nashville, 1898.

Bradford, Gamaliel, American portraits: 1875-1900, Boston, Houghton, 1922.
Burton, Richard, Literary leaders of America: N. Y., Chautauqua Press, 1903.
Macy, John, The spirit of American literature: Garden City, Doubleday, Page, 1913.

Macy, John A., editor, American writers on American literature: N.Y., Liveright, (c1931).

Pickett, LaSalle Corbell, Literary hearthstones of Dixie: delphia, Lippincott, 1912.
Scott, Wm.J.,Lecturesandessays: Atlanta, 1889.

Phila-

Smith, Chas. Foster, Reminiscences and sketches: Nashville, 1908. Tolman, Albert H., The views about Hamlet and other essays: Boston, Houghton, 1904.

PERIODICAL ARTICLES ABOUT LANIER
Bradford, Gamaliel, Portrait of Sidney Lanier: North American Review, Vol. 211, 807-17, June, 1920.
105

,

Cady, Frank W., Sidney Lanier: South Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, p. 156-173, (April, 1914).

Clarke, Geo. Herbert, Some early letters and reminiscences of Sidney Lanier: Independent, 61: 1092-98, November 8, 1906.

Fagin, Bryllion, Sidney Lanier: poet of the South: Poet Lore, v . 43, p.161-168, (1936).

French, John C., First drafts of Lanier's verse : Modern Language Notes, v. 48, p. 27-31, January, 1933.

Furst, Clyde, Concerning Sidney Lanier: Modern Language Notes, v.14, p. 197-205, November, 1899.

Gilman, D. C., Pleasant incidents of an academic life: Scribner's Magazine, v. 31, p. 614-24, May, 1902.

Gilman, D. C., Sidney Lanier: reminiscences and letters: South Atlantic Quarterly, v. 4, p. 115-22, April, 1905.

Graham, Phillip, Lanier and science: American Literature, v. 4, p. 288-292, November, 1932.

Harman, Henry E., A study of Sidney Lanier's "The Symphony": South Atlantic Quarterly, v.17, p.32-39, January, 1918.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Sidney Lanier: Chautauqua, v. 7, p. 416-418, April, 1887.

Kaufman, Matthias S., Sidney Lanier, poet laureate of the South: Methodist Review, v. 82, p. 94-107, January, 1900 (Theology Library).

Kent, Chas. W ., A Study of Lanier's poems: Modern Language Association of America, Publications, v. 7, p . 33-63, 1892.

Kuhl, Ernest Peter, Sidney Lanier and Edward Spencer: Studies in

Philology , v . 27, p. 462-476, July, 1930.

1:'

Lanier, Clifford, Reminiscences of Sidney Lanier: Chautauqua,

v. 21, p. 403-409, July, 1895.

Lanier, Sidney, In a poet's workshop: poem outlines: Century Magazine, v. 76, p. 847-850, October, 1908.

Poet's musical impressions: From the letters of Sidney Lanier, Scribner's Magazine, v. 25, p. 622-633, May 1899; v. 25, p. 745-752, June, 1899.

Scott, W. J ., Life and genius of Sidney Lanier: Methodist Review, Louisville, n. s.; p. 157-71, October, 1888.

Starke, Aubrey, The Agrarians deny a leader: American Review, v. 2, p. 534-53, March, 1934.

106

Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier and Paul Hamilton Hayne: American Literature, v.l., p.32-39, March, 1929.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Lanier's appreciation of Whitman: American Scholar, v. 2, p. 398-408, October, 1933.
Starke, Aubrey H., Sidney Lanier as a musician: Musical Quarterly, v. 20, p. 384-400, October, 1934.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier: man of science in the field of letters: American Scholar, v. 2, p. 389-397, October, 1933.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, An uncollected sonnet by Sidney Lanier: American Literature, v. 7, p. 460-463, January, 1936.
Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Wm. Dean Howells and Sidney Lanier: American Literature, v. 3, p . 79-82, March, 1931.
Shepherd, Henry E., Sidney Lanier: Current Literature, v . 32, p. 108-10, January, 1902.
Thorpe, Harry Colin, Sidney Lanier: a poet for musicians: Musical Quarterly, v.ll, p. 373-382, July, 1925.
Varnedoe, J. C., Sidney Lanier: an appreciation : Georgia Historical Quarterly, v. 2, p. 139-144, September, 1918.
Warren, Robert Penn, The blind poet: Sidney Lanier: American Review, v. 2, p. 27-45, November, 1933.
Woolf, W. P., Sidney Lanier as revealed in his letters: Sewanee Review, v. 8, p. 346-364, July, 1900.
MERCER UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
WORKS BY LANIER:
The English novel: N.Y., Scribner, 1897. Letters of Sidney Lanier: Selections f.rom his correspondence, 18661881. N.Y., Charles Scribner, 1911. Music and poetry: Essays. New York, Charles Scribner, 1898. Poems of Sidney Lanier: Edited by his wife. New York, Scribner, 1926. Poems of Sidney Lanier: Edited by his wife. New York, Scribner, 1929. Selections from Sidney Lanier: Prose and verse. Edited by Henry W.Lanier. N. Y.,Scribner, 1916. Science of English verse: N. Y., Scribner, 1880.
107

WORKS ABOUT LANIER:
Clarke, George W., Some reminiscences and early letters of Lanier: Macon, J. W. Burke Co., 1907. (2 copies).
Mims, Edwin, Sidney Lanier: Boston, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1905. (2 copies).
Snyder, Henry Nelson, Modern poets and christian teaching-Sidney Lanier: N.Y., Eaton and Mains, 1906.
WoRKs CoNcERNING LANIER:
Burton, Richard, Sidney Lanier: (In Warner's Library of World's Best Literature, v. 15, pp . 8891. N.Y., E. S. Peale and J. A. Hill, , 1897).
Cairns, William B., History of American literature: New York, Oxford University Press, 1930.
Calverton, V. F., Liberation of American literature: New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Contemporaries: Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1899.
Kreymborg, Alfred, History of American poetry- our singing strength: New York, Tudor, 1934.
Manly, Louise, Southern literature from 1579-1895: Richmond, Johnson Pub. Co., 1895 .
Miles, Dudley, The new south-Lanier: (In Cambridge History of American Literature, v. 2, pp... , New York, Putnams, 1918.)
Mims, Edwin and Payne, Bruce R., Southern prose and poetry for schools: New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910.
Pattee, Fred Lewis, History of American literature since 1870: New York, Century, 1915.
Simons, Sarah E., American literature through illustrative readings: New York, CharlesScribner'sSons, 1915.
Snyder, Henry Nelson, Lanier, Sidney: (In Library of Southern Literature, v. 7, pp. 3041-3077. Atlanta, Ga., Martin and Hoyt v Co., 1909.)
Stedman, Edmund Clarence and Hutchinson, Ellen McKay, Library of American literature: V. 10, pp. 145. New York, William E. Benjamin, 1889.
Trent, William P., Brief history of American literature: New York, Appleton, 1909.
108

Trent, William P. and Erskine, John, Great American writers: New York, Henry Holt, 1912.
Wendell, Barrett, Literary history of America: New York, Charles Scribner, 1901.
Wendell, Barrett and Grennough, Chester N., History of literary America: New York, Charles Scribner, 1907 .
Young, Stark, editor, Southern treasury of life and literature: New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937.
Mayfield, JohnS., Sidney Lanier in Texas: Dallas, The Boyd Press, 1932. (2p.)paper.
PERIODICALS:
Clarke, G. H., Early letters and reminiscences: (Independent 61:1092-8, N 8'06).
Foerster, N., Lanier as a poet of nature: (Nation 108 :981-3, J e 21'19).
Garland, Hamlin, Roadside meetings of a literary nomad: (Bookman 70:403-6, D'29) .
In a poet's work shop: (Century 76:847-50 0'08). Lamar, E. D . B., Nominating Sidney Lanier for the Hall of Fame: Saturday Review of Literature 12:9, Ag31'35). Lanier, H . W., Correspondence between Lanier and Bayard Taylor: (Atlantic83:791; 84:127). A poet's musical impressions, from his letters: (Scribner 25 :662-745). Tate, Allen, Southern romantic: (New Republic 76:67-70, Ag30'33). Texas trail in the '70's: (Outlook 105:582-5, N 15'13) . Starke, H., Southern romantic- a reply: (New Republic 76:337-8, N 1'33) . Voight, G. P., Sidney Lanier: (Saturday Review of Literature 13:9, Ap 4'36).
WESLEYAN COLLEGE
CANDLER M EMORIAL LIBRARY
BooKs BY LANIER
Boys' Froissart: Scribner, 1878. Boys' King Arthur: Scribner, 1880. Boys' Percy: Scribner, 1882.
109

Boys' Mabinogion: Scribner, 1881. The English novel: Scribner, 1883. Florida: Lippincott, 1876. Tiger Lilies: Houghton, 1867. The science of English verse: Scribner, 1880. Poems: Edited by his wife. Scribner, 1884. Poems: Lippincott, 1877. Select poems: Edited by Morgan Callaway. Scribner, c1895.
BooKs ABOUT LANIER
Beeson, Leola Selman, Sidney Lanier at Oglethorpe University: Burke, 1936.
Brenner, Rica, Twelve American poets since 1900: Harcourt, c1933~ Clarke, George Herbert, Some reminiscences and early letters of Sidney Lanier. Lanier, Clifford, Sonnets to Sidney Lanier: Huebsch, 1915. Lorenz, Lincoln, Life of Sidney Lanier: Coward~McCann, 1935. Mims, Edwin, Sidney Lanier: Houghton, 1905 . Painter, F. V. N., Poets of the South: American Book Co., 1903.
Scherer, J. A. B., The Holy Grail: Lippincott, 1906.
Snyder, Henry N., Sidney Lanier: Eaton & Mains, 1906. Starke, Aubrey H., Sidney Lanier: University of North Carolina. 1933.
Wayland, J. W., Sidney Lanier at Rockingham Springs: Ruebush-
Elkins, 1912. West, C. N ., Brief sketch of the .life and writings of Sidney Lanier:
Townsend, 1886. Parks, Edd Winfield, Southern poets, representative selections:
American Book Company, c1936.
OGLETHORPE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BooKs BY LANIER
Florida; its scenery, climate and history: Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1876.
110

The Lanier Book: Selections edited by Mary E. Burt. N. Y., Scribner, 1904.
Poems: Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1877. Poems of Sidney Lanier: Edited by his wife with a memorial by W. H. Ward. N .Y., Scribner, 1915 . The science of English verse: N.Y., Scribner, 1880.
BOOKS ABOUT LANIER
Beeson, L. S., Sidney Lanier at Oglethorpe University: Macon, Ga., Burke, 1~36.
Lorenz, L., The life of Sidney Lanier: N. Y., Coward, 1935. McCaskill, A. S., The Philosophy of Sidney Lanier as Shown in His Poetry: Thesis forM. A. Degree. Oglethorpe University, 1936. Starke, A. H., Sidney Lanier: University of _North Carolina Press, 1933. Wayland, J. W., Sidney Lanier at Rockingham Springs: Dayton, Va., Ruebush-Elkins, 1912.
PERIODICAL ARTICLES
Portrait of Sidney Lanier: G. Bradford, North American Review 2: 805-17, June, 1920.
Lanier As a Poet of Nature: N. Foerster, Nation 108: 981 -83, June 21, 1919.
Agrarian's Deny a Leader: A. Starke, American R eview 2:534-53, March, 1934.
Hearts and Heads: Reply to Starke, J. C. Ransom. American Review 2:554-71, March, l934.
Blind Poet: R. P. Warren, American Review 2-27-45, November, 1933.
Southern Romantic: N ew Republic 76:67-70, August 30, 1933. Nominating Sidney Lanier for the Hall of Fame : E. D. B. Lamar, Saturday Review of Literature 12:9, August, 1935 . Sidney Lanier: G. P. Voight, Saturday R eview of Literature 13:9, April 4, 1936.
111

GEORGIA SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY LIBRARY BooKs BY LANIER
Poems: Edited by his wife, with a memorial by William H. Ward. N. Y.,Scribner, 1900.
The Lanier Book: Selections in prose and verse, edited by MaryS. Burt. N.Y., Scribner, 1904.
Science of English verse: N. Y., Scribner, 1898. Select poems: Edited with an introduction, notes and bibliography by Morgan Callaway. N. Y., Scribner, c1895. Selections from Sidney Lanier: Prose and verse with an introduction and notes edited by Henry W. Lanier. N. Y., Scribner, 1916. Shakespeare and his forerunners: Studies in Elizabethan poetry and its development from the early English. N.Y., Doubleday, 1908. Malory, Sir Thomas, The Boy's King Arthur: Edited with an introduction by Sidney Lanier. N . Y., Scribner, 1903.
BooKs ABOUT LANIER
Johns Hopkins University, Forty-sixth birthday of Sidney Lanier: 1842-February 3, 1888. Baltimore, 1888.
Mimms, Edwin, Sidney Lanier: Boston, Houghton, 1905.
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE LIBRARY BooKs BY LANIER
The English novel: A study in the development of personality. Rev. ed. New York, C. Scribner, 1897.
Letters of Sidney Lanier: Selections from his correspondence, 1866-1881. New York, C. Scribner, 1899.
Poems of Sidney Lanier: Edited by his wife; with a memorial by William Hayes Ward. New edition, New York, C. Scribner, 1906.
The Science of English Verse: New York, C. Scribner, 1911.
BooKs ABOUT LANIER Lorenz, Lincoln, The life of Sidney Lanier: New York, CowardMe Cain, 1935. Mims, Edwin, Sidney Lanier: Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin, 1905.
112

Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier, a biographical and critical study: Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1933.
PARTS OF BOOKS ABOUT LANIER
I
Baskervill, William Malone, Southern writers: biographical and critical studies: Volume 1, Nashville, Tenn., Publishing House of M. E. Church, South, 1897. P. 137-298.
Fagin, Nathan Bryllion, Sidney Lanier: Poet of the South: (In the Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine. V. 20, no. 3, Baltimore, Md., 1932, p. 232-241).
Macy, John Albert, ed., American writers on American literature: By thirtyoseven contemporary writers, edited by John Macy. New York, H. Liveright, c1931 , p. 327-341.
Painter, Franklin Verzelius Newton, Poets of the South: A series of biographical and critical studies with typical poems. New York, etc., American Book Co., c1903, p. 81-101.
CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF ATLANTA
BooKs BY LANIER
Bob: the story of our mocking-bird. 1899. The English novel and its development. 1883. Florida. 1876. The Lanier book. 1904. Letters, selections. 1899. Music and poetry. 1898. Poem outlines, by Sidney Lanier. 1908. Poems: Edited by his wife. 1900. Retrospects and prospects. 1899. Science of English 21erse. 1880. Selections, prose and verse. (c1916). Shakespeare and his forerunner s. 1908. Tiger Lilies. 1867. Sidney Lanier.
113

BooKs ABOUT LANIER
Beeson, Mrs. Leola (Selman), Sidney Lanier at Oglethorpe University. 1936.
Bradford, Gamaliel, American portraits, 1875-1900. 1922. Clarke, George Herbert, Some reminiscences ,and early letters of SidneyLanier. 1907. Sidney Lanier, Letters. 1899. Lorenz, Lincoln, The Life of Sidney Lanier. 1935.
Mayfield, J. S., Sidney Lanier in Texas. 1932.
Mims, Edwin, Sidney Lanier. 1905. Starke, Aubrey Harrison, Sidney Lanier, a biographical and critical study. 1933. Strong, A. H., American poets and their theology. (c.1916). Wayland, John W alter, Sidney Lanier at Rock.ingham Springs. 1912. Williams,S. T.,Lanier . (c.1931). Woolf, W. P., Sidney Lanier as revealed in his letters. n. d. Brenner, Rica. Twelve American poets before 1900. (c.1933).
GEORGIA STATE LIBRARY BooKs BY LANIER
Bob: the story of our mocking bird: Scribner, N . Y., 1899. Boy's Froissart: Scribner, N.Y., 1897. The Boy's King Arthur: Scribner, N.Y., 1898. The Boy's Percy: Scribner, N.Y., 1898. The English Novel: A study in the development of personality, Scribner, N.Y., 1907. Florida: its scenery, climate and history: Lippincott, N. Y., 1875. Knightly Legends: Scribner, N. Y., 1897. Letters, 1866-1881: Scribner, N. Y., 1899. Music and Poetry: Essays upon some aspects and inter-relations of the two arts, Scribner, N.Y., 1898. Poems: Lippincott, Phi ladelphia, 1898. Retrospects and Prospects: Scribner, N. Y., 1899. Selected Poems : Edited by Morgan Callaway, Scribner. N. Y., 1898.
114

The Science of English Verse: Scribner, N. Y., 1898. Tiger Lilies: Hurd and Houghton, N.Y., 1867.
BooKs ABOUT LANIER
Sidney Lanier at Oglethorpe: Leola Beeson, Burke, Macon, Ga., 1936.
Some Reminiscences and Early Letters of Sidney Lanier: George Herbert Clarke, Burke, Macon, Ga., 1907.
The Life of Sidney Lanier: Lincoln Lorenz, Coward-McCann, N.Y., 1935.
Sidney Lanier: Edwin Mims, Houghton, Mifflin Company, Boston, 1905.
Sidney Lanier: W. J. Scott, Constitution Pub. Co., Atlanta, 1889.
Sidney Lanier: Aubrey Harrison Starke, Univ. of N.C. Press, 1933. A Brief Sketch of Life and Writings of Sidney Lanier: C. N. West, Townsend, Savannah, Ga., 1888.
LANIER PUBLICATIONS
(Charles Scribner's Sons)
LANIER, SIDNEY
Poems: Edited by his wife, with a Memorial by William Hayes Ward. With portrait. (Scribner Series of Modern Poets.)
The Science of English verse. The Lanier Book: Selections for School Reading. Edited and arranged by Mary E. Burt, in cooperation with Mrs. Lanier. Illustrated (Scribner Series of School Reading.) The Boy's King Arthur: Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth. The Same. School Edition. The Boy's Froissart: Illustrated by Alfred Kappes. The Boy's King Arthur: Illustrated by Alfred Kappes. Knightly Legends of Wales; or, The Boy's Mabinogion: Illustrated. By Alfred Fredericks. The Boy's Percy: Illustrated. By E. B. Bensell. Selections from Sidney Lanier: Verse and Prose. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Henry W. Lanier. (Scribner English Texts). Lanier, Henry W., The Book of Bravery. Illustrated.
115

CHRONOLOGY OF SIDNEY LANIER
Born, February 3, 1842, Macon, Georgia. Christened, March 12, 1844, Griffin, Georgia. Attended public schools, 1848-1856, Macon, Georgia. Entered Oglethorpe College, 1856. Enlisted in Confederate Army, April, 1861. Prisoner in Point Lookout, five months of 1864. Released from Point Lookout, February, 1865. Two months of summer, 1865, at Point Clear on Mobile Bay. December, 1865, to January, 1868, hotel clerk and pipe-organist,
Montgomery, Alabama. September, 1867, to January, 1868, principal, Prattville (Alabama)
Academy. Married to Mary Day, December, 1867, in Macon, Georgia. January, 1868, to December, 1872, worked in his father's law office,
Macon, Georgia. December, 1872, to April, 1873, in San Antonio, Texas. December, 1873, went to Baltimore, Maryland . Two months of summer, 1874, in Sunnyside, Spalding County,
Georgia. Summer, 1876, family joined him at West Chester, Pennsylvania. Winter, 1876, in Florida. Summer, 1877, at Chad's Ford, Pennsylvania. October, 1877, family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. Appointed Lecturer in Johns H,opkins University, F, jruary 3, 1879. Summer, 1879, in Rockingham County. Virginia. Summer, 1880, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Winter, 1880, at home in Baltimore. Summer, 1881, at Lynn, Polk County, North Carolina, where the
end came, September 7th. Buried in Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore.
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CURRICULU LABORATORY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

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