ELECTIONS 
 
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 LAN 
 
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 VERSE AND PROSE 
 
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Henrg M. Sage 
 
 1S91 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 PS 2202.L28 1916 
 
 Selections from Sidney Lanler.prose and 
 
 3 1924 022 155 521 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022155521 
 
SELECTIONS 
 FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
BOOKS BY SIDNEY LANIER 
 Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Foenu. Edited by his Wife, with a Memo- 
 rial by WILLIAM HAYES WARD. With 
 poitralL l2mo net $2.00 
 
 Select Poems of SldneT Lanier. 
 
 Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, 
 by Prop, morgan Callaway, Jr., 
 University of Texas. 12nio . . net $1.00 
 
 Hymns of the Marshes. With 12 full- 
 pa^e Illustrations, photogravure frontis- 
 piece, and head and tali pieces. Svo net $2.00 
 
 Bob. The Story of Our Mocking Bird. 
 With 16 full-page Illustrations in colors 
 Arom photographs by A. R. DUGMORE. 
 12mo net p).16 
 
 Letters of Sldner Lanier. Selections 
 from his Correspondence, 1860-1881. With 
 two portraits in photogravure. 12ii)o net $2.00 
 
 Retrospects and Prospects. Descrip- 
 tive and Historical Essays. 12mo . net fl-SO 
 
 Muslo and Poetry. A Volume of Es- 
 says. 12mo n€t 11.60 
 
 The Ensrllsh Novel. A Study In the De- 
 velopment of Personality, Crown Svo net $2.00 
 
 The Science of English Verse. Crown 
 
 8vo net $2.00 
 
 The Lanier Book. Selections for 
 School Reading. Edited and arranged 
 by Mary E. Burt, in co-operation with 
 Mrs. Lanier. Illustrated. (Scribner 
 Series of School Reading.) 12mo . net $0.50 
 
 Selections from Sidney Lanier. Prose 
 
 and Verse for Use in Schools, 12mo net $0.50 
 
 BOY'S LIBRARY OF LEGEND AND 
 CHIVALRY 
 The Bor*8 Frolssart. Illustrated. Al* 
 
 FRBD KapPBS net $1.80 
 
 The Bo7> King* Arthur. Illustrated 
 
 net $1,80 
 Knlffhtly Lesrends of Wales ; or, The 
 
 Boy's Mabinoglon. Illustrated . net $1.80 
 
 The Boy*s Percy. Illustrated . net $i.80 
 
SELECTIONS 
 FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 PROSE AND VERSE 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HENRY W. LANIER 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 NEW TORK CHICAGO BOSTON 
 
 E.V. 
 
K^s^^t? 
 
 COPTRIQHT, 1916, BT 
 
 CHARLES SORIBNER'S SONS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 POEMS 
 
 The Touenament 1 
 
 Life and Song 6 
 
 Song for "The Jacquekie," I 6 
 
 Song for "The Jacquerie,'' II 7 
 
 Thar's More in the Man than Thar Is in the 
 
 Land 8 
 
 The Power of Prater 10 
 
 The Symphony 15 
 
 The Discovert 27 
 
 Evening Song 32- 
 
 Song op the Chattahoochee 32 
 
 The Mocking-Bird 34 
 
 Tampa Robins 35 
 
 The Revenge of Hamish 36 
 
 A Song of the Future 42 
 
 / The Maeshes of Glynn 43 
 
 How Love Looked for Hell 49 
 
 Marsh Song — at Sunset 53 
 
 Owl Against Robin 53 
 
 V 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 PASB 
 
 A Song of Love 56 
 
 ^ A Ballad of Teees and the Mastek .... 56 
 
 ^ Mabsh Hymns 57 
 
 Control 57 
 
 SUNKISB 68 
 
 POEM OUTLINES 67 
 
 PROSE 
 
 The War-Flower 70 
 
 The Charge of Cain Smallin 76 
 
 The Ocklawaha River 90 
 
 The Tragedy of the Aiamo 107 
 
 The Story of a Proverb 117 
 
 The Legend of St. Leonor 126 
 
 Bob: The Story of Our Mocking-Bird . . . 129 
 
 An English Hero of a Thousand Years Ago . 142 
 
 The Story of Silas Marnek 151 
 
 NOTES 157 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE LIFE OF LANIER 
 
 I. BOYHOOD— COLLEGE DAYS 
 
 1842-1860 
 
 A FEW years before the Civil War 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 flashed 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-roimd 
 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, hunt- 
 ing doves, snipe, and rabbits; but every now and 
 then he liked to get off alone on a fishing trip, fre- 
 quently 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 he brought also pictures 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 imi- 
 tate 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 faith- 
 fully 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' com- 
 pany 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 years after it hap- 
 pened, a boyhood friend told of his wonder at the 
 way in which Sidney, then just a little fellow, 
 stood the pain of an accident, when a window fell 
 on his finger and took the end right off; and in the 
 only fight his school fellows remember — a formal 
 challenge to meet and settle matters in the alley 
 after school — the other fellow, finding himself get- 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 ting the worst of it, pulled out a big barlow knife: 
 the circle of watchers were too much awed to do 
 anything at first; but on seeing Sidney rush for- 
 ward as determinedly as ever and tackle his oppo- 
 nent 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 a native musical ability. Before 
 he was six he would rattle a rhythmical accompani- 
 ment 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 practise by the hour on this. His 
 mother taught him the notes on the piano, and he 
 promptly passed on this new knowledge to 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 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 knowl- 
 edge (much fostered by contact with James Wood- 
 row, 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 of Darwin 
 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, Cole- 
 ridge, Tennyson, and the other great poets, and be- 
 ginning on quiet walks in the woods to try to ex- 
 press 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 and whimsicalities and 
 conceits of Montaigne, Burton, Don Quixote, Rey- 
 nard the Fox, went side by side with a profound 
 satisfaction in the mystical and metaphysical specu- 
 lations of German philosophers, to whom he was 
 drawn through his pleasure in Carlyle; he had be- 
 gun 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. 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 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 practising 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 the party. When thmgs 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 
 conventional 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 
 that '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; call- 
 ing 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 was 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 com- 
 pletely, pulled out a knife, and gave his adversary 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 a bad cut in the back — the affair ending in a hearty 
 reconciliation, with the knife-wielder nursing La- 
 nier 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 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 hunt- 
 ing and fishing and friends and music at his grand- 
 father's estate in the Tennessee Moimtains, 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. 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 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 ambi- 
 tious 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 teach- 
 ing. His flute was still his ever present means of 
 expression, and a friend of those days writes: 
 
 "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 splendid 
 — ^his playing. He is far famed for it. . . . De- 
 scription is inadequate.'" 
 
 This life of scholarship and music did not last 
 long. The tension between North and South grew 
 
xiv INTKODUCTION 
 
 to the breaking point in that fall of 1860. On 
 December 1 South Carolina seceded. Georgia fol- 
 lowed, January 16. There could be no question 
 in the mind of a high-spirited 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. 
 
 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 impossible 
 for him to hate a fellow human being; his imagina- 
 tion 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 fol- 
 lowing years, of the "sisterly leaves," or "Cousin 
 Cloud," for his heart seemed to vibrate in accord 
 with all created things. IBut the very foundation 
 of his character was a gallant buoyancy in meeting 
 adequately whatever responsibility life set before 
 him^ In the face of convictions about war ex- 
 pressed in his one novel. Tiger Lilies, and in the 
 essay. The Devil's Bomhs, he set himself to dis- 
 charge 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. 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 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 en- 
 gaged in making entrenchments at Drewry's Bluff 
 — ^with plenty of forced marches, weather hard- 
 ships, and chills and fever. In the fall he and his 
 brother were transferred to Major Milligan's bat- 
 talion 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 gun- 
 boat; their headquarters was shelled repeatedly; 
 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, 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 forced 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 al- 
 ways, 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 Federal 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 at the last mo- 
 ment 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, 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 translating German songs, reading poetry, and cheer- 
 ing his companions with his flute-playing. He got 
 up concerts, with two or three other musical per- 
 formers, for the benefit of the poorer prisoners. As 
 ono sail! afterwards; 
 
 "The flute of Sidney Lanier was our daily delight. 
 It was an angel imprisoned with us to elieer and con- 
 solo us. Well I remember his improvisations, and 
 how the young artist stood tliere in the twilight, . • . 
 
 " In all those dreary months, under the keenest 
 privations of life, exposed to the daily manifesta- 
 tion of want and depravity, sickness and death, his 
 was the clear-hearted, hopeful voice that sang what 
 he uttered in after years." 
 
 And Father Tabb, the poet, who was also a pris- 
 oner there, wrote: "There was no room for pretence 
 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 word 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. Emaci- 
 ated 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 
 mto clean blankets, but at first he could not endure 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 conu-ade 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, how- 
 ever, asked us up to his house to 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 cavalry- 
 men. 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." 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 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 pov- 
 erty. Four miUion slaves, suddenly freed, were 
 without provisions, and without prospect of labor 
 in a land where employers were impoverished. 
 Forty thousand Confederate soldiers had been dis- 
 banded after their terrible four years' struggle, at 
 best to begin life over. Colleges, universities, and 
 libraries were a thing of the past. The old govern- 
 ments 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., de- 
 scribing humorously to a friend the paralyzing dead- 
 ness 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 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 Recon- 
 struction alike failed to keep him from his stud- 
 ies 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 matters of legal 
 principles and records. It was not work that would 
 be chosen by a poet, musician and dreamer, long- 
 ing 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 care- 
 fulness. I never saw deeds better drawn than his;" 
 and the other members of the firm said that he in- 
 troduced a system of order into the office which made 
 it a diiferent 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" over- 
 ture; and there kept growing in his mind a feelmg 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 that only in these fields of music and poetry and 
 study could he fulfil his true reason for existence. 
 
 This belief, which was but the recognition of cre- 
 ative powers demanding expression, deepened to 
 conviction in 1873. Consumption, contracted at 
 Point Lookout and fought against ever since, be- 
 came 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 them- 
 selves 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, read- 
 ing 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 rigor- 
 ously followed course of medical treatment. He ex- 
 perienced 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 heert 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 Blackbhds." And when he re- 
 turned 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 encour- 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 agement financially; his family and friends thought 
 that in his state of health such a hazard of new for- 
 tunes 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. If you could 
 taste the delicious crystalline air, and the cham- 
 pagne breeze that I've just been rushing about in, 
 I am equally sure that in point of climate you 
 would agree with me that my chance for life is ten 
 times as great here as in Macon. Then, as to busi- 
 ness, 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 cer- 
 tainty 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 encour- 
 agement to work with my pen. (Of course I pro- 
 test 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 wUl make the full- 
 est explanation possible of my course, out of the re- 
 ciprocal 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, 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 through the uncongenial atmosphere of a farcical 
 college and of a bare army and then of an exactmg 
 business life, through all the discouragement of 
 being wholly unacquainted with literary people and 
 literary ways — ^I 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?" 
 
 IV. WRITER, MUSICIAN, AND LECTURER 
 1874-1881 
 
 Lanier's undoubted musical 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 de- 
 lighted 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 suc- 
 ceeding seasons. He told a friend that when he 
 entered the orchestra he actually did not know the 
 value of a dotted note; yet his musical instinct not 
 only enabled him to hold his own with trained mu- 
 sicians, but he was repeatedly assured by experts 
 that he was the best sight reader they had ever met. 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 practise: "When you can do 
 this, you'll pass," added the teacher, picking up 
 his own instrument and executing some most difii- 
 cult 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 "wonder- 
 ful" in view of his education. Director Hamerik 
 said he had "not only the art of 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 practised 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 fiute, 
 which was about perfected when lack of strength 
 and money forced him to stop pushing the obstinate 
 
INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 workman who was making the model. He delved 
 into the physics of music, discovering a property of 
 vibrating strings which helped to explain the differ- 
 ence in tone-color between wind and stringed instru- 
 ments. 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, Lippincoii's Magazine pub- 
 lished "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. 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 It was followed by the "Symphony," the cantata 
 written for the opening of the Philadelphia Cen- 
 tennial, 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 
 Bulletin, 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 guide-book, Florida, a series of articles de- 
 scriptive of India, created by his quick imagination 
 from a prodigious amount of hard work in the li- 
 braries, a number of other essays, and a dozen more 
 poems, 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 Eliza- 
 bethan 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 con- 
 quests of his eager mind were given in lectures to 
 private classes and at the Peabody Institute; and 
 
INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 much of his material is embodied ia the posthumous 
 work, Shakspere and His Fore-runners. His en- 
 thusiasm 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 ex- 
 tension 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 quaUty 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 lec- 
 tures on "The Development of Personality from 
 .(Eschylus to George Eliot," afterwards published as 
 The English Novel. 
 
 Meanwhile he was writing "The Marshes of 
 Glynn," "Sunrise," "The Crystal," "Individu- 
 ality," "Owl Against Robin," and others of his 
 greatest poems; editing the Boys' King Arthur, 
 Froissart, Mabinogion, and Percy, planning buoy- 
 antly for the volumes of poems which crowded his 
 mind, for new literary enterprises ever suggested 
 by his vital interest m life and books — 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 filial struggle with his old 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 thirty-three 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. 
 
 To read a poem is more illuminating than to read 
 a whole volume about it. Yet there are a few defi- 
 nite characteristics worth noting. 
 
 First of all, his poems always came from within. 
 Whatever they are, they represent the surging feel- 
 ing and true nature of the man, not a response to 
 any external demand. 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 pos- 
 sibilities. 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 lofty and confident as was ever 
 penned. His "Psalm of the West" is a vision of 
 the highest possibilities of freedom and true de- 
 mocracy, the brotherhood of man, the ultimate 
 " birth of faith from Imowing and loving." He had 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi» 
 
 no doubts about the "tall young Adam of the 
 West": 
 
 " At heart let no one fear for thee : 
 
 Thy Past sings ever Freedom's song. 
 Thy Future's voice sounds wondrous free." 
 
 The Jacquerie, too, which was in his mind, wait- 
 ing 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 
 om- modern civilization." The most poignant note 
 of the "Symphony" 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 democ- 
 racy 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 mem- 
 ber; you cannot make a republic out of muscles, 
 and prairies, and Rocky Mountains; republics are 
 made of the spirit." 
 
 He had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. His 
 extraordinary sensitiveness to the delicate, half- 
 hidden beauties of nature was never troubled for 
 fear that all he could learn about trees, flowers, 
 microscopic life, or meteorology might lessen the 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 sim has been 
 "rising" in poets' pictm-es 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 knowl- 
 edge 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 ordi- 
 nary 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 say- 
 ings. Everywhere there is humor, bravery, mag- 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 nanimity, 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." 
 
SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 POEMS 
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 Joust First 
 
 Bright shone the lists, blue bent the skies, 
 And the knights still hurried amain 
 
 To the tournament under the ladies' eyes. 
 Where the jousters were Heart and Brain. 
 
 II 
 
 Flourished the trumpets: entered Heart, s 
 
 A youth in crimson and gold. 
 Flourished again : Brain stood apart, 
 
 Steel-armored, dark and cold. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Heart's palfrey caracoled gayly round, 
 
 Heart tra-li-ra'd merrily; lo 
 
 But Brain sat still, with never a sound. 
 So cynical-calm was he. 
 
 IV 
 
 Heart's helmet-crest bore favors three 
 From his lady's white hand caught; 
 1 
 
2 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 15 While Brain wore a plumeless casque; not he 
 Or favor gave or sought. 
 
 V 
 
 The herald blew; Heart shot a glance 
 
 To find his lady's eye, 
 But Brain gazed straight ahead his lance 
 20 To aim more faithfully. 
 
 VI 
 
 They charged, they struck; both fell, both bled. 
 
 Brain rose again, ungloved. 
 Heart, dying, smiled and faintly said, 
 
 "My love to my beloved 1" 
 
 Camp Fbench, Wilmington, N. C, 
 May, 1862. 
 
 Joust Second 
 I 
 
 A-many sweet eyes wept and wept, 
 
 A-many bosoms heaved again; 
 A-many dainty dead hopes slept 
 
 With yonder Heart-knight prone o' the plain. 
 
 II 
 
 Yet stars will burn through any mists. 
 And the ladies' eyes, through rains of fate, 
 
 Still beamed upon the bloody lists 
 And lit the joust of Love and Hate. 
 
POEMS 3 
 
 in 
 
 O strange ! or ere a trumpet blew, 
 
 Or ere a challenge-word was given, lo 
 
 A knight leapt down i' the lists; none knew 
 
 Whether he sprang from earth or heaven. 
 
 IV 
 
 His cheek was soft as a lily-bud. 
 His gray eyes calmed his youth's alarm; 
 
 Nor helm nor hauberk nor even a hood is 
 
 Had he to shield his life from harm. 
 
 No falchion from his baldric swung. 
 
 He wore a white rose in its place. 
 No dagger at his girdle hung, 
 
 But only an olive-branch, for grace. 20 
 
 VI 
 
 And " Come, thou poor mistaken knight," 
 Cried Love, unarmed, yet dauntless there, 
 " Come on, God pity thee ! — I fight 
 
 Sans sword, sans shield; yet. Hate, beware I" 
 
 VII 
 
 Spurred furious Hate; he foamed at mouth, 25 
 
 His breath was hot upon the air, 
 His breath scorched souls, as a dry drought 
 
 Withers green trees and burns them bare. 
 
4 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 VIII 
 
 Straight drives he at his enemy, 
 30 His hairy hands grip lance in rest, 
 
 His lance it gleams full bitterly, 
 
 God ! — gleams, true-point, on Love's bare breast I 
 
 IX 
 
 Love's gray eyes glow with a heaven-heat, 
 Love lifts his hand in a saintly prayer; 
 35 Look ! Hate hath fallen at his feet ! 
 
 Look ! Hate hath vanished in the air I 
 
 Then all the throng looked kind on all; 
 
 Eyes yearned, lips kissed, dumb souls were freed; 
 Two magic maids' hands lifted a pall 
 :4o And the dead knight. Heart, sprang on his steed. 
 
 XI 
 
 Then Love cried, " Break me his lance, each knight ! 
 
 Ye shall fight for blood-athirst Fame no more !" 
 And the knights all doffed their mailed might 
 
 And dealt out dole on dole to the poor. 
 
 XII 
 
 46 Then dove-flights sanctified the plain. 
 And hawk and sparrow shared a nest. 
 And the great sea opened and swallowed Pain, 
 And out of this water-grave floated Rest ! 
 
 Macon, Ga., 1865. 
 
POEMS 
 
 LIFE AND SONG 
 
 "If life were caught by a clarionet, 
 
 And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, 
 Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, 
 And utter its heart in every deed, 
 
 "Then would this breathing clarionet s 
 
 Type what the poet fain would be; 
 For none o' the singers ever yet 
 Has wholly lived his minstrelsy, 
 
 "Or clearly sung his true, true thought, 
 
 Or utterly bodied forth his life, lo 
 
 Or out of life and song has wrought 
 The perfect one of man and wife; 
 
 "Or lived and sung, that Life and Song . 
 Might each express the other's all, 
 Careless if life or art were long is 
 
 Since both were one, to stand or fall: 
 
 "So that the wonder struck the crowd. 
 Who shouted it about the land : 
 His song was only living aloud, 
 
 His work, a singing with his hand !" 20 
 
 1868. 
 
6 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 SONG FOR "THE JACQUERIE" 
 
 I 
 
 Mat the maiden, 
 
 Violet-laden 
 Out of the violet sea, 
 
 Comes and hovers 
 Over lovers. 
 
 Over thee, Marie, and me, 
 
 Over me and thee. 
 
 Day the stately. 
 Sunken lately 
 10 Into the violet sea. 
 
 Backward hovers 
 Over lovers. 
 Over thee, Marie, and me. 
 Over me and thee. 
 
 15 Night the holy, 
 
 Sailing slowly 
 Over the violet sea. 
 
 Stars uncovers 
 
 Over lovers, 
 20 Stars for thee, Marie, and me. 
 
 Stars for me and thee. 
 
 Macon, Ga., 1868. 
 
POEMS 7 
 
 SONG FOR "THE JACQUERIE" 
 
 II 
 
 The hound was cuffed, the hound was 
 
 kicked, 
 O' the ears was cropped, o' the tail was 
 nicked, 
 (All.) Oo-hoo-o, howled the hound. 
 
 The hound into his kennel crept; 
 He rarely wept, he never slept. s 
 
 His mouth he always open kept 
 Licking his bitter wound, 
 The hound, 
 (All.) U-lu-lo, howled the hound. 
 
 A star upon his kennel shone lo 
 
 That showed the hound a meat-bare bone. 
 (All.) O hungry was the hound ! 
 
 The hound had but a churlish wit. 
 He seized the bone, he crunched, he bit. 
 "An thou wert Master, I had slit 15 
 
 Thy throat with a huge wound," 
 Quo' hound. 
 (All.) O, angry was the hound. 
 
 The star in castle-window shone. 
 The Master lay abed, alone. 20 
 
 (All.) Oh ho, why not? quo' hound. 
 
 He leapt, he seized the throat, he tore 
 The Master, head from neck, to floor, 
 
8 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 And rolled the head i' the kennel door, 
 26 And fled and salved his wound, 
 
 Good hound ! 
 (All.) U-lu-lo, howled the hound. 
 
 Macon, Ga., 1868. 
 
 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, 
 5 And his hogs was flat as his corn-bread pones. 
 And he had 'bout a thousand acres o' land. 
 
 This man — which his name it was also Jones — 
 He swore that he'd leave them old red hills and 
 
 stones 
 Fur he couldn't make nuthin' but yallerish cotton, 
 10 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. 
 
 And the longer he swore the madder he got. 
 And he riz and he walked to the stable lot, 
 15 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 and sich. 
 And a wastin' ther time on the cussed land. 
 
POEMS 9 
 
 So him and Tom they hitched up the mules, 
 Pertestin' that folks was mighty big fools 20 
 
 That 'ud stay in Georgy ther Ufetime 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 25 
 
 Was a livin', not fiu- 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 an acre would git the land. so 
 
 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, 35 
 
 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, 40 
 
 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 thatie wouldn't weigh), 
 
 Was a settin' down, sorter lazily, 
 
 To the bulliest dinner you ever see, 45 
 
 When one o' the children jumped on his knee 
 
 And says, " Yan's Jones, which you bought his land." 
 
10 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 And thar was Jones, standin' out at the fence, 
 And he hadn't no waggin, nor mules, nor tents, 
 50 Fur he had left Texas afoot and cum 
 To Georgy to see if he couldn't git sum 
 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 
 55 Him down to his vittles smokin' hot. 
 
 And when he had filled hisself and the floor 
 Brown looked at him sharp and riz and swore 
 That, "whether men's land was rich or poor 
 Thar was more in the man than thar was in the 
 land." 
 
 Macon, Ga., 1869. 
 
 THE POWER OF PRAYER; OR, THE FIRST 
 STEAMBOAT UP THE ALABAMA 
 
 BY SroNEY 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'sffeet. 
 
 It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' 
 June. 
 
POEMS 11 
 
 I 'clar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de 
 fiddle soon ! s 
 
 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 the world, like, th'u' de cracks 
 
 dat's in 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, lo 
 
 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 name — 
 Dat shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de same 
 As ef dat cabin hadn't nar' a plank upon de frame ! is 
 
 Who call me? Listen down de ribber, Dihahl 
 
 Don't you hyar 
 Somebody hoU'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, shuhl Jes' listen, 
 Dinah, now I 
 
12 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 20 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-woof — 
 De Debbie's comin' round dat bend, he's comin' 
 
 shuh enuff, 
 A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his 
 
 hoof! 
 
 25 I'se pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't 
 gwine run away: 
 I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis 
 
 blessed day. 
 You screech, and swish de water, Satan ! I'se a 
 gwine to pray. 
 
 O hebbenly Marster, what thou wiliest, dat mus' be 
 
 jes' so, 
 And ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some nigger's 
 
 bound to go. 
 30 Den, Lord, please take ole Jim, and lef young 
 
 Dinah hyar below ! 
 
 'Scuse Dinah, 'sense her, Marster; for she's sich a 
 
 little chile, 
 She hardly jes' begin to scramble up de homeyard 
 
 stile. 
 But dis ole traveller's feet been tired dis many a 
 
 many a mile. 
 
POEMS 13 
 
 I'se Wufless as de rotten pole of las' year's fodder- 
 stack. 
 
 De rheumatiz done bit my bones; you hear 'em 
 crack and crack ? 35 
 
 I cain't sit down 'dout 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 my cotton ? 
 I'se like a word dat somebody said, and den done 
 
 been forgotten. 
 
 But, Dinah ! Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry 
 tree, 40 
 
 De sap 's jes' risin in her; she do grow owdacious- 
 lee— 
 
 Lord, 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 Jacob got all underholt, de Lord he answered 
 
 Yes ! 45 
 
 And what for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow away 
 de bread. 
 
14 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Jes' 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 ! 
 60 Jes' now he squealed down dar; — hush; dat's a 
 
 mighty weakly scream ! 
 Yas, sir, he's gone, he's gone; — he snort way o£F, 
 
 like in a dream ! 
 
 glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on high ! 
 De Debbie's fai'ly skeered to def, he done gone 
 
 flyin' by; 
 
 1 know'd he couldn' stand dat pra'r, I felt my 
 
 Marster nigh ! 
 
 65 You, Dinah; ain't you 'shamed, now, dat you didn' 
 
 trust to grace ? 
 I heerd 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. 
 eo Yas, Dinah, whar 'ovM you be now, jes' 'ceptin' fur 
 dat pra'r f 
 
 Baltimore, 1875. 
 
POEMS 15 
 
 THE SYMPHONY 
 
 ' ^ Tra de! O Trade! would thou wert dead 1 
 
 The Time needs heart — 'tis tired of head: 
 
 We're all for love," the violins said. 
 
 "Of what avail the rigorous tale 
 
 Of bill for coin and box for bale ? 6 
 
 Grant thee, O Trade ! thine uttermost hope: 
 
 Level red gold with blue sky-slope, 
 
 And base it deep as devils grope: 
 
 When all's done, what hast thou won 
 
 Of the only sweet that's under the sun ? xo 
 
 Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh 
 
 Of true love's least, least ecstasy ? " 
 
 Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling. 
 
 All the mightier strings assembling 
 
 Ranged them on the violins' side i5 
 
 As when the bridegroom leads the bride. 
 
 And, heart in voice, together cried: 
 
 "Yea, what avail the endless tale 
 
 Of gain by cunning and plus by sale ? 
 
 Look up the land, look down the land, 20 
 
 The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand 
 
 Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand 
 
 Against an inward-opening door 
 
 That pressure tightens evermore: 
 
 They sigh a monstrous foul-air sigh 25 
 
 For the outside leagues of liberty. 
 
 Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky 
 
 Into a heavenly melody. 
 
 'Each day, all day' (these poor folks say), 
 
16 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 30 'In the same old year-long, drear-long way. 
 
 We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns. 
 
 We sieve mine-meshes under the hills. 
 
 And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills, 
 
 To relieve, O God, what manner of ills ? — 
 35 The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die; 
 
 And so do we, and the world's a sty; 
 
 Hush, fellow-swine: why nuzzle and cry? 
 
 Swinehood hath no remedy 
 
 Say many men, and hasten by, 
 40 Clamping the nose and blinking the eye. 
 
 But who said once, in the lordly tone, 
 
 Man shall not live by bread alone 
 
 But all that cometh from the Throne? 
 Hath God said so ? 
 45 But Trade saith No : 
 
 And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say Go! 
 
 There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know. 
 
 Move out, if you think you're underpaid. 
 
 The poor are prolific ; we're not afraid; 
 50 Trade is trade.'" 
 
 Thereat this passionate protesting 
 
 Meekly changed, and softened till 
 
 It sank to sad requesting 
 
 And suggesting sadder still : 
 55 "And oh, if men might some time see 
 
 How piteous-false the poor decree 
 
 That trade no more than trade must be I 
 
 Does business mean. Die, you — live, If 
 
 Then 'Trade is trade' but sings a lie: 
 60 'Tis only war grown miserly. 
 
 If business is battle, name it so: 
 
POEMS 17 
 
 War-crimes less will shame it so, 
 
 And widows less will blame it so. 
 
 Alas, for the poor to have some part 
 
 In yon sweet living lands of Art, 6s 
 
 Makes problem not for head, but heart. 
 
 Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it: 
 
 Plainly the heart of a child could solve it." 
 
 And then, as when from words that seem but rude 
 
 We pass to silent pain that sits abrood 70 
 
 Back in our heart's great dark and solitude, 
 
 So sank the strings to gentle throbbing 
 
 Of long chords change-marked with sobbing — 
 
 Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard 
 
 Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird, 75 
 
 Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred. 
 
 Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo ! 
 
 Every least ripple of the strings' song-flow 
 
 Died to a level with each level bow 
 
 And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so, so 
 
 As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go 
 
 To linger in the sacred dark and green 
 
 Where many boughs the still pool overlean 
 
 And many leaves make shadow with their sheen. 
 
 But presently ss 
 
 A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly 
 Upon the bosom of that harmony. 
 And sailed and sailed incessantly. 
 As if a petal from a wild-rose blown 
 Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone 90 
 
 And boatwise dropped o' the convex side 
 And floated down the glassy tide 
 
18 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 And clarified and glorified 
 The solemn spaces where the shadows bide. 
 95 Prom the warm concave of that fluted note 
 Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float 
 As if a rose might somehow be a throat: 
 "yfhpn Natiirp fro m her fa,r-off glen 
 Flutes her soft messages to men, 
 
 100 The flute can say them o'er again; 
 
 Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone, 
 Breathes through life's strident polyphone 
 The flute-voice in the world of tone. 
 Sweet friends, 
 
 105 Man's love ascends 
 
 To finer and diviner ends 
 Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends, 
 For I, e'en I, 
 As here I lie, 
 r 110 A petal on a harmony. 
 
 Demand of Science whence and why 
 Man's tender pain, man's inward cry. 
 When he doth gaze on earth and sky ? 
 I am not overbold : 
 
 lis I hold 
 
 Full powers from Nature manifold. 
 I speak for each no-tongued tree 
 That, spring by spring, doth nobler be. 
 And dumbly and most wistfully 
 
 120 His mighty prayerful arms outspreads 
 Above men's oft-unheeding heads. 
 And his big blessing downward sheds. 
 I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves. 
 Lichens on stones and moss on eaves, 
 
POEMS 19 
 
 Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves; 125 
 
 Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes. 
 
 And briery mazes bounding lanes, 
 
 And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains. 
 
 And milky stems and sugary veins; 
 
 For every long-armed woman-vine 130 
 
 That round a piteous tree doth twine; 
 
 For passionate odors, and divine 
 
 Pistils, and petals crystalline; 
 
 All purities of shady springs. 
 
 All shynesses of film-winged things 135 
 
 That fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings; 
 
 All modesties of mountain-fawns 
 
 That leap to covert from wild lawns, 
 
 And tremble if the day but dawns; 
 
 All sparklings of small beady eyes i4o 
 
 Of birds, and sidelong glances wise 
 
 Wherewith the jay hints tragedies; 
 
 All piquancies of prickly burs, 
 
 And smoothnesses of downs and furs 
 
 Of eiders and of minevers; , 145 
 
 All limpid honeys that do lie 
 
 At stamen-bases, nor deny 
 
 The humming-birds' fine roguery, 
 
 Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly; 
 
 All gracious curves of slender wings, iso 
 
 Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings, 
 
 Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings; 
 
 Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell 
 
 Wherewith in every lonesome dell 
 
 Time to himself his hours doth tell; 155 
 
 All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones. 
 
20 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans. 
 And night's unearthly under-tones; 
 All placid lakes and waveless deeps, 
 
 160 All cool reposing mountain-steeps, 
 
 Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps; — 
 Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights, 
 And warmths, and mysteries, and mights. 
 Of Nature's utmost depths and heights, 
 
 165 — These doth my timid tongue present. 
 Their mouthpiece and leal instrument 
 And servant, all love-eloquent. 
 I heard, when 'All for love ' the violins cried : 
 So, Nature calls through all her system wide, 
 
 170 Give me thy love, man, so long denied. 
 
 Much time is run, and man hath changed his ways, 
 Since Nature, in the antique fable-days, 
 Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays, 
 False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise. 
 
 175 The nymphs, cold creatures of man's colder brain, 
 Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was 
 
 fain 
 Never to lave its love in them again. 
 Later, a sweet Voice Love thy neighbor said; 
 Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread 
 
 180 Beyond all confines of old ethnic dread. 
 
 Vainly the Jew might wag his covenant head : 
 '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 
 
 185 Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space; 
 With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace, 
 Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face: 
 
POEMS 21 
 
 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. i90 
 But oh, the poor ! the poor ! the poor ! 
 That stand by the inward-opening door 
 Trade's hand doth tighten ever more, 
 And sigh their monstrous foul-air sigh 
 For the outside hills of liberty, 195 
 
 Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky 
 For Art to make into melody ! 
 Thou Trade ! thou king of the modern days ! 
 
 Change thy ways. 
 
 Change thy ways; 200 
 
 Let the sweaty laborers file 
 
 A little while, 
 
 A little while. 
 Where Art and Nature sing and smile. 
 Trade ! is thy heart all dead, all dead ? 205 
 
 And hast thou nothing but a head ? 
 I'm all for heart," the flute-voice said. 
 And into sudden silence fled. 
 Like as a blush that while 'tis red 
 Dies to a still, still white instead. 210 
 
 Thereto a thrilling calm succeeds, 
 Till presently the silence breeds 
 A little breeze among the reeds 
 That seems to blow by sea-marsh weeds: 
 Then from the gentle stir and fret 215 
 
 Sings out the melting clarionet. 
 Like as a lady sings while yet 
 
22 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Her eyes with salty tears are wet. 
 
 "O Trade ! O Trade !" the Lady said, 
 220 "I too will wish thee utterly dead 
 
 If all thy heart is in thy head. 
 
 For O my God ! and O my God ! 
 
 What shameful ways have women trod 
 
 At beckoning of Trade's golden rod I 
 225 Alas when sighs are traders' lies. 
 
 And heart's-ease eyes and violet eyes 
 Are merchandise I 
 
 O purc hased lips th atjdssjwijJi paJiLL 
 
 cheeks coin-spotted with smirch and stain I 
 230 O trafficked hearts that break in twain ! 
 
 — ^And yet what wonder at my sisters' crime ? 
 So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime, 
 Men love not women as in olden time. 
 Ah, not in these cold merchantable days 
 
 235 Deem men their life an opal gray, where plays 
 The one red Sweet of gracious ladies'-praise. 
 Now, comes a suitor with sharp prying eye — 
 Says, Here, you Lady, if you'll sell, I'll buy: 
 Come, heart for heart — a trade f What ! weeping i 
 why? 
 
 240 Shame on such wooers' dapper mercery 1 
 
 1 would my lover kneeling at my feet 
 
 In humble manliness should cry, sweet ! 
 I know not if thy heart my heart will greet : 
 I ask not if thy love my love can meet : 
 245 Whate'er thy worshipful soft tongue shall say, 
 I'll kiss thine answer, be it yea or nay: 
 I do but know I love thee, and I pray 
 To be thy knight until my dying day. 
 
POEMS 23 
 
 Woe him that cunning trades in hearts contrives I 
 Base love good women to base loving drives. 250 
 
 If men loved larger, larger were our lives; 
 And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives." 
 
 There thrust the bold straightforward horn 
 
 To battle for that lady lorn, 
 
 With heartsome voice of mellow scorn, 255 
 
 Like any knight in knighthood's morn. 
 
 "Now comfort thee," said he, 
 "Fair Lady. 
 For God shall right thy grievous wrong, 
 And man shall sing thee a true-love song, 26o 
 
 Voiced in act his whole life long. 
 
 Yea, all thy sweet Ufe long, 
 Fair Lady. 
 Where's he that craftily hath said. 
 The day of chivalry is dead ? 265 
 
 I'll prove that lie upon his head. 
 
 Or I will die instead. 
 Fair Lady. 
 Is Honor gone into his grave ? 
 
 Hath Faith become a caitiff knave, 270 
 
 And Selfhood turned into a slave 
 
 To work in Mammon's cave. 
 Fair Lady ? 
 Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again ? 
 Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain 275 
 
 All great contempts of mean-got gain 
 
 And hates of inward stain. 
 Fair Lady? 
 For aye shall name and fame be sold, 
 
24 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 280 And place be hugged for the sake of gold, 
 And smirch-robed Justice feebly scold 
 At Crime all money-bold. 
 Fair Lady? 
 Shall self-wrapt husbands aye forget 
 285 Kiss-pardons for the daily fret 
 
 Wherewith sweet wifely eyes are wet — 
 Blind to lips kiss-wise set — 
 Fair Lady? 
 Shall lovers higgle, heart for heart, 
 290 Till wooing grows a trading mart 
 
 Where much for little, and all for part. 
 Make love a cheapening art. 
 Fair Lady? 
 Shall woman scorch for a single sin 
 295 That her betrayer may revel in. 
 And she be burnt, and he but grin 
 When that the flames begin. 
 Fair Lady ? 
 Shall ne'er prevail the woman's plea, 
 300 We maids would far, far whiter be 
 If that our eyes might sometimes see 
 Men maids in purity, 
 Fair Lady ? 
 Shall Trade aye salve his conscience-aches 
 305 With jibes at Chivalry's old mistakes — 
 The wars that o'erhot knighthood makes 
 For Christ's and ladies' sakes. 
 Fair Lady? 
 Now by each knight that e'er hath prayed 
 310 To fight like a man and love like a maid. 
 Since Pembroke's life, as Pembroke's blade. 
 
POEMS 25 
 
 I' the scabbard, death, was laid. 
 Fair Lady, 
 I dare avouch my faith is bright 
 That God doth right and God hath might, 3i5 
 
 Nor time hath changed His hair to white. 
 Nor His dear love to spite. 
 Fair Lady. 
 I doubt no doubts: I strive, and shrive my clay, 
 And fight my fight in the patient modern way 320 
 
 For true love and for thee — ah me ! and pray 
 To be thy knight until my dying day. 
 Fair Lady." 
 Made end that knightly horn, and spurred away 
 Into the thick of the melodious fray. 325 
 
 And then the hautboy played and smiled. 
 And sang like any large-eyed child. 
 Cool-hearted and all undefiled. 
 
 "Huge Trade!" he said, 
 "Would thou wouldst lift me on thy head 330 
 
 And run where'er my finger led ! 
 Once said a Man — and wise was He — 
 Never shall thou the heavens see, 
 Save as a little child thou be." 
 
 Then o'er sea-lashings of commingling tunes 33s 
 
 The ancient wise bassoons. 
 
 Like weird 
 
 Gray-beard 
 Old harpers sitting on the high sea-dunes. 
 
 Chanted runes: 340 
 
 "Bright-waved gain, gray-waved loss. 
 The sea of all doth lash and toss. 
 
26 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 One wave forward and one across: 
 But now 'twas trough, now 'tis crest, 
 345 And worst doth foam and flash to best, 
 And curst to blest. 
 
 Life ! Life ! thou sea-fugue, writ from east to west. 
 Love, Love alone can pore 
 On thy dissolving score 
 350 Of harsh half-phrasings, 
 
 Blotted ere writ. 
 And double erasings 
 Of chords most fit. 
 Yea, Love, sole music-master blest, 
 355 May read thy weltering palimpsest. 
 
 To follow Time's dying melodies through, 
 And never to lose the old in the new. 
 And ever to solve the discords true — 
 Love alone can do. 
 360 And ever Love hears the poor-folks' crying. 
 And ever Love hears the women's sighing. 
 And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying. 
 And ever wise childhood's deep implying, 
 But never a trader's glozing and lying. 
 
 365 And yet shall Love himself be heard. 
 
 Though long deferred, though long deferred; 
 O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred: 
 Music is Love in search of a word." 
 
 Baltimore, 1875. 
 
POEMS 27 
 
 THE DISCOVERY 
 
 FEOM "the psalm OF THE WEST" 
 
 Santa Maria, well thou tremblest down the wave. 
 
 Thy Pinta far abow, thy Nina nigh astern: 
 Columbus stands in the night alone, and, passing 
 grave, 
 Yearns o'er the sea as tones o'er under-silence 
 yearn. 
 Heartens his heart as friend befriends his friend 
 less brave, 
 Makes burn the faiths that cool, and cools the 
 doubts that burn: — 
 
 "Twixt this and dawn, three hours my soul will 
 smite 
 With prickly seconds, or less tolerably 
 With dull-blade minutes flatwise slapping me. 
 Wait, Heart! Time moves. — Thou lithe young 
 
 Western Night, lo 
 
 Just-crowned king, slow riding to thy right, fi 
 Would God that I might straddle mutiny 
 Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea, 
 Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight, 
 Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls, is 
 
 Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow ' 
 Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn 1 v 
 Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls 
 No damage taking from their If and How, 
 Nor no result save galloping to my Dawn 1 20 
 
28 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 II 
 
 "My Dawn ? my Dawn ? How if it never break ? 
 How if this West by other Wests is pieced, 
 And these by vacant Wests on Wests increased — 
 One Pain of Space, with hollow ache on ache 
 25 Throbbing and ceasing not for Christ's own sake ? — 
 Big perilous theorem, hard for king and priest: 
 Pursue the West hut long enough, 'tis East! 
 Oh, if this watery world no turning take I 
 Oh, if for all my logic, all my dreams, 
 .30 Provings of that which is by that which seems. 
 Fears, hopes, chills, heats, hastes, patiences, 
 
 droughts, tears, 
 Wife-grievings, slights on love, embezzled years. 
 Hates, treaties, scorns, uplif tings, loss and gain, — ■ 
 This earth, no sphere, be all one sickening plane I 
 
 III 
 
 35 "Or, haply, how if this contrarious West, 
 
 That me by turns hath starved, by turns hath 
 
 fed. 
 Embraced, disgraced, beat back, solicited, 
 Have no fixed heart of Law within his breast. 
 Or with some different rhythm doth e'er contest 
 40 Nature in the East ? Why, 'tis but three weeks 
 fled 
 I saw my Judas needle shake his head 
 And flout the Pole that. East, he Lord confessed ! 
 God ! if this West should own some other Pole, 
 And with his tangled ways perplex my soul 
 45 Until the maze grow mortal, and I die 
 
POEMS 29 
 
 Where distraught Nature clean hath gone astray, 
 On earth some other wit than Time's at play, 
 Some other God than mine above the sky ! 
 
 IV 
 
 "Now speaks mine other heart with cheerier seem- 
 ing: 
 Ho, Admiral! o'er-def diking to thy crew so 
 
 Against thyself, thyself far overfew 
 
 To front yon multitudes of rebel scheming? 
 
 Come, ye wild twenty years of heavenly dreaming! 
 Come, ye wild weeks since first this canvas drew 
 Out of vexed Palos ere the dawn was blue, ss 
 
 O'er milky waves about the bows full-creaming I 
 
 Come set me round with many faithful spears 
 Of confident remembrance — how I crushed 
 Cat-lived rebellions, pitfalled treasons, hushed 
 
 Scared husbands' heart-break cries on distant 
 wives, 60 
 
 Made cowards blush at whining for their lives, 
 
 Watered my parching souls, and dried their tears. 
 
 "Ere we Gomera cleared, a coward cried, 
 Turn, turn: here be three caravels ahead, 
 From Portugal, to take lis : we are dead! 65 
 
 Hold Westward, pilot, calmly I replied. 
 So when the last land down the horizon died, 
 Go back, go back! they prayed: our hearts are 
 
 lead. — 
 Friends, we are bound into the West, I said. 
 
30 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 70 Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side. 
 See (so they wept) God's Warning! Admiral, 
 turn! — 
 Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West. 
 Then down the night we saw the meteor burn. 
 So do the very heavens in fire protest: 
 75 Good Admiral, put about! Spain, dear Spain! — 
 Hold straight into the West, I said again. 
 
 VI 
 
 "Next drive we o'er the sHmy-weeded sea. 
 Lo! herebeneath (another coward cries) 
 The cursed land of sunk Atlantis lies : 
 80 This slime will suck us down — turn while thou'rt 
 free! — 
 Bvi no! I said. Freedom bears West for me! 
 Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise, 
 And day by day the keel to westward flies, 
 My Good my people's 111 doth come to be: 
 85 Ever the winds into the West do blow; 
 
 Never a ship, once turned, might homeward go; 
 Meanwhile we speed into the lonesome main. 
 
 For Christ's sake, parley, Admiral! Turn, before 
 We sail outside all bounds of help from pain! — 
 90 Our help is in the West, I said once more. 
 
 VII 
 
 "So when there came a mighty cry of Land! 
 
 And we clomb up and saw, and shouted strong 
 Salve Regina! all the ropes along. 
 But knew at morn how that a counterfeit band 
 
POEMS 31 
 
 Of level clouds had aped a silver strand; 95 
 
 So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song, 
 And all the people cried, A hellish throng 
 To tempt us onward by the Demi planned, 
 Yea, all from hell^-Jceen heron, fresh green weeds, 
 Pelican, tunny-fish, fair tapering reeds, 100 
 
 Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die 
 In clouds of nothing round the empty sky. 
 Tired Admiral, get thee from this hell, and rest! — 
 Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night, 105 
 
 From its big circling ever absently 
 Returns, thou large low Star, to fix on thee. 
 Maria! Star? No star: a Light, a Light I 
 Wouldst leap ashore, Heart? Yonder burns — a 
 Light. 
 Pedro Gutierrez, wake ! come up to me. 110 
 
 I prithee stand and gaze about the sea: 
 What seest? Admiral, like as land — a Light! 
 Well ! Sanchez of Segovia, come and try: 
 What seest? Admiral, naught but sea and sky! 
 Well ! But / saw It. Wait ! the Pinta's gun I iis 
 Why, look, 'tis dawn, the land is clear: 'tis done ! 
 Two dawns do break at once from Time's full 
 
 hand — 
 God's, East — ^mine. West: good friends, behold my 
 Landl" 
 
32 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 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. 
 
 5 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 
 10 Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands. 
 O night ! divorce otir sun and sky apart, 
 Never our lips, our hands. 
 
 1876. 
 
 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, 
 
 6 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, 
 10 Far from the valleys of Hall. 
 
POEMS 33 
 
 All down the hUls 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, is 
 
 The ferns and the 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. 20 
 
 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, 25 
 
 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. so 
 
 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 as 
 
 — Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist. 
 Ruby, garnet and amethyst — 
 Made lures with the lights of streaming stone 
 
 In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, 
 
 In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 40 
 
34 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 
 And oh, not the valleys of Hall 
 Avail : I am fain for to water the plain. 
 Downward the voices of Duty call — 
 46 Downward, to toil 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, 
 60 Calls through the valleys of Hall. 
 
 1877. 
 
 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; or typic drew 
 The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay 
 
 6 Of languid doves when long their lovers stray. 
 And all birds' 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 
 
 10 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 Shakspere on the tree ? 
 
POEMS 35 
 
 TAMPA ROBINS 
 
 The robin laughed in the orange-tree: 
 "Ho, windy North, a fig for thee: 
 While breasts are red and wings are bold 
 And green trees wave us globes of gold, 
 Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me s 
 
 — Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree. 
 
 Burn, golden globes in leafy sky. 
 
 My orange-planets : crimson I 
 
 Will shine and shoot among the spheres 
 
 (Blithe meteor that no mortal fears) lo 
 
 And thrid the heavenly orange-tree 
 
 With orbits bright of minstrelsy. 
 
 If that I hate wild winter's spite — 
 
 The gibbet trees, the world in white. 
 
 The sky but gray wind over a grave — la 
 
 Why should I ache, the season's slave ? 
 
 I'll sing from the top of the orange-tree 
 
 Gramerq/, winter's tyranny. 
 
 I'll south with the sun, and keep my clime; 
 My wing is king of the summer-time; ao 
 
 My breast to the sun his torch shall hold; 
 And I'll call down through the green and gold 
 
 Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me, 
 
 Bestir thee under the orange-tree." 
 
 Tampa, Fla., 1877. 
 
36 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 THE REVENGE OF HAMISH 
 
 It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the 
 bracken lay; 
 And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man, 
 Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran 
 Down the hill-side and sifted along through the 
 bracken and passed that way. 
 
 5 Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the 
 daintiest doe; 
 In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern 
 She reared, and rounded her ears in turn. 
 Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to 
 a crown did go 
 
 Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had 
 the form of a deer; 
 10 And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose, 
 For their day-dream slowlier came to a close. 
 Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with 
 waiting and wonder and fear. 
 
 Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, 
 the hounds shot by. 
 The does and the ten-tined buck made a mar- 
 vellous bound, 
 15 The hounds swept after with never a sound. 
 But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the 
 quarry was nigh. 
 
POEMS 37 
 
 For at dawn of that day proud Maclean of Lochbuy 
 to the hunt had waxed wild, 
 And he cursed at old Alan till Alan fared off 
 
 with the hounds 
 For to drive him the deer to the lower glen- 
 grounds: 
 "I will kill a red deer," quoth Maclean, "in the sight 
 of the wife and the child." 20 
 
 So gayly he paced with the wife and the child to his 
 chosen stand; 
 But he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead: 
 
 "Go turn,"— 
 Cried Maclean — "if the deer seek to cross to the 
 burn. 
 Do thou turn them to me: nor fail, lest thy back be 
 red as thy hand." 
 
 Now hard-fortuned Hamish, half blown of his breath 
 with the height of the hill, 25 
 
 Was white in the face when the ten-tined buck 
 
 and the does 
 Drew leaping to burn-ward; huskily rose 
 His shouts, and his nether lip twitched, and his legs 
 were o'er-weak for his will. 
 
 So the deer darted lightly by Hamish and bounded 
 away to the burn. 
 But Maclean never bating his watch tarried wait- 
 ing below 30 
 Still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go 
 All the space of an hour; then he went, and his face 
 was greenish and stern. 
 
38 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LAOTER 
 
 And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken 
 the eyeballs shone, 
 As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were 
 shame to see. 
 35 "Now, now, grim henchman, what is't with thee? " 
 Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon 
 the wind hath upblown. 
 
 "Three does and a ten-tined buck made out," spoke 
 Hamish, full mild, 
 "And I ran for to turn, but my breath it was 
 
 blown, and they passed; 
 I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast." 
 40 Cried Maclean: "Now a ten-tined buck in the sight 
 of the wife and the child 
 
 I had killed if the gluttonous kern had not wrought 
 me a snail's own wrong I" 
 Then he sounded, and down came kinsmen and 
 
 clansmen all: 
 "Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall. 
 And reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the 
 bite of thong I " 
 
 46 So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes; at 
 the last he smiled. 
 "Now I'll to the burn," quoth Maclean, "for it 
 
 still may be. 
 If a shmmer-paunched henchman will hurry with 
 me, 
 I shall kill me the ten-tined buck for a gift to the 
 wife and the child I" 
 
POEMS 39 
 
 Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that; 
 and over the hill 
 Sped Maclean with an outward wrath for an in- 
 ward shame; so; 
 And that place of the lashing full quiet became; 
 And the wife and the child stood sad; and bloody- 
 backed Hamish sat still. 
 
 But look! red Hamish has risen; quick about and 
 about turns he. 
 "There is none betwixt me and the crag-top 1" 
 
 he screams under breath. 
 Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death, 65 
 
 He snatches the child from the mother, and clam- 
 bers the crag toward the sea. 
 
 Now the mother drops breath; she is dumb, and 
 her heart goes dead for a space, 
 Till the motherhood, mistress of death, shrieks, 
 
 shrieks through the glen, 
 And that place of the lashing is Hve with men. 
 And Maclean, and the gillie that told him, dash up 
 in a desperate race. eo 
 
 Not a breath's time for asking; an eye-glance re- 
 veals all the tale untold. 
 They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward 
 
 the sea, 
 And the lady cries: "Clansmen, run for a fee I — 
 Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that 
 shall hook him and hold 
 
40 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 65 Fast Hamish back from the brink ! " — and ever she 
 flies up the steep, 
 And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they 
 
 jostle and strain. 
 But, mother, 'tis vain; but, father, 'tis vain; 
 Stem Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles 
 the child o'er the deep. 
 
 Now a faintness falls on the men that nm, and they 
 all stand still. 
 70 And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God, on 
 her knees. 
 Crying: "Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but 
 please 
 For to spare him!" and Hamish still dangles the 
 child, with a wavering will. 
 
 On a sudden he turns; with a sea-hawk scream, 
 and a gibe, and a song. 
 Cries: "So; I will spare ye the child if, in sight 
 of ye all, 
 75 Ten blows on Maclean's bare back shall fall. 
 And ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at 
 the bite of the thong I" 
 
 Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip 
 that his tooth was red. 
 Breathed short for a space, said: "Nay, but it 
 
 never shall be ! 
 Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea !" 
 80 But the wife: "Can Hamish go fish us the child 
 from the sea, if dead ? 
 
POEMS 41 
 
 Say yea!— Let them lash me, Hamish?" — "Nay I" 
 "Husband, the lashing will heal; 
 But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn 
 
 in his grave ? 
 Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a 
 knave? 
 Quick ! Love ! I will bare thee — so — ^kneel ! " Then 
 Maclean 'gan slowly to kneel 
 
 With never a word, till presently downward he 
 jerked to the earth. as 
 
 Then the henchman — he that smote Hamish — 
 
 would tremble and lag; 
 "Strike, hard!" quoth Hamish, full stern, from 
 the crag; 
 Then he struck him, and "One !" sang Hamish, and 
 danced with the child in his mirth. 
 
 And no man spake beside Hamish; he counted each 
 stroke with a song. 
 When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a 
 
 pace down the height, 90 
 
 And he held forth the child in the heartaching 
 sight 
 Of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as re- 
 penting a wrong. 
 
 And there as the motherly arms stretched out with 
 the thanksgiving prayer — 
 And there as the mother crept up with a fearful 
 swift pace, 
 
42 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 95 Till her finger nigh felt of the baimie's face — 
 In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the 
 child in the air. 
 
 And sprang with the child in his arms from the hor- 
 rible height in the sea, 
 Still screeching, " Revenge 1" in the wind-rush; 
 
 and pallid Maclean, 
 Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain, 
 100 Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold 
 of dead roots of a tree — 
 
 And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his 
 back drip-dripped in the brine, 
 And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he 
 
 flew. 
 And the mother stared white on the waste of 
 blue. 
 And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun 
 began to shine. 
 
 Baltimore, 1878. 
 
 A SONG OF THE FUTURE 
 
 Sail fast, sail fast 
 
 Ark of my hopes. Ark of my dreams; 
 
 Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past, 
 
 Fly ghttering through the sun's strange beams; 
 
 Sail fast, sail fast. 
 
 Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea 
 
 With news about the Future scent the sea: 
 
POEMS 43 
 
 My brain is beating like the heart of Haste: 
 I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste; 
 
 Go, trembling song, lo 
 
 And stay not long; oh, stay not long: 
 Thou'rt only a gray and sober dove, 
 But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love. 
 
 Baltimore, 1878. 
 
 THE MARSHES OF GLYNN 
 
 Glooms of the Uve-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, 5 
 
 Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of 
 
 vows, 
 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 lo 
 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, — 
 
44 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 15 Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul 
 
 that grieves, 
 Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the 
 
 wood. 
 Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good; — 
 
 O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the 
 
 vine. 
 While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long 
 did shine 
 20 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, — 
 25 Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the 
 soul of the oak. 
 And my heart is at ease from men, and the weari- 
 some sound of the stroke 
 Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is 
 
 low. 
 And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I 
 
 know, 
 And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass 
 within, 
 30 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 
 
POEMS 45 
 
 When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but 
 
 bitterness sore, 
 And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnam- 
 
 able pain 
 Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the 
 
 plain, — 
 
 Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face 35 
 
 The vast sweet visage of space. 
 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: — 40 
 
 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 46 
 
 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. so 
 
 Inward and outward to northward and southward 
 
 the beach-lines linger and curl 
 As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and fol- 
 lows the firm sweet limbs of a girl. 
 
46 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into 
 
 sight. 
 Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray 
 
 looping of light. 
 55 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 I 
 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, 
 60 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 the sweep of the 
 
 marshes of Glynn. 
 
 65 Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing- 
 withholding and free 
 
 Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer your- 
 selves 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 
 
POEMS 47 
 
 God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain 
 And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain. 70 
 
 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 of God 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 75 
 
 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: fidl soon the time of the flood-tide must 
 
 be: 80 
 
 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, ss 
 
 And the marsh is meshed with a million veins. 
 
48 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow 
 In the rose-and-silver evening glow. 
 Farewell, my lord Sun 1 
 90 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. 
 
 95 How still the plains of the waters be I 
 The tide is in his ecstasy. 
 The tide is at his highest height: 
 And it is night. 
 
 And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters 
 of sleep 
 100 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 
 105 On the length and the breadth of the marvellous 
 marshes of Glynn. 
 
 Baltimore, 1878. 
 
POEMS 49 
 
 HOW LOVE LOOKED FOR HELL 
 
 "To heal his heart of long-time pain 
 One day Prince Love for to travel was fain 
 
 With Ministers Mind and Sense. 
 'Now what to thee most strange may be?' 
 Quoth Mind and Sense. 'All things above, 6 
 
 One curious thing I first would see — 
 
 Hell,' quoth Love. 
 
 "Then Mind rode in and Sense rode out: 
 They searched the ways of man about. 
 
 First frightfully groaneth Sense. lo 
 
 "Tis here, 'tis here,' and spurreth in fear 
 To the top of the hill that hangeth above 
 And plucketh the Prince: ' Come, come, 'tis here — , 
 
 'Where?' quoth Love — 
 
 "'Not far, not far,' said shivering Sense 15 
 
 As they rode on. 'A short way hence, 
 
 — But seventy paces hence: 
 Look, King, dost see where suddenly 
 This road doth dip from the height above ? 
 Cold blew a mouldy wind by me' 20 
 
 ('Cold? 'quoth Love) 
 
 "'As I rode down, and the River was black, 
 And yon-side, lo ! an endless wrack 
 
 And rabble of souls,' sighed Sense, 
 'Their eyes upturned and begged and burned 25 
 
 In brimstone lakes, and a Hand above 
 
50 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Beat back the hands that upward yearned — ' 
 'Nay r quoth Love — 
 
 "'Yea, yea, sweet Prince; thyself shalt see, 
 30 Wilt thou but down this slope with me; 
 'Tis palpable,' whispered Sense. 
 — ^At the foot of the hill a hving rill 
 Shone, and the lilies shone white above; 
 'But now 'twas black, 'twas a river, this rill,' 
 35 ('Black?' quoth Love) 
 
 "'Ay, black, but lo ! the lilies grow. 
 And yon-side where was woe, was woe, 
 
 — ^Where the rabble of souls,' cried Sense, 
 'Did shrivel and turn and beg and burn, 
 40 Thrust back in the brimstone from above — 
 Is banked of violet, rose, and fern:' 
 'How?' quoth Love: 
 
 "'For lakes of pain, yon pleasant plain 
 Of woods and grass and yellow grain 
 45 Doth ravish the soul and sense: 
 
 And never a sigh beneath the sky, 
 And folk that smile and gaze above — ' 
 'But saw'st thou here, with thine own eye, 
 Hell?' quoth Love. 
 
 50 '"I saw true hell with mine own eye, 
 True hell, or light hath told a lie. 
 
 True, verily,' quoth stout Sense. 
 Then Love rode round and searched the ground, 
 The caves below, the hills above; 
 
POEMS 51 
 
 'But I cannot find where thou hast found 56 
 
 Hell,' quoth Love. 
 
 "There, while they stood in a green wood 
 And marvelled still on 111 and Good, 
 
 Came suddenly Minister Mind. 
 'In the heart of sin doth hell begin: 6o 
 
 'Tis not below, 'tis not above. 
 It Heth within, it Heth within:' 
 
 ('Where?' quoth Love.) 
 
 "'I saw a man sit by a corse; 
 Hell's in the murderer's breast: remorse f 66 
 
 Thus clamored his mind to his mind: 
 Not fleshly dole is the sinner's goal, 
 Hell's not below, nor yet above, 
 'Tis fixed in the ever-damned soul — * 
 
 'Fixed ? ' quoth Love — 7o 
 
 "'Fixed: follow me, would'st thou but see: 
 He weepeth under yon willow tree. 
 
 Fast chained to his corse,' quoth Mind. 
 Full soon they passed, for they rode fast, 
 Where the piteous willow bent above. 76 
 
 'Now shall I see at last, at last, 
 
 Hell,' quoth Love. 
 
 "There when they came Mind suffered shame: 
 'These be the same and not the same,' ; 
 
 A-wondering whispered Mind. so 
 
 Lo, face by face two spirits pace 
 Where the blissful willow waves above: 
 
52 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 One saith: 'Do me a friendly grace — ' 
 (' Grace ! ' quoth Love) 
 
 85 "'Read me two Dreams that linger long, 
 Dim as returns of old-time song 
 That flicker about the mind. 
 I dreamed (how deep in mortal sleep !) 
 I struck thee dead, then stood above, 
 90 With tears that none but dreamers weep;' 
 'Dreams,' quoth Lovej 
 
 "'In dreams, again, I plucked a flower 
 That clung with pain and stung with power. 
 Yea, nettled me, body and mind.' 
 95 ' 'Twas the nettle of sin, 'twas medicine; 
 No need nor seed of it here Above; 
 In dreams of hate true loves begin.' 
 'True,' quoth Love. 
 
 "'Now strange,' quoth Sense, and 'Strange,' quoth 
 Mind, 
 100 'We saw it, and yet 'tis hard to find, 
 
 — But we saw it,' quoth Sense and Mind. 
 Stretched on the ground, beautiful-crowned 
 Of the piteous willow that wreathed above, 
 'But I cannot find where ye have found 
 105 Hell,' quoth Love." 
 
 Balumoee, 1878-9. 
 
POEMS 53 
 
 MARSH SONG— AT SUNSET 
 
 Over the monstrous shambling sea, 
 
 Over the CaUban sea, 
 Bright Ariel-cloud, thou Hngerest: 
 Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West, — 
 
 Thy Prospero I'll be. 5 
 
 Over the humped and fishy sea, 
 
 Over the Caliban sea 
 O cloud in the West, Hke a thought in the heart 
 Of pardon, loose thy wing, and start, 
 
 And do a grace for me. 10 
 
 Over the huge and huddling sea, 
 
 Over the Caliban sea. 
 Bring hither my brother Antonio, — ^Man, — 
 My injurer: night breaks the ban: 
 
 Brother, I pardon thee. 15 
 
 Bamimobe, 1879-80. 
 
 OWL AGAINST ROBIN 
 
 Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him 
 Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him 
 Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest. 
 "From the north, from the east, from the south and 
 
 the west. 
 Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover, 5 
 
 Over and over and over and over, 
 Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven, 
 
54 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven: 
 How can we sleep ? 
 
 10 Peep! you whistle, and cheep ! cheep! cheep! 
 
 Oh, peep, if you will, and buy, if 'tis cheap, 
 
 And have done; for an owl must sleep. 
 
 Are ye singing for fame, and who shall be first ? 
 
 Each day's the same, yet the last is worst, 
 15 And the summer is cursed with the silly outburst 
 
 Of idiot red-breasts peeping and cheeping 
 
 By day, when all honest birds ought to be sleeping. 
 
 Lord, what a din I And so out of all reason. 
 
 Have ye not heard that each thing hath its season ? 
 20 Night is to work in, night is for play-time; 
 Good heavens, not day-time ' 
 
 A vulgar flaunt is the flaring day, 
 
 The impudent, hot, unsparing day. 
 
 That leaves not a stain nor a secret untold,— 
 
 25 Day the reporter, — the gossip of old, — 
 Deformity's tease, — man's common scold — 
 Poh I Shut the eyes, let the sense go numb 
 When day down the eastern way has come. 
 'Tis clear as the moon (by the argument drawn 
 
 30 From Design) that the world should retire at dawn. 
 Day kills. The leaf and the laborer breathe 
 Death in the sun, the cities seethe. 
 The mortal black marshes bubble with heat 
 And puff up pestilence; nothing is sweet 
 
 35 Has to do with the sun: even virtue will taint 
 (Philosophers say) and manhood grow faint 
 In the lands where the villainous sun has sway 
 
POEMS 55 
 
 Through the livelong drag of the dreadful day. 
 What Eden but noon-light stares it tame, 
 Shadowless, brazen, forsaken of shame ? 40 
 
 For the sun tells lies on the landscape, — now 
 Reports me the what, unrelieved with the how, — 
 As messengers lie, with the facts alone. 
 Delivering the word and withholding the tone. 
 
 But oh, the sweetness, and oh, the light 4s 
 
 Of the high-fastidious night ! 
 
 Oh, to awake with the wise old stars — 
 
 The cultured, the careful, the Chesterfield stars, 
 
 That wink at the work-a-day fact of crime 
 
 And shine so rich through the ruins of time so 
 
 That Baalbec is finer than London; oh, 
 
 To sit on the bough that zigzags low 
 
 By the woodland pool. 
 And loudly laugh at man, the fool 
 That vows to the vulgar sun; oh, rare, 65 
 
 To wheel from the wood to the window where 
 A day-worn sleeper is dreaming of care. 
 And perch on the sill and straightly stare 
 Through his visions; rare, to sail 
 Aslant with the hill and a-curve with the vale, — eo 
 To flit down the shadow-shot-with-gleam, 
 Betwixt hanging leaves and starlit stream, 
 Hither, thither, to and fro. 
 Silent, aimless, dayless, slow 
 
 {Aimless f Field-mice ? True, they're slain, 66 
 
 But the night-philosophy hoots at pain, 
 Grips, eats quick, and drops the bones 
 In the water beneath the bough, nor moans 
 
66 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 At the death life feeds on). Robin, pray 
 70 Come away, come away 
 
 To the cultus of night. Abandon the day. 
 
 Have more to think and have less to say. 
 
 And cannot you walk now ? Bah 1 don't hop I 
 Stop! 
 75 Look at the owl, scarce seen, scarce heard, 
 
 O irritant, iterant, maddening bird I " 
 
 Baltimore, 1880. 
 
 A SONG OF LOVE 
 
 "Hey, rose, just born 
 Twin to a thorn; 
 Was't so with you, O Love and Scorn ? 
 
 "Sweet eyes that smiled, 
 6 Now wet and wild; 
 
 O Eye and Tear — mother and child. 
 
 "Well: Love and Pain 
 Be kinsfolk twain: 
 Yet would. Oh would I could love again." 
 
 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. 
 5 But the olives they were not blind to Him, 
 
 The little gray leaves were kind to Him: 
 
POEMS 57 
 
 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. lo 
 
 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 i5 
 
 When out of the woods He came. 
 
 Baltimore, November, 1880. 
 
 MARSH HYMNS 
 
 BETWEEN DAWN AND SUNRISE 
 
 Were silver pink, and had a soul. 
 Which soul were shy, which shyness might 
 
 A visible influence be, and roll 
 Through heaven and earth — 'twere thou, light I 
 
 O rhapsody of the wraith of red, 6 
 
 O blush but yet in prophecy, 
 O sun-hint that hath overspread 
 
 Sky, marsh, my soul, and yonder sail. 
 
 CONTROL 
 
 O Hunger, Hunger, I will harness thee 
 And make thee harrow all my spirit's glebe. 
 Of old the blind bard Herv6 sang so sweet 
 He made a wolf to plow his land. 
 
58 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 SUNRISE 
 
 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, 
 5 Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drift- 
 ing, 
 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, 
 10 Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling: 
 The gates of sleep fell a-trembling 
 Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter yes, 
 Shaken with happiness: 
 The gates of sleep stood wide. 
 
 15 I have waked, I have come, my beloved I I might 
 not abide: 
 I have come ere the dawn, O 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. 
 
 Tell me, sweet burly-bark'd, man-bodied Tree 
 20 That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost 
 know 
 
POEMS 59 
 
 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 Hes 
 Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of 
 
 the eyes ? 25 
 
 O 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,) 30 
 
 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 
 imder the ban. 
 
 Under the ban, — 
 So, ye have wrought me 35 
 
 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 murmiu'ing faiths under forms, 40 
 
60 SELECTIONS FKOM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Ye ministers meet for each passion that 
 
 grieves, 
 Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves. 
 Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me 
 Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me, — 
 45 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 
 50 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. 
 
 My gossip, the' owl, — is it thou 
 55 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, 
 60 Distilling silence, — lo. 
 
 That which our father-age had died to know — 
 
 The menstruum that dissolves all matter — thou 
 Hast found it: for this silence, filling now 
 The globed clarity of receiving space, 
 66 This solves us all: man, matter, doubt, disgrace, 
 Death, love, sin, sanity. 
 
POEMS 61 
 
 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 70 
 
 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 fellow'd, when that thou hast found 
 
 No man with room, or grace enough of bound 75 
 
 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 so 
 
 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. ss 
 
 Oh, what if a sound should be made I 
 
 Oh, what if a bound should be laid 
 
 To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and si- 
 lence a-spring, — 
 
 To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of si- 
 lence the string ! 
 
 I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam 90 
 
 Will break as a bubble o'er-blown in a dream, — 
 
 Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of 
 night, 
 
 Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light. 
 
62 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem 
 95 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 ? 
 100 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 stir- 
 ring 
 Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly 
 
 conferring, 
 Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so: they 
 are still; 
 105 But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill, — 
 And look where the wild duck sails round the bend 
 of the river, — 
 And look where a passionate shiver 
 Expectant is bending the blades 
 Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades, — 
 110 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, 
 115 , With your lapfulls of stars and dreams), — 
 And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak, 
 I For list, down the inshore curve of the creek 
 
POEMS 63 
 
 How merrily flutters the sail, — 
 And lo, in the East ! Will the East unveil ? 
 The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed 120 
 
 A flush: 'tis dead; 'tis alive: 'tis dead, ere the West 
 Was aware of it; nay, 'tis abiding, 'tis unwithdrawn: 
 Have a care, sweet Heaven I 'Tis Dawn. 
 
 Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a 
 flush is uproUed: 
 To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling 
 
 gold 125 
 
 Is builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from out of the 
 
 sea; 
 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 shall flash from the hive-hole over the sea. 130 
 
 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 morn shines complete as in the blue 135 
 Big dew-drop 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, blissful mother mild, 140 
 
 Minded of nought but peace, and of a child. 
 
 Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a 
 measure 
 
64 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Of motion, — not faster than dateless Olympian lei- 
 sure 
 Might pace with unblown ample garments from 
 pleasure to pleasure, — 
 145 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, 
 150 The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul 
 Unto thee, whence the ghttering stream of all mor- 
 rows doth roll. 
 Cry good and past-good and most heavenly mor- 
 row, lord Sun. 
 
 O Artisan born in the purple, — Workman Heat, — 
 Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet 
 
 155 And be mixed in the death-cold oneness, — innermost 
 Guest 
 At the marriage of elements, — fellow of publicans, 
 
 — ^blest 
 King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er 
 The idle skies yet laborest fast evermore, — 
 Thou, in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat 
 
 160 Of the heart of a man, thou Motive, — Laborer Heat: 
 Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news. 
 With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea blues, 
 Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest perfectest hues 
 Ever shaming the maidens, — lily and rose 
 
 165 Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows 
 
 In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that shine, 
 It is thine, it is thine. 
 
POEMS 65 
 
 Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds 
 
 a-swiri 
 Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whiri 
 In the magnet earth, — ^yea, thou with a storm for a 
 
 heart, i70 
 
 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 thy face, I must pass from the face 
 
 of the Sun; 175 
 
 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, iso 
 
 I am Ut 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, iss 
 
 Never the reek of the time's fen-politics 
 
 Hide thee. 
 And ever my heart through the night shall with 
 knowledge abide thee. 
 
66 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath 
 tried thee, 
 190 Labor, at leisure, in art, — till yonder beside thee 
 My soul shall float, friend Sun, 
 The day being done. 
 
 Bai/timobe, December, 1880. 
 
POEM OUTLINES 
 
 The courses of the wind, and the shifts thereof, 
 as also what way the clouds go; and that which is 
 happening a long way off; and the full face of the 
 sun; and the bow of the Milky Way from end to 
 end; as also the small, the life of the fiddler-crab, 5 
 and the household of the marsh-hen; and, more, the 
 translation of black ooze into green blade of marsh- 
 grass, which is as if filth bred heaven: 
 
 This a man seeth upon the marsh. 
 
 ("Hymns of the Marshes.") 
 
 The Dyspeptic 
 
 Frown, quoth my lord Stomach, 
 And I lowered. 
 
 Quarrel, quoth my lord Liver, 
 And I lashed my wife and children, 
 Till at the breakfast-table 6 
 
 Hell sat laughing on the egg-cup. 
 Lie awake all night, quoth my two Masters, 
 And I tossed, and swore, and beat the pillow, 
 And kicked with disgust. 
 
 And slammed every door tight that leads to sleep 
 and heaven. lo 
 
 ("Credo, and Other Poems.") 
 67 
 
68 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 I fled in tears from the men's ungodly quarrel 
 about God: I fled in tears to the woods, and laid 
 me down on the earth; then somewhat like the 
 beating of many hearts came up to me out of the 
 6 ground, and I looked and my cheek lay close by a 
 violet; then my heart took courage and I said: 
 
 "I know that thou art the word of my God, dear 
 Violet: 
 And oh the ladder is not long that to my heaven 
 
 leads. 
 Measure what space a violet stands above the 
 ground, 
 10 'Tis no farther climbing that my soul and angels 
 have to do than that." 
 
 (Written on the fly-leaf of Emerson's "Representative 
 Men," between 1874 and 1879.) 
 
 A man does not reach any stature of manhood 
 until like Moses he kills an Egyptian (i. e., murders 
 some oppressive prejudice of the all-crushing Tyrant 
 Society or Custom or Orthodoxy) and flies into the 
 5 desert of his own soul, where among the rocks and 
 sands, over which at any rate the sun rises clear 
 each day, he slowly and with great agony settles 
 his relation with men and manners and powers out- 
 side, and begins to look with his own eyes, and first 
 10 knows the unspeakable joy of the outcast's kiss 
 upon the hand of sweet naked Truth. 
 
 But let not the young man go to killing his 
 Egyptian too soon: wait till you know all the 
 Egyptians can teach you: wait till you are master 
 
POEM OUTLINES 69 
 
 of the technics of the time; then grave, and resolute, is 
 and aware of consequences, shape your course. 
 
 I am but a small-wingM bird: 
 But I will conquer the big world 
 
 As the bee-martin beats the crow. 
 By attacking it always from Above. 
 
 The United States in two hundred years has 
 made Emerson out of a witch-burner. 
 
 A Poet is a perpetual Adam: events pass before 
 him, like the animals in the creation, and he names 
 them. 
 
 Birth is but a folding of our wings. 
 
 It is always sunrise and always sunset somewhere 
 on the earth. And so, with a silver sunrise before 
 him and a golden sunset behind him, the Royal Sun 
 fares through Heaven, like a king with a herald and 
 a retinue. 
 
 Hunger and a whip: with these we tame wild 
 beasts. So, to tame us, God continually keeps our 
 hearts hungry for love, and continually lashes our 
 souls with the thongs of relentless circumstances. 
 
 Our beliefs needed pruning, that they might 
 bring forth more fruit: and so Science came. 
 
PROSE 
 
 THE WAR-FLOWER 
 
 FROM "tiger lilies" 
 
 "Thou Shalt not kill." 
 "Love your enemies." 
 
 "Father, forgive them: they know not what they 
 do." — Christ. 
 
 The early spring of 1861 brought to bloom, be- 
 sides innumerable violets and jessamines, a strange, 
 enormous, and terrible flower. 
 
 This was the blood-red flower of war, which grows 
 5 amid thunders; a flower whose freshening dews are 
 blood and hot tears, whose shadow chills a land, 
 whose odors strangle a people, whose giant petals 
 droop downward, and whose roots are in hell. 
 It is a species of the great genus, sin-flower, 
 10 which is so conspicuous in the flora of all ages and 
 all countries, and whose multifarious leafage and 
 fruitage so far overgrow a land that the violet, or 
 love-genus, has often small chance to show its quiet 
 blue. 
 15 The cultivation of this plant is an expensive busi- 
 ness, and it is a wonder, from this fact alone, that 
 there should be so many fanciers of it. A most pro- 
 fuse and perpetual manuring with human bones is 
 
 70 
 
PROSE 71 
 
 absolutely necessary to keep it alive, and it is well 
 to have these powdered, which can be easily done 20 
 by hoofs of cavalry-horses and artillery-wheels, not 
 to speak of the usual method of mashing with 
 cannon-balls. It will not grow, either, except in 
 some wet place near a stream of human blood; and 
 you must be active in collecting your widows' tears 25 
 and orphans' tears and mothers' tears to freshen 
 the petals with in the mornings. 
 
 It requires assiduous working; and your labor- 
 hire will be a large item in the expense, not to speak 
 of the amount disbursed in preserving the human 30 
 bones alive until such time as they may be needed, 
 for, I forgot to mention, they must be fresh, and 
 young, and newly-killed. 
 
 It is, however, a hardy plant, and may be grown 
 in any climate, from snowy Moscow to hot India. ^5 
 
 It blooms usually in the spring, continuing to 
 flower all summer until the winter rains set in: yet 
 in some instances it has been known to remain in 
 full bloom diuing a whole inclement winter, as was 
 shown in a fine specimen which I saw the other 40 
 day, grown in North America by two wealthy 
 landed proprietors, who combined all their re- 
 sources of money, of blood, of bones, of tears, of 
 sulphur and what not, to make this the grandest 
 specimen of modern horticulture, and whose success 45 
 was evidenced by the pertinacious blossoms which 
 the plant sent forth even amid the hostile rigors of 
 snow and ice and fiu-ious storms. It is supposed 
 by some that seed of this American specimen (now 
 dead) yet remain in the land; but as for this author so 
 
72 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 (who, with many friends, suffered from the un- 
 healthy odors of the plant), he could find it in his 
 heart to wish fervently that these seed, if there be 
 verily any, might perish in the germ, utteriy out 
 
 55 of sight and life and memory and out of the re- 
 mote hope of resiurection, forever and ever, no 
 matter in whose granary they are cherished ! 
 But. to return. 
 It is a spreading plant, like the banyan, and con- 
 
 60 tinUes to insert new branch-roots into the ground, 
 so as sometimes to overspread a whole continent. 
 Its black-shadowed jungles afford fine cover for 
 such wild beasts as frauds and corruptions and 
 thefts to make their lair in; from which, often, 
 
 65 these issue with ravening teeth and prey upon the 
 very folk that have planted and tended and raised 
 their flowery homes ! 
 
 Now, from time to time, there have appeared cer- 
 tain individuals (wishing, it may be, to disseminate 
 
 70 and make profit upon other descriptions of plants) 
 who have protested against the use of this war- 
 flower. 
 
 Its users, many of whom are surely excellent men, 
 contend that they grow it to protect themselves 
 
 75 from oppressive hailstorms, which destroy their 
 houses and crops. 
 
 But some say the plant itself is worse than any 
 hailstorm; that its shades are damp and its odors 
 imhealthy, and that it spreads so rapidly as to kill 
 
 80 out and uproot adl corn and wheat and cotton 
 crops. Which the plant-users admit; but rejoin 
 that it is cowardly to allow hailstorms to fall with 
 
PROSE 73 
 
 impunity, and that manhood demands a struggle 
 against them of some sort. 
 
 But the others reply, fortitude is more manly 85 
 than bravery, for noble and long endurance wins 
 the shining love of God; whereas brilliant bravery 
 is momentary, is easy to the enthusiastic, and only 
 dazzles the admiration of the weak-eyed since it is 
 as often shown on one side as the other. oo 
 
 But then, lastly, the good war-flower cultivators 
 say, our preachers recommend the use of this plant, 
 and help us mightily to raise it in resistance to the 
 hailstorms. 
 
 And reply, lastly, the interested other-flower 95 
 men, that the preachers should preach Christ; that 
 Christ was worse hailed upon than anybody, before 
 or since; that he always refused to protect him- 
 self, though fully able to do it, by any war-banyan; 
 and that he did upon all occasions, not only discour- 100 
 age the resort to this measure, but did inveigh 
 against it more earnestly than any thing else, as 
 the highest and heaviest crime against Love — ^the 
 Father of Adam, Christ, and all of us. 
 
 Friends and horticulturists, cry these men, stick- 105 
 ling for the last word, if war was ever right, then 
 Christ was always wrong; and war-flowers and the 
 vine of Christ grow different ways, insomuch that 
 no man may grow with both I 
 
 But these sentiments, even if anybody could have no 
 been found patient enough to listen to them, would 
 have been called sentimentalities, or worse, in the 
 spring of 1861, by the inhabitants of any of those 
 
74 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 States lying between Maryland and Mexico. An 
 
 115 afflatus of war was breathed upon us. Like a great 
 wind, it drew on and blew upon men, women, and 
 children. Its sound mingled with the solemnity 
 of the church-organs and arose with the earnest 
 words of preachers praying for guidance in the 
 
 120 matter. It sighed in the half-breathed words of 
 sweethearts conditioning impatient lovers with war- 
 services. It thundered splendidly in the impassioned 
 appeals of orators to the people. It whistled through 
 the streets, it stole in to the firesides, it clinked 
 
 125 glasses in bar-rooms, it lifted the gray hairs of our 
 
 wise men in conventions, it thrilled through the 
 
 lectures in college halls, it rustled the thumbed 
 
 book-leaves of the school-rooms. 
 
 This wind blew upon all the vanes of all the 
 
 130 churches of the country, and turned them one way — 
 toward war. It blew, and shook out, as if by magic, 
 a flag whose device was unknown to soldier or 
 sailor before, but whose every flap and flutter made 
 the blood bound in our veins. 
 
 135 Who could have resisted the fair anticipations 
 which the new war-idea brought? It arrayed the 
 sanctity of a righteous cause in the brilliant trap- 
 pings of military display; pleasing, so, the devout 
 and the flippant which in various proportions are 
 
 140 mixed elements in all men. It challenged the pa- 
 triotism of the sober citizen, while it inflamed the 
 dream of the statesman, ambitious for his country 
 or for himself. It offered test to all allegiances and 
 loyalties; of church, of state; of private loves, of 
 
 145 public devotion; of personal consanguinity; of 
 
PROSE 75 
 
 social ties. To obscurity it held out eminence; to 
 poverty, wealth; to greed, a gorged maw; to specu- 
 lation, legalized gambling; to patriotism, a country; 
 to statesmanship, a government; to virtue, purity; 
 and to love, what all love most desires — a field iso 
 wherein to assert itself by action. 
 
 The author devoutly wishes that some one else 
 had said what is here to be spoken — and said it 
 better. That is: if there was guilt in any, there 
 was guilt in nigh all of us, between Maryland and 155 
 Mexico; that Mr. Davis, if he be termed the ring- 
 leader of the rebellion, was so not by virtue of any 
 instigating act of his, but purely by the unanimous 
 will and appointment of the Southern people; and 
 that the hearts of the Southern people bleed to see 160 
 how their own act has resulted in the chaining of 
 Mr. Davis, who was as innocent as they, and in 
 the pardon of those who were as guilty as he I 
 
 All of us, if any of us, either for pardon or for 
 punishment: this is fair, and we are willing. les 
 
76 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 THE CHARGE OF CAIN SMALUN 
 
 FROM "TIGKR lilies" 
 
 Prince Henry : " I have procured thee, Jack, a charge 
 of foot." 
 
 Falstaff : " I would it had been of horse. Well, God 
 be thanked for these rebels." 
 
 — King Henht IV. 
 
 On one of the last days of April, '64, six soldiers 
 in gray, upon six horses in all colors, were riding 
 down the road that leads from Surrey Court House 
 toward the beautiful bay into which the James 
 
 5 spreads itself before it is called Hampton Roads. 
 It was yet early in the morning. The sun was 
 rejoicing with a majestic tenderness over his little 
 firstling — ^April. 
 Our six horsemen were in gay conversation; as 
 
 10 who would not be, with a light rifle on his shoulder, 
 with a good horse bounding along under him, with 
 a fresh breeze that had in it the vigor of the salt 
 sea and the caressing sweetness of the spring blow- 
 ing upon him, with five friends tried in the tempest 
 
 15 of war as well as by the sterner test of the calm as- 
 sociation of inactive camp-life, and with the world's 
 width about him and the enchanting vagueness of 
 life yet to be lived — the delicious change-prospect 
 of futurity — before him? 
 
 20 As they rode on, the beauty of the woods grew, 
 nearing the river. The road wound about deep 
 glens filled with ancient beeches and oaks, and 
 carpeted with early flowers and heart-leaves upon 
 
PROSE 77 
 
 which still dwelt large bulbs of dew, so enchanted 
 with their night's resting-place that they slept late, 25 
 loth to expand into vapor and go back home in the 
 clouds. 
 
 Lieutenant Flemington spurred his horse forward 
 and turned him round full-face to the party. 
 
 "Gentlemen, there's some mistake about all so 
 thisl" said he, as the men stopped, laughing at a 
 puzzled expression which overspread his face: "for 
 whereas, this honorable company of six has been 
 for three years or more toilsomely marching on foot 
 with an infantry regiment — ^but now rides good 35 
 horses: and whereas, this honorable company of 
 six has been for three years feeding upon hard- 
 tack and bacon which grew continually harder and 
 also less and wormier — but now devours Virginia 
 biscuit and spring-chickens and ham and eggs and 40 
 — and all the other things that came on, and went 
 off, the table at mine host's of the Court House 
 this morning:" — 
 
 "Not to speak of the mint-juleps that the big 
 man-slave brought in on a waiter before we got out 45 
 o' bed," interposed Briggs. 
 
 "And whereas, we have hitherto had to fight 
 through a press of from two to five hundred men to 
 fill our canteens when we marched by a well — but 
 now do take our several gentlemanly ease and so 
 leisure in doing that same, as just now when the 
 pretty girl smiled at us in the big white house 
 yonder, where we 
 
 'Went to the well to get some water;' 
 
78 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 65 and whereas, we have hitherto draggled along in 
 pantaloons that we could put on a dozen ways by 
 as many holes, have worn coats that afiForded no 
 protection to anything but the insects congregated 
 in the seams of the same, have had shirts that — 
 
 60 shirts that — that — at any rate we have had shirts 
 — but now do fare forth prankt in all manner of 
 gorgeous array such as gray jackets with fillimagree 
 on the sleeves of 'em, and hussar-breeches, and 
 cavalry-boots, and O shade of Jones of Georgia! 
 
 65 with spurs to boot and clean white collars to neck: 
 and whereas, we have been accustomed to think a 
 mud-hole a luxury in the way of beds, and have 
 been wont to beg Heaven, as its greatest boon to 
 man, not to let the cavalry ride over us without 
 
 70 waking us up to see 'em do it — ^but now do sleep 
 between white sheets without fear of aught but 
 losing our senses from sleeping so intensely: and 
 whereas, finally, all these things are contrary to the 
 ordinary course of nature and are not known save 
 
 75 as dim recollections of a previous state of existence 
 in itself extremely hypothetical, therefore, be it re- 
 solved and it is hereby resolved" — 
 "Unanimously," from the five. 
 "That this — ^figure — at present on this horse and 
 
 80 clothed with these sumptuous paraphernalia of pom- 
 pous war, is not B. Chauncey Flemington, that 
 is to say (to borrow a term from the German met- 
 aphysics) is Not-Me, that this horse is not my 
 horse, this paraphernalia not my paraphernalia, 
 
 85 that para-ditto not your para-ditto, that this road 
 is Tw road, and the whole affair a dream or phantas- 
 
PROSE 79 
 
 magory sent of the Devil for no purpose but to em- 
 bitter the waking from it, and 
 
 "Resolved, further, that we now proceed to wake 
 up, and exorcise this devil. Cain SmaUin, of the 9o 
 bony fingers, will you do me the favor to seize hold 
 of my left ear and twist it? Hard, if you please, 
 Mr. Smallin!" 
 
 Cain seized and twisted: whereat went up a 
 villainous screech from the twistee. 95 
 
 "Mark you, men, how hard the Devil clings to 
 him!" quoth Briggs. 
 
 "Herr Von Hardenberg says, 'when we dream 
 that we dream, we are near awaking,'" said Rii- 
 betsahl, "but I am not awake and I surely dream 100 
 that I do dream ! " 
 
 "I remember," said Aubrey, "that Hans Dietrich 
 did dream, upon a time, that the elf-people show- 
 ered gold upon him, but woke in the morning and 
 found his breeches-pockets full of yellow leaves. A 105 
 fortiori, this in my canteen, which I dimly dream 
 was poured in there for home-made wine by an old 
 lady who stopped me and blessed me the other 
 side the Court House this morning — this, I say, in 
 my canteen, should now be no wine, or at least, if no 
 these present events be a dream, should be sour 
 wine. I will resolve me of this doubt !" 
 
 The canteen rose in air, its round mouth met 
 Aubrey's round mouth, and a gurgling noise was 
 heard; what time the five awaited in breathless ns 
 suspense the result of the experiment. The gurgUng 
 continued. 
 
 "I think Mister Aubrey must ha' fell into another 
 
80 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 dream, like," quoth Cain Smallin, "an's done for- 
 120 got he's drinkin' an' the rest of us is dry !" 
 
 "Ah-h-h-hl" observed Aubrey as the canteen at 
 last came down. " Gentlemen, this is as marvellous 
 like to good wine of the blackberry as is one blue- 
 coat to another. Albeit this be but a thin and 
 125 harmful wine of hallucination, yet — I am a mortal 
 man ! at least I dream I am, wherefore I am fain 
 exclaim with the poet 
 
 'Thus let me dream, forever, on!'" 
 
 "I think," modestly interposed Philip Sterling, 
 
 130 "that I might perhaps throw a little light on the 
 
 subject; at any rate, the number of experiment? 
 
 will increase the probability of our conclusions drawn 
 
 therefrom. Now as I passed down the road, in this 
 
 dream, I observed a still where they make apple- 
 
 135 brandy; and propounding some questions as to the 
 
 Tnodxis agendi to a benevolent-looking lady who 
 
 stood in the house hard by, she, if I dream not, 
 
 begged that I would accept this bottle, which I now 
 
 uncork, I think, and which, if all end well, will 
 
 140 enable me to say, in the words of the song, 
 
 'I see her still in my dreams.' 
 
 But if it should be wild-wine of the Devil, or newt's- 
 eye and frog-toe porridge, or other noxious jigote of 
 hags and witches — stand around to receive me as I 
 145 fall. I waive the politeness which requires I should 
 offer this bottle first to my fellow-dreamers here, 
 
PROSE 81 
 
 Mr. Briggs and Mr. Smallin, in consideration that 
 they should lose two such valuable lives. I re- 
 quest that I be decently buried and news sent home, 
 if it prove fatal, as I fear. I drink I Friends, adieu, i5o 
 adieu!" 
 
 "Why, this," quoth Briggs, "is siu:ely much 
 adieu about nothing ! " 
 
 The bottle went up to the mouth, like its friend 
 the canteen, and stayed, like its friend. While it 155 
 hung in mid-air — 
 
 "Good Heavens !" exclaimed Aubrey, "the poison 
 is taking effect ! He has not strength to remove it 
 from his mouth!" 
 
 "Gentlemen, all is over!" said Riibetsahl, and 160 
 groaned, and, seizing Philip, dragged him to the 
 green bank of the road, when the draggee fell back 
 in true stage-fashion, not forgetting to spread his 
 handkerchief upon the hillock where he laid his 
 dying head: "I would not die," muttered he, "with les 
 my hair full of cockle-burrs !" 
 
 "Danged ef this 'ere ham aint mighty nigh as 
 good as fresh ven'zun 1" quoth sturdy Cain Smallin, 
 who had dismounted and seated himself on a stump, 
 while his lower jaw worked like a trip-hammer re- 170 
 versed, to the great detriment of a huge slice of 
 bread and ham which he had produced from his 
 capacious haversack. "Tears like as if I never 
 was so horngry sence I was froze up over on old 
 Smoky Mount'n, one Christmas. I b'leeve I haint 175 
 done nuthin' but eat sence we was detailed f'om 
 the ngiment, t'other side o' Richmond ! You better 
 b'leeve now — Gentlemen.'" he exclaimed suddenly. 
 
82 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 "look at yan nigger down the road I He travels 
 180 as peert as ef he was a-earryin' orders to a rigiment 
 to come down into the fight double-quick. Hornet 
 must ha' stung his mule; or sumthin' 1" 
 
 At this moment a negro dashed up on a mule 
 whose pace he was accelerating with lusty encour- 
 185 agement of switch, foot, and voice. 
 
 "Halt there, cahallero hot with haste and coal- 
 black with speed !" cried Flemington. "What's the 
 matter?" 
 
 " Good God, Marster, de Yankee niggahs is play- 
 190 in' de devil wid old Mistis down de road yonder! 
 Dey done hung old Marster up to a tree-limb to 
 make him tell whah he put de las' year's brandy 
 an' he nuwer tole em; an' I seed 'em a-histe-in 
 him up agin, an' I run roun' to de stable an' tuk 
 195 out ole Becky here an' cum a-stavin'; an' I 'lowed 
 to myse'f I'd save one mule for ole Marster anyhow 
 ef he lives, which I don't b'leeve he's agwine to do 
 it nohow; an — " 
 
 "Mount, men!" Flemington jumped into the 
 200 saddle. "How far is it to the house? What's 
 your name ? " — to the negro. 
 
 "Name Charles, sah: Charles, de ca'ige-driver. 
 
 Hit's about a half ur three-quarter thar, f'om here." 
 
 "Have they got out a picket; did you see any of 
 
 205 them riding this way while the others were in the 
 
 house?" 
 
 "Yaas, sah; seed one cumin' dis ways as I cum 
 de back-way, out o' de lot 1 " 
 
 "'Twon't do to ride any further, then. Get off 
 210 your mule, Charles. Boys, dismount and tie your 
 
PROSE 83 
 
 horses In the bushes here, off the road. We'll go 
 round this back-way. Lead the way; and keep un- 
 der cover of the hedge and the fence, yonder, 
 everybody, so they can't see us." 
 
 While the words were being spoken the command 215 
 had been executed, and the party struck into a 
 rapid walk down a path which led off from the 
 road in the direction of the river. Presently they 
 crossed a fence; and stopped to peep through the 
 rails of another, running perpendicularly to the path. 220 
 A large house, part brick, part wooden, embowered 
 in trees, appeared at a short distance. 
 
 "Dat's de place!" whispered Charles, the car- 
 riage-driver. 
 
 Flemington had already formed his plans. 225 
 
 "Men, they're all inside the house, except the 
 picket out in the road yonder. I'm going to creep 
 up close to the house just behind that brick garden- 
 wall there, and see how things look. The rest of 
 you keep down this side o' the fence, and get just 230 
 behind the long cattle-stable in rear of the house, 
 — 'tisn't twenty yards — and every man for himself I 
 Come with a yell or two. Cain, you come with 
 me. Here goes over the fence: quick 1" 
 
 The minutes and the men crept on, like silent 235 
 worms. Flemington and Smallin gained their wall, 
 which ran within a few feet of the house, unper- 
 ceived. 
 
 "I'll stop here, Cain. You creep on, close down, 
 old fellow, until you get to the front fence yonder, 240 
 and wait there till I shoot. Then come on like a 
 big rock tumbling down Old Smoky !" 
 
84 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 An old man was lying on the grass-plat, with a 
 rope-noose still hanging round his neck. Over him 
 
 245 bent a young girl. She was dashing water in his 
 face and chafing his hands in the endeavor to re- 
 store the life which, by his bloodless face and the 
 blue streak under his eyes, seemed to have taken 
 its departure forever. Near them sat a corpulent 
 
 250 old lady, on the ground, passive with grief, rocking 
 herself to and fro, in that most pathetic gesture of 
 sorrowing age. 
 
 Inside the house was Bedlam. Oaths, yells of 
 triumph, taunts, and menaces mingled with the 
 
 255 crash of breaking crockery and the shufiling of heavy 
 feet. 
 
 Just as Flemington raised his head above the wall, 
 four stout negroes staggered through a wide door 
 which gave upon a balcony of the second story, 
 
 260 bearing a huge old-fashioned wardrobe which they 
 lifted over the railing and let drop. A wild shout 
 went up as the wardrobe crashed to the ground and 
 burst open, revealing a miscellaneous mass of the 
 garments that are known to the other sex. 
 
 265 "Mo' good clo'es!" cried the four, and dived 
 back into the door for new plunder. 
 
 Through the parlor-window, just opposite Flem- 
 ington, appeared a burly black, with rolling eyes 
 and grinning mouth, seated at the piano. With 
 
 270 both fists he banged the keys, while he sang a 
 ribald song at the top of a voice rendered hideously 
 husky by frequent potations from a demijohn that 
 stood on the centre-table. Suddenly the performer 
 jumped from his seat. 
 
PROSE 85 
 
 "Damn ef you'll ever play on dat planner agin, 275 
 you Becky Parven !" said he, and seized an axe and 
 chopped the instrument in pieces. 
 
 The raiders — unauthorized ones, as Flemington 
 knew — ^had evidently found the brandy. They were 
 already infuriated by it. It was with difficulty that 280 
 Flemington could refrain from firing long enough to 
 allow the rest of the party to gain their position. 
 
 Suddenly a huge negro, dressed in the tawdriest 
 of uniforms, which he had just been decorating with 
 all conceivable ornaments tied to whatever button 285 
 offered a support to dangle from, rushed out of the 
 house towards the group in front, exclaiming, — 
 
 "By de livin' God, I'm de Cap'n and I'm gwine 
 to do de kissin' fur de comp'nyl You needn't 
 shake, old lady Parven, I'm a'ter dem red lips over 290 
 yonder!" — ^pointing to Rebecca Parven. 
 
 Flemington could withhold no longer. He fired; 
 the black captain fell, an answering yell came from 
 the stable-yard, he leaped the wall and rushed 
 towards the house, meeting Aubrey, who exclaimed 295 
 hurriedly, — "The rest ran into the back-door, 
 Flem; I ran round for fear they might be too many 
 for you in front, as they came out." 
 
 Almost simultaneously three shots were fired in- 
 side the house, and eight or ten negroes in blue uni- 300 
 forms rushed through the front door and down the 
 steps. In their ardor Flemington and Aubrey gave 
 no ground. The foremost negro on the steps fell, 
 his companions tumbled over him, the whole mass 
 precipitated itself upon Flemington and Aubrey, 305 
 and bore them to the earth. 
 
86 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 At this moment the black commander, whom 
 Flemington's bullet had merely stunned for a mo- 
 ment, scrambled to his feet, and seeing the other 
 
 310 three of Flemington's party running down the 
 steps, called out, "Jump up, boys; de aint but five 
 of 'em, we can whip de lights out'n 'em, yiti" 
 Brandishing his sabre, he ran towards Flemington, 
 who was just rising from the ground. 
 
 315 The surprised negroes took heart from the bold 
 tone and action of their commander, and com- 
 menced an active scramble for whatever offensive 
 weapons lay about. In the imdisciplined haste of 
 plunderers they had thrown down their arms in 
 
 320 various places inside the house, the necessity of 
 caution being entirely over-whelmed by the more 
 pressing one of arm-room for the bulky articles 
 which each was piling up for himself. To prevent 
 them from grasping the axes and farming imple- 
 
 325 ments about the yard, besides two or three guns 
 and sabres that had been abandoned by the most 
 eager of the plunderers before entering the house, 
 now required the most active exertions on the part 
 of the Confederates whose number was actually 
 
 330 reduced to four, since Flemington was entirely oc- 
 cupied in repelling the savage onslaught of the 
 colored leader. 
 
 To increase their critical situation, nothing was 
 heard of Cain Smallin; and they could ill afford to 
 
 335 lose the great personal strength, not to speak of the 
 yet unfired rifle, of the mountaineer, in a contest 
 where the odds both in numbers and individual 
 power were so much against them. 
 
PROSE 87 
 
 Affairs grew serious. Flemington, for ten minutes, 
 had had arms, legs, and body in unceasing play, to 340 
 parry with his short unbayoneted carbine the fu- 
 rious cuts of his antagonist. He was growing tired; 
 while his foe, infuriated by brandy and burning for 
 revenge, seemed to gather strength each moment 
 and to redouble his blows. The others were too 345 
 busy to render any assistance to their lieutenant. 
 John Briggs had just made a close race with three 
 negroes for an axe that lay down the avenue, and 
 was now standing over it endeavoring with desper- 
 ate whirls of his carbine to defend at once the 350 
 front, flank, and rear of his position. 
 
 Flemington felt his knees giving way, a faint 
 dizziness came over him, and in another moment he 
 would have been cloven from skull to breast-bone, 
 when suddenly John Briggs called out cheerily, — 355 
 
 "Hurrah, boys ! Here's help I" 
 
 All the combatants stopped to glance towards 
 the gate that opened from the main road into the 
 short avenue leading to the house. True I On the 
 other side the hedge appeared a cloud of dust, from aeoi 
 which sounded the voices of a dozen men, — 
 
 " Give the nigs hell, thar, boys ! " shouted a bass- 
 voice. "Here we come; hold 'em thar, Flem!" 
 came in treble, as if from a boy-soldier. "You 
 four men on the right, thar, ride round 'em, cut 365 
 'em off from the back-yard ! " commanded the sten- 
 torian voice of Cain Smallin. 
 
 The tide of victory turned in an instant, and bore 
 off, on its ebb, the colored raiders. Their com- 
 mander hastily jumped over the garden wall and 370 
 
88 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 made huge strides towards the woods, his followers 
 scattering in flight towards the nearest cover, 
 
 Too weak to pursue his frightened opponent, 
 Flemington sat down to rest, gazing curiously to- 
 
 375 wards the reinforcing voices. 
 
 "Open the gate thar, you men in front!" came 
 from the advancing dust-cloud. The gate flew open; 
 in rushed a frightened herd of cows, sheep, horses, 
 mules, hogs, and oxen, in whose midst appeared the 
 
 380 tall form of Cain Smallin. Armed with a huge 
 branch of a thorn-tree in each hand, he was darting 
 about amongst the half-wild cattle, belaboring them 
 on all sides, crowding them together and then scatter- 
 ing the mass, what time he poured forth a torrent 
 
 385 of inspiring war-cries in all tones of voice, from 
 basso-profundo to boy-soprano. On comes he, like 
 an avalanche with a whirl-wind in it, down the 
 avenue, all unconscious of the success of his strat- 
 agem, stretching out his long neck over the cows' 
 
 390 backs to observe the situation in his front, and not 
 ceasing to dart to and fro, to belabor, and to utter 
 his many-voiced battle-cries. 
 
 '"Gad, he don't see a thing I" exclaimed Briggs; 
 "his eyes are mud-holes of dust and perspiration! 
 
 395 He'll run over the old gentleman there, boys: let's 
 get him into the porch;" and the four had barely 
 lifted the still unconscious man up the steps when 
 the cattle-cavalry thundered by, splitting at the 
 house like a stream on a rock, and flowing tumul- 
 
 400 tuously each side of it towards the back-yard. 
 
 "Hold up, Cain ! Hold up, man I" shouted Flem- 
 ington; "the enemy's whipped and gone!" 
 
PROSE 89 
 
 Mr. SmalHn came to a stop in Ms furious career, 
 and, covered with the dust and sweat of grimy 
 war, advanced at a more dignified pace to the steps 405 
 where his party were resting. 
 
 "Yo see, boys," said he wiping his face with his 
 coat-sleeve, "I was a right smart time a-comin', 
 but when I did come, I cum, by the Livin' ! Phe- 
 e-e-w !" continued he, blowing off his excitement. 4io 
 "Reckin you thought I was a whole brigade, didn't 
 ye ? An' I'm blasted ef I didn't make mighty nigh 
 as much rumpus as any common brigade, sure's 
 you're born to die I Ye see, I was creepin' along 
 to'rds the road out yan, an' I seed all them critters 4i5 
 penned up in a little pen just 'cross the road over 
 against yan gate, an' I 'lowed to myself 'at the 
 niggers had jest marched along the road an' druv 
 along all the cattle in the country for to carry 'em 
 back across the river. An' so I thought if I could 420 
 git them bulls thar — mighty fine bulls they is too ! 
 — git 'em right mad, an' let the whole kit an' bilin' 
 of 'em through yan gate down to'rds the house, I 
 mought skeer somebody mighty bad ez I didn't do 
 nothin' else; an' so I jest lit in amongst 'em thar, an' 425 
 tickled 'em all right smart with yan thorn bushes 
 till they was tolubble mad, an' then fotch 'em 
 through the gate a-bilin'I I've dniv cattle afore, 
 gentlemen !" concluded Mr. Smallin, with a dignity 
 which was also a generosity, since, while it asserted 430 
 his own skill, it at the same time apologized for 
 those who might have attempted such a feat and 
 failed from want of practice in driving cattle. 
 
90 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIEE 
 THE OCKLAWAHA RIVER 
 
 FROM "FLORIDA" 
 
 For a perfect journey God gave us a perfect day. 
 The little Ocklawaha steamboat Marion — a steam- 
 boat which is like nothing in the world so much as a 
 Pensacola gopher with a preposterously exaggerated 
 5 back — had started from Palatka some hours before 
 daylight, having taken on her passengers the night 
 previous; and by seven o'clock of such a May morn- 
 ing as no words could describe unless words were 
 themselves May mornings we had made the twenty- 
 
 10 five miles up the St. Johns, to where the Ocklawaha 
 flows into that stream nearly opposite Welaka, one 
 hundred miles above Jacksonville. 
 
 Just before entering the mouth of the river our 
 little gopher-boat scrambled alongside a long raft of 
 
 15 pine logs which had been brought in separate sec- 
 tions down the Ocklawaha and took off the lumber- 
 men, to carry them back for another descent while 
 this raft was being towed by a tug to Jackson- 
 ville. 
 
 20 Observe that man who is now stepping from the 
 wet logs to the bow of the Marion — how can he ever 
 cut down a tree? He is a slim native, and there 
 is not bone enough in his whole body to make the 
 left leg of a good English coal-heaver; moreover, 
 
 25 he does not seem to have the least idea that a man 
 needs grooming. He is disheveled and wry-trussed 
 to the last degree; his poor weasel jaws nearly 
 touch their inner sides as they suck at the acrid 
 
PROSE 91 
 
 ashes in his dreadful pipe; and there is no single 
 filament of either his hair or his beard that does not so 
 look sourly, and at wild angles, upon its neighbor 
 filament. His eyes are viscidly unquiet; his nose 
 is merely dreariness come to a point; the corners of 
 his mouth are pendulous with that sort of suffering 
 which does not involve any heroism, such as being 35 
 out of tobacco, waiting for the corn-bread to get 
 cooked, and the like; his — but, poor devil 1 I with- 
 draw all these remarks. He has a right to look 
 disheveled, or any other way he likes. For listen: 
 "Wall, sir," he says, with a dilute smile, as he 40 
 wearily leans his arm against the low deck where I 
 am sitting, "ef we did'n' have ther sentermentillest 
 rain last night, I'll be dad-busted I" 
 
 He had been in it aU night. 
 
 Presently we rounded the raft, abandoned the 45 
 broad and garish highway of the St. Johns, and 
 turned off to the right into the narrow lane of the 
 Ocklawaha, the sweetest water-lane in the world, a 
 lane which runs for more than a hundred and fifty 
 miles of pure delight betwixt hedgerows of oaks and so 
 cypresses and palms and bays and magnolias and 
 mosses and manifold vine-growths, a lane clean to 
 travel along for there is never a speck of dust in it 
 save the blue dust and gold dust which the wind 
 blows out of the flags and lilies, a lane which is as ss 
 if a typical woods-stroll had taken shape and as if 
 God had turned into water and trees the recollection 
 of some meditative ramble through the lonely se- 
 dusions of His own soul. 
 
 As we advanced up the stream our wee craft even eo 
 
92 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 seemed to emit her steam in more leism-ely wliiffs, as 
 one puffs one's cigar in a contemplative walk through 
 the forest. Dick, the pole-man — a man of marvel- 
 ous fine functions when we shall presently come to 
 65 the short, narrow curves — ^lay asleep on the guards, 
 in great peril of rolling into the river over the three 
 inches between his length and the edge; the people 
 of the boat moved not, and spoke not; the white 
 crane, the curlew, the limpkin, the heron, the water- 
 70 turkey, were scarcely disturbed in their quiet avo- 
 cations as we passed, and quickly succeeded in 
 persuading themselves after each momentary ex- 
 citement of our gliding by that we were really after 
 all no monster, but only some day-dream of a mon- 
 75 ster. The stream, which in its broader stretches 
 reflected the sky so perfectly that it seemed a riband 
 of heaven bound in lovely doublings along the breast 
 of the land, now began to narrow: the blue of 
 heaven disappeared, and the green of the over- 
 go leaning trees assumed its place. The lucent current 
 lost all semblance of water. It was simply a dis- 
 tillation of many-shaded foliages, smoothly sweep- 
 ing along beneath us. It was green trees, fluent. 
 One felt that a subtle amalgamation and mutual 
 85 give-and-take had been effected between the natures 
 of water and leaves. A certain sense of pellucidness 
 seemed to breathe coolly out of the woods on either 
 side of us; and the glassy dream of a forest over 
 which we sailed appeared to send up exhalations of 
 90 balms and odors and stimulant pungencies. 
 
 "Look at that snake in the water!" said a gen- 
 tleman, as we sat on deck with the engineer, just 
 
PROSE 93 
 
 come up from his watch. The engineer smiled. 
 "Sir, it is a water-turkey," he said gently. 
 
 The water-turkey is the most preposterous bird 95 
 within the range of ornithology. He is not a bird, 
 he is a neck, with such subordinate rights, members, 
 appurtenances and hereditaments thereunto apper- 
 taining as seem necessary to that end. He has just 
 enough stomach to arrange nourishment for his loo 
 neck, just enough wings to fly painfully along with 
 his neck, and just big enough legs to keep his neck 
 from dragging on the ground; and his neck is light 
 colored, while the rest of him is black. When he 
 saw us he jumped up on a limb and stared. Then 105 
 suddenly he dropped into the water, sank like a 
 leaden ball out of sight, and made us think he was 
 drowned — when presently the tip of his beak ap- 
 peared, then the length of his neck lay along the 
 surface of the water, and in this position, with his 110 
 body submerged, he shot out his neck, drew it back, 
 wriggled it, twisted it, twiddled it, and spirally 
 poked it into the east, the west, the north, and the 
 south, with a violence of involution and a contor- 
 tionary energy that made one think in the same 115 
 breath of corkscrews and of lightnings. But what 
 nonsense ! All that labor and perilous asphyxiation 
 — for a beggarly sprat or a couple of inches of water- 
 snake ! 
 
 But I make no doubt he would have thought us as 120 
 absurd as we him if he could have seen us taking 
 our breakfast a few minutes later: for as we sat 
 there, some half-dozen men at table, all that sombre 
 melancholy which comes over the American at his 
 
94 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 125 meals descended upon us; no man talked, each of us 
 could hear the other crunch his bread in faucihus, 
 and the noise thereof seemed in the ghostly stillness 
 like the noise of earthquakes and of crashing worlds; 
 even the furtive glances towards each other's plates 
 
 130 were presently awed down to a sullen gazing of each 
 into his own; the silence increased, the noises be- 
 came intolerable, a cold sweat broke out over at 
 least one of us, he felt himself growing insane, and 
 rushed out to the deck with a sigh as of one saved 
 
 135 from a dreadful death by social suffocation. 
 
 There is a certain position a man can assume on 
 board the steamer Marion which constitutes an 
 attitude of perfect rest, and leaves one's body in 
 such blessed ease that one's soul receives the heav- 
 
 140 enly influences of the Ocklawaha sail absolutely 
 without physical impediment. 
 
 Know, therefore, tired friend that shall hereafter 
 ride up the Ocklawaha on the Marion — whose name 
 I would fain call Legion — that if you will place a 
 
 145 chair just in the narrow passage-way which runs 
 alongside the cabin, at the point where this passage- 
 way descends by a step to the open space in front of 
 the pilot-house, on the left-hand side facing to the 
 bow, you will perceive a certain slope in the railing 
 
 150 where it descends by an angle of some thirty degrees 
 to accommodate itself to the step aforesaid; and this 
 slope should be in such a position as that your left 
 leg unconsciously stretches itself along the same by 
 the pure insinuating solicitations of the fitness of 
 
 155 things, and straightway dreams itself off into an 
 Elysian tranquillity. You should then tip your 
 
PROSE 95 
 
 chair in a slightly diagonal position back to the side 
 of the cabin, so that your head will rest there- 
 against, your right arm will hang over the chair- 
 back, and your left arm will repose on the railing, leo 
 I give no specific instruction for your right leg, be- 
 cause I am disposed to be liberal in this matter and 
 to leave some gracious scope for personal idiosyn- 
 crasies as well as a margin of allowance for the acci- 
 dents of time and place; dispose your right leg, les 
 therefore, as your heart may suggest, or as all the 
 precedent forces of time and the universe may have 
 combined to require you. 
 
 Having secured this attitude, open wide the eyes 
 of your body and of your soul; repulse with a i70 
 heavenly suavity the conversational advances of the 
 drummer who fancies he might possibly sell you a bill 
 of white goods and notions, as well as the polite in- 
 quiries of the real-estate person who has his little 
 private theory that you are in search of an orange- i75 
 grove to purchase; then sail, sail, sail, through the 
 cypresses, through the vines, through the May day, 
 through the floating suggestions of the unutterable 
 that come up, that sink down, that waver and sway 
 hither and thither; and so shall you have revelations iso 
 of rest, and so shall your heart forever afterwards 
 interpret Ocklawaha to mean repose. 
 
 Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ock- 
 lawaha, at the right-hand edge of the stream, is the 
 handsomest residence in America. It belongs to a iss 
 certain alligator of my acquaintance, a very honest 
 and worthy saurian, of good repute. A little cove 
 of water, dark green under the overhanging leaves, 
 
96 SELECTIONS FEOM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 placid, pellucid, curves round at the river edge into 
 
 190 the flags and lilies, with a curve just heart-breaking 
 for the pure beauty of the flexure of it. This house 
 of my saurian is divided into apartments — ^little 
 subsidiary bays which are scalloped out by the lily- 
 pads according to the sinuous fantasies of their 
 
 195 growth. My saurian, when he desires to sleep, has 
 but to lie down anywhere: he will find marvelous 
 mosses for his mattress beneath him; his sheets will 
 be white lily-petals; and the green disks of the 
 lily-pads will straightway embroider themselves to- 
 
 200 gether above him for his coverlet. He never quar- 
 rels with his cook, he is not the slave of a kitchen, 
 and his one house-maid — the stream — forever sweeps 
 his chamber clean. His conservatories there under 
 the glass of that water are ever and without labor 
 
 205 filled with the enchantments of strange under-water 
 growths; his parks and his pleasure-grounds are 
 bigger than any king's. Upon my saurian's house 
 the winds have no power, the rains are only a new 
 delight to him, and the snows he will never see. 
 
 210 Regarding fire, as he does not employ its slavery, so 
 he does not fear its tyranny. Thus, all the elements 
 are the friends of my saurian's house. While he 
 sleeps he is being bathed. What glory to awake 
 sweetened and freshened by the sole careless act of 
 
 215 sleep! 
 
 Lastly, my saurian has unnumbered mansions, and 
 can change his dwelling as no human householder 
 may; it is but a fillip of his tail, and lo ! he is estab- 
 lished in another place as good as the last, ready 
 
 220 furnished to his liking. 
 
PROSE 97 
 
 For many miles together the Ocklawaha is a river 
 without banks, though not less clearly defined as a 
 stream for that reason. The swift, deep current 
 meanders between tall lines of trees; beyond these, 
 on each side, there is water also — a thousand shallow 225 
 rivulets lapsing past the bases of multitudes of trees. 
 Along the immediate edges of the stream every tree- 
 trunk, sapling, stump, or other projecting coign of 
 vantage is wrapped about with a close-growing vine. 
 At first, like an unending procession of nuns dis- 230 
 posed along the aisle of a church these vine-figures 
 stand. But presently, as one journeys, this nun- 
 imagery fades out of one's mind, and a thousand 
 other fancies float with ever-new vine-shapes into 
 one's eyes. One sees repeated all the forms one has 235 
 ever known, in grotesque juxtaposition. Look ! here 
 is a great troop of girls, with arms wreathed over 
 their heads, dancing down into the water; here are 
 high velvet armchairs and lovely green fauteuils of 
 divers pattern and of softest cushionment; there the 240 
 vines hang in loops, in pavilions, in columns, in 
 arches, in caves, in pyramids, in women's tresses, 
 in harps and lyres, in globular mountain-ranges, 
 in pagodas, domes, minarets, machicolated towers, 
 dogs, belfries, draperies, fish, dragons. Yonder is a 2^5 
 bizarre congress — Una on her lion, Angelo's Moses, 
 two elephants with howdahs, the Laocoon group, 
 Arthur and Lancelot with great brands extended 
 aloft in combat, Adam bent with love and grief 
 leading Eve out of Paradise, Csesar shrouded in his 250 
 mantle receiving his stabs, Greek chariots, locomo- 
 tives, brazen shields and cuirasses, coliunbiads, the 
 
98 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 twelve Apostles, the stock exchange. It is a green 
 dance of all things and times. 
 
 255 The edges of the stream are further defined by 
 flowers and water-leaves. The tall, blue flags; the 
 ineffable lilies sitting on their round lily-pads Hke 
 white queens on green thrones; the tiny stars and 
 long ribbons of the water-grasses; the pretty pha- 
 
 260 lanxes of a species of "bonnet" which from a long 
 stem that swings off down-stream along the surface 
 sends up a hundred little graceful stemlets, each 
 bearing a shield-like disk and holding it aloft as the 
 antique soldiers held their bucklers to form the 
 
 265 testudo, or tortoise, in attacking. All these border 
 the river in infinite varieties of purfling and chase- 
 ment. 
 
 The river itself has an errant fantasy, and takes 
 many shapes. Presently we come to where it seems 
 
 270 to fork into four separate curves above and below. 
 
 "Them's the Windin'-blades," said my raftsman. 
 
 To look down these lovely vistas is like looking down 
 
 the dreams of some pure young girl's soul; and the 
 
 gray moss-bearded trees gravely lean over them in 
 
 275 contemplative attitudes, as if they were studying — 
 
 in the way strong men should study — the mysteries 
 
 and sacrednesses and tender depths of some visible 
 
 reverie of maidenhood. 
 
 — ^And then, after this day of glory, came a night 
 
 280 of glory. Down in these deep-shaded lanes it was 
 dark indeed as the night drew on. The stream 
 which had been all day a baldrick of beauty, some- 
 times blue and sometimes green, now became a black 
 band of mystery. But presently a brilliant flame 
 
PROSE 991 
 
 flares out overhead: they have lighted the pine- 285 
 knots on top of the pilot-house. The fire advances up 
 these dark sinuosities like a brilliant god that for his 
 mere whimsical pleasure calls the black impenetra- 
 ble chaos ahead into instantaneous definite forms. as 
 he floats along the river-curves. The white columns 290 
 of the cypress-trunks, the silver-embroidered crowns 
 of the maples, the green-and-white of the lilies along 
 the edges of the stream — these all come in a con- 
 tinuous apparition out of the bosom of the darkness 
 and retire again : it is endless creation succeeded by 295 
 endless oblivion. Startled birds suddenly flutter 
 into the light, and after an instant of illuminated 
 flight melt into the darkness. From the perfect 
 silence of these short flights one derives a certain 
 sense of awe. Mystery appears to be about to utter 300 
 herself in these suddenly-illuminated forms, and then 
 to change her mind and die back into mystery. 
 
 Now there is a mighty crack and crash: limbs and 
 leaves scrape and scrub along the deck; a Httle bell 
 tinkles; we stop. In turning a short curve, or 305 
 rather doubling, the boat has run her nose smack 
 into the right bank, and a projecting stump has 
 thrust itself sheer through the starboard side. Out, 
 Dick I out, Henry I Dick and Henry shuffle forward 
 to the bow, thrust forth their long white pole against 310 
 a tree-trunk, strain and push and bend to the deck 
 as if they were salaaming the god of night and ad- 
 versity, our bow slowly rounds into the stream, the 
 wheel turns, and we puff quietly along. 
 
 Somewhere back yonder in the stern Dick is 315 
 whistling. You should hear him ! With the great 
 
100 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 aperture of his mouth, and the rounding vibratory- 
 surfaces of his thick lips, he gets out a mellow 
 breadth of tone that almost entitles him to rank as 
 320 an orchestral instrument. Here is his tune: 
 
 i 
 
 Allegretto, 
 
 D. C. ad infinitum. 
 
 I * I ,— ■ 
 
 S^E 
 
 ^^ 
 
 iS: 
 
 It is a genuine plagal cadence. Observe the syn- 
 copations marked in this air: they are characteristic 
 of negro music. I have heard negroes change a 
 well-known melody by adroitly syncopating it in 
 
 325 this way, so as to give it a bizarre effect scarcely 
 imaginable; and nothing illustrates the negro's nat- 
 ural gifts in the way of keeping a difEcult tempo more 
 clearly than his perfect execution of airs thus trans- 
 formed from simple to complex accentuations. 
 
 330 Dick has changed his tune: allegro! 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 «^ 
 
 i^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 m 
 
 if=f^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 P=JE 
 
 f wt. \ ■■ 
 
 33S 
 
 J)a capo, of course, and in, capo indefinitely; for 
 it ends on the dominant. The dominant is a chord 
 of progress: no such thing as stopping. It is like 
 dividing ten by nine, and carrying out the decimal 
 remainders: there is always one over. 
 
PROSE 101 
 
 Thus the negro shows that he does not like the 
 ordinary accentuations nor the ordinary cadences 
 of tunes: his ear is primitive. If you will follow 
 the course of Dick's musical reverie — which he now 
 thinks is solely a matter betwixt himself and the 340 
 night, as he sits back yonder in the stern alone — 
 presently you will hear him sing a whole minor tune 
 without once using a semitone: the semitone is 
 weak, it is a dilution, it is not vigorous like the whole 
 tone; and I have seen a whole congregation of ne- 345 
 groes at night, as they were worshipping in their 
 church with some wild song or other and swaying to 
 and fro with the ecstasy and the glory of it, abandon 
 as by one consent the semitone that should come 
 according to the civilized modus, and sing in its place 350 
 a big lusty whole tone that would shake any man's 
 soul. It is strange to observe that some of the most 
 magnificent effects in advanced modern music are 
 produced by this same method, notably in the works 
 of Asger Hamerik of Baltimore, and of Edward Grieg 355 
 of Copenhagen. Any one who has heard Thomas's 
 orchestra lately wDl have no difficulty in remember- 
 ing his delight at the beautiful Nordische Suite by the 
 former writer and the piano concerto by the latter. 
 
 — ^And then it was bed-time. Let me tell you how seo 
 to sleep on an Ocklawaha steamer in May. With a 
 small bribe persuade Jim, the steward, to take the 
 mattress out of your berth and lay it slanting just 
 along the railing that incloses the lower part of the 
 deck, in front, and to the left, of the pilot-house. Lie ses 
 flat-backed down on the same, draw your blanket 
 over you, put your cap on your head in consideration 
 
102 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 of the night air, fold your arms, say some little 
 prayer or other, and fall asleep with a star looking 
 370 right down your eye. 
 
 When you awake in the morning, your night will 
 not seem any longer, any blacker, any less pure than 
 this perfect white blank in the page; and you will 
 feel as new as Adam. 
 
 375 — ^At sunrise, I woke, and found that we were 
 lying with the boat's nose run up against a sandy 
 bank which quickly rose into a considerable hill. A 
 sandy-whiskered native came down from the pine 
 cabin on the knoll. "How air ye?" he sung out 
 
 380 to the skipper, with an evident expectation in his 
 voice. " Got any freight fur me ? " 
 
 The skipper handed him a heavy parcel, in brown 
 paper. He examined it keenly with all his eyes, felt 
 it over carefully with all his fingers; his counte- 
 
 385 nance fell, and the shadow of a great despair came 
 over it. 
 
 "Look-a-here," he said, "hairvt you brought me 
 no terbacker?" 
 
 "Not unless it's in that bundle," said the skipper. 
 
 390 "Hell !" he said, "hit's nothin' but shot;" and he 
 turned off into the forest, as we shoved away, with a 
 face like the face of the Apostate Julian when the 
 devils were dragging him down the pit. 
 
 I would have let my heart go out in sympathy to 
 
 395 this man — for his agonizing after terbacker, ere the 
 next week bring the Marion again, is not a thing to be 
 laughed at — had I not believed that he was one of the 
 vanilla-gatherers. You must know that in the low 
 
PROSE 103 
 
 grounds of the Ocklawaha grows what is called the 
 vanilla-plant — a plant with a leaf much like that of 4oo 
 tobacco when dried. This leaf is now extensively 
 used to adulterate cheap chewing tobacco, and the 
 natives along the Ocklawaha drive a considerable 
 trade in gathering it. The process of this com- 
 merce is exceedingly simple: and the bills drawn 405 
 against the consignments are primitive. The officer 
 in charge of the Marion showed me several of the 
 communications received at various landings during 
 our journey, which accompanied small shipments of 
 the spurious weed. They were generally about as 4io 
 follows: 
 
 " Deer Sib 
 
 "i send you one bag Vemeller, pleeze fetch one par 
 of shus numb 8 and ef enny over fetch twelve yards 
 hoamspin. 41s 
 
 "Yrs trly 
 
 "&c." 
 
 The captain of the steamer takes the bags to 
 Palatka, barters the vanilla for the articles specified, 
 and distributes these on the next trip to their re- 420 
 spective owners. 
 
 In a short time we came to the junction of the 
 river formed by the irruption of Silver Spring ("Sil- 
 ver Spring Run ") with the Ocklawaha proper. Here 
 new astonishments befell. The water of the Ockla- 425 
 waha, which had before seemed clear enough, now 
 showed but like a muddy stream as it flowed side 
 by side, unmixing for some distance, with the Silver 
 Spring water. 
 
104 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 430 The Marion now left the Ocklawaha and turned 
 into the Run. How shall one speak quietly of this 
 journey over transparency ? The Run is very deep: 
 the white bottom seems hollowed out in a continual 
 succession of large spherical holes, whose entire con- 
 
 435 tents of darting fish, of under-mosses, of flowers, of 
 submerged trees, of lily-stems, and of grass-ribbons 
 revealed themselves to us through the lucent fluid 
 as we sailed along thereover. The long series of 
 convex bodies of water filling these white concavities 
 
 440 impressed one like a chain of globular worlds com- 
 posed of a transparent lymph. Great numbers of 
 keen-snouted, blade-bodied gar-fish shot to and fro 
 in unceasing motion beneath us: it seemed as if 
 the underworlds were filled with a multitude of 
 
 445 crossing sword-blades wielded in tireless thrust and 
 parry by invisible arms. 
 
 The shores, too, had changed. They now opened 
 out into clear savannas, overgrown with a broad- 
 leafed grass to a perfect level two or three feet above 
 
 450 the water, and stretching back to boundaries of 
 cypress and oaks; and occasionally, as we passed one 
 of these expanses curving into the forest, with a 
 diameter of a half-mile, a single palmetto might be 
 seen in or near the centre — ^perfect type of that lone- 
 
 455 some solitude which the German names Einsamkeit 
 — onesomeness. Then again, the cypress and pal- 
 mettos would swarm to the stream and line its banks. 
 Thus for nine miles, counting our gigantic rosary of 
 water-wonders and lovelinesses, we fared on. 
 
 460 Then we rounded to, in the very bosom of the 
 Silver Spring itself, and came to wharf. Here there 
 
PROSE 105 
 
 were warehouses, a turpentine distillery, men run- 
 ning about with boxes of freight and crates of Florida 
 cucumbers for the Northern market, country stores 
 with wondrous assortments of goods — ^fiddles, clothes, 465 
 physic, groceries, school-books, what not — and a 
 little farther up the shore, a tavern. I learned, in a 
 hasty way, that Ocala was five miles distant, that one 
 could get a very good conveyance from the tavern 
 to that place, and that on the next day — Sunday — 470 
 a stage would leave Ocala for Gainesville, some forty 
 miles distant, being the third relay of the long stage- 
 line which runs three times a week between Tampa 
 and Gainesville, via Brooksville and Ocala. 
 
 Then the claims of scientific fact and of guide- 475 
 book information could hold me no longer. I ceased 
 to acquire knowledge, and got me back to the won- 
 derful spring, drifting over it, face downwards, as 
 over a new world of delight. 
 
 It is sixty feet deep a few feet off shore, and 48o 
 covers an irregular space of several acres before con- 
 tracting into its outlet — the Run. But this sixty 
 feet does not at all represent the actual impression 
 of depth which one receives, as one looks through 
 the superincumbent water down to the clearly 485 
 revealed bottom. The distinct sensation is, that 
 although the bottom there is clearly seen, and al- 
 though all the objects in it are of their natural size, 
 undiminished by any narrowing of the visual angle, 
 yet it and they are seen from a great distance. It is 490 
 as if depth itself — that subtle abstraction — ^had been 
 compressed into a crystal lymph, one inch of which 
 would represent miles of ordinary depth. 
 
106 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 As one rises from gazing into these quaint pro- 
 
 495 fundities and glances across the broad surface of 
 the spring, one's eye is met by a charming mosaic of 
 brilliant hues. The water-plain varies in color, ac- 
 cording to what it lies upon. Over the pure white 
 limestone and shells of the bottom it is perfect mala- 
 
 500 chite green; over the water-grass it is a much darker 
 green; over the sombre moss it is that rich brown and 
 green which Bodmer's forest-engravings so vividly 
 suggest; over neutral bottoms it reflects the sky's 
 or the cloud's colors. All these views are further 
 
 505 varied by mixture with the manifold shades of 
 
 foliage-reflections cast from overhanging boscage 
 
 near the shore, and still further by the angle of the 
 
 observer's eye. 
 
 One would think these elements of color-variation 
 
 510 were numerous enough; but they were not nearly all. 
 Presently the splash of an oar in a distant part of the 
 spring sent a succession of ripples circling over the 
 pool. Instantly it broke into a thousand-fold prism. 
 Every ripple was a long curve of variegated sheen. 
 
 515 The fundamental hues of the pool when at rest were 
 distributed into innumerable kaleidoscopic flashes 
 and brilliances, the multitudes of fish became mul- 
 titudes of animated gems, and the prismatic lights 
 seemed actually to waver and play through their 
 
 520 translucent bodies, until the whole spring, in a great 
 blaze of sunlight, shone like an enormous fluid jewel 
 that without decreasing forever lapsed away upward 
 in successive exhalations of dissolving sheens and 
 glittering colors. 
 
PROSE 107 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF THE ALAMO 
 
 Early on the morning of the 9th of December, 
 1835, General Cos sends a flag of truce, asking to 
 surrender, and on the 10th agrees with the American 
 general upon formal and honorable articles of capitu- 
 lation. 5 
 
 The poor citizens of San Antonio de Bexar, how- 
 ever, do not yet enjoy the blessings of life in quiet; 
 these wild soldiers who have stormed the town can- 
 not remain long without excitement. Presently Dr. 
 Grant revives his old project of taking Matamoros lo 
 and soon departs, carrying with him most of the 
 troops that had been left at Bexar for its defence, 
 together with a great part of the garrison's winter 
 supply of clothing, ammunition, and provisions, and 
 in addition "pressing" such property of the citizens is 
 as he needs, insomuch that Colonel Neill, at that 
 time in command at Bexar, writes to the Governor of 
 Texas that the place is left destitute and defenceless. 
 
 Soon afterward Colonel NeUl is ordered to destroy 
 the Alamo walls and other fortifications, and bring 20 
 off the artillery, since no head can be made there in 
 the present crisis against the enemy who is reported 
 marching in force upon San Antonio. Having no 
 teams. Colonel Neill is unable to obey the order, and 
 presently retires, his unpaid men having dropped off 25 
 until but eighty remain, of whom Col. Wm. B. Travis 
 assumes command. Colonel Travis promptly calls 
 for more troops, but gets none as yet, for the Gov- 
 ernor and Council are at deadly quarrel, and the 
 
108 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 30 soldiers are all pressing toward Matamoros. Travis 
 has brought thirty men with him; about the middle 
 of February he is joined by Colonel Bowie with 
 thirty others, and these, with the eighty already in 
 garrison, constitute the defenders of San Antonio de 
 
 35 Bexar. 
 
 On the 23d of February appears General Santa Ana 
 at the head of a well-appointed army of some four 
 thousand men, and marches straight on into town. 
 The Texans retire before him slowly, and finally shut 
 
 40 themselves up in the Alamo; here straightway be- 
 gins that bloodiest, smokiest, grimiest tragedy of 
 this century. William B. Travis, James Bowie, and 
 David Crockett, with their hundred and forty-five 
 effective men, are enclosed within a stone i-ectangle 
 
 45 one hundred and ninety feet long and one hundred 
 and twenty-two feet wide, having the old Church 
 of the Alamo in the southeast corner, in which are 
 their quarters and magazine. They have a supply 
 of water from the ditches that run alongside the 
 
 50 walls, and by way of provision they have about 
 ninety bushels of corn and thirty beef-cattle, their 
 entire stock, all collected since the enemy came in 
 sight. The walls are unbroken, with no angles from 
 which to command besieging lines. They have four- 
 
 55 teen pieces of artillery moimted, with but little 
 ammunition. 
 
 Santa Ana demands unconditional surrender. 
 Travis replies with a cannon-shot, and the attack 
 commences, the enemy running up a blood-red flag 
 
 60 in town. Travis despatches a messenger with a call 
 to his coxmtrymen for re-enforcements, which con- 
 
PROSE 109 
 
 eludes: "Though this call may be neglected, I am 
 determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and 
 die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his 
 own honor and that of his country. Victory or es 
 death!" 
 
 Meantime the enemy is active. On the 25th 
 Travis has a sharp fight to prevent him from erecting 
 a battery raking the gate of the Alamo. At night it 
 is erected, with another a half-mile off at the powder- 70 
 house, on a sharp eminence at the extremity of the 
 present main street of the town. On the 26th there 
 is skirmishing with the Mexican cavalry. In the 
 cold — for a norther has commenced to blow and 
 the thermometer is down to thirty-nine — the Tex- 75 
 ans make a sally successfully for wood and water, 
 and that night they burn some old houses on the 
 northeast that might afford cover for the enemy. 
 So, amid the enemy's constant rain of shells and 
 balls, which miraculously hurt no one, the Texans so 
 strengthen their works and the siege goes on. On 
 the 28th Fannin starts from Goliad with three hun- 
 dred troops and four pieces of artillery, but for lack 
 of teams and provisions quickly returns, and the 
 little garrison is left to its fate. On the morning of S5 
 the 1st of March there is doubtless a wild shout of 
 welcome in the Alamo; Capt. John W. Smith has 
 managed to convey thirty-two men into the fort. 
 These join the heroes, and the attack and defence 
 go on. On the 3d a single man, Moses Rose, es- 90 
 capes from the fort. His account of that day' must 
 
 • As transmitted by the Zuber family, whose residence was 
 the first place at which poor Rose had dared to stop, and with 
 
no SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 entitle it to consecration as one of the most pa- 
 thetic days of time. 
 
 "About two hours before sunset on the 3d of 
 95 March, 1836, the bombardment suddenly ceased, 
 and the enemy withdrew an unusual distance. . . . 
 Colonel Travis paraded all his effective men in 
 a single file, and taking his position in front of 
 the centre, he stood for some moments apparently 
 
 100 speechless from emotion; then, nerving himself for 
 the occasion, he addressed them substantially as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 '"My brave companions: stern necessity compels 
 me to employ the few moments afforded by this 
 
 105 probably brief cessation of conflict, in making known 
 to you the most interesting, yet the most solemn, 
 melancholy, and unwelcome fact that humanity can 
 realize. . . . Our fate is sealed. Within a very few 
 days, perhaps a very few hours, we must all be in 
 
 110 eternity ! I have deceived you long by the promise 
 of help; but I crave your pardon, hoping that after 
 hearing my explanation you will not only regard my 
 conduct as pardonable, but heartily sympathize with 
 me in my extreme necessity. ... I have continually 
 
 115 received the strongest assurances of help from home. 
 Every letter from the Council, and every one that I 
 have seen from individuals at home, has teemed with 
 assurances that our people were ready, willing, and 
 anxious to come to our relief. . . . These assurances 
 
 whom he remained some weeks, heahng the festered woiinds 
 made on his legs by the cactus-thorns during the days of his 
 fearful journey. The account from which these extracts are 
 taken is contributed to the Texas Almanac for 1873, by W. P. 
 Zuber, and hia mother, Mary Ann Zuber. 
 
PROSE 111 
 
 I received as facts. ... In the honest and simple 120 
 confidence of my heart I have transmitted to you 
 these promises of help and my confident hope of 
 success. But the promised help has not come, and 
 our hopes are not td be realized. I have evidently 
 confided too much in the promises of our friends; 125 
 but let us not be in haste to censure them. . . . 
 Our friends were evidently not informed of our 
 perilous condition in time to save us. Doubtless 
 they would have been here by this time had they 
 expected any considerable force of the enemy. . . . iso 
 My calls on Colonel Fannin remain unanswered, 
 and my messengers have not returned. The prob- 
 abilities are that his whole command has fallen 
 into the hands of the enemy, or been cut to pieces, 
 and that our couriers have been cut off. [So does the 135 
 brave, simple soul refuse to feel any bitterness in the 
 hour of death.] . . . Then we must die. . . . Our 
 business is not to make a fruitless effort to save our 
 lives, but to choose the manner of our death. But 
 three modes are presented to us; let us choose that i4o 
 by which we may best serve our country. Shall we 
 surrender and be deliberately shot without taking the 
 life of a single enemy ? Shall we try to cut our way 
 out through the Mexican ranks and be butchered 
 before we can kill twenty of our adversaries ? I am 145 
 opposed to either method. . . . Let us resolve to 
 withstand our adversaries to the last, and at each 
 advance to kill as many of them as possible. And 
 when at last they shall storm our fortress, let us kill 
 them as they come ! kill them as they scale our wall ! iso, 
 kill them as they leap within I kill them as they raise 
 
112 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 their weapons and as they use them ! kill them as 
 they kill our companions ! and continue to kill them 
 as long as one of us shall remain alive ! . . . But I 
 
 155 leave every man to his own choice. Should any man 
 prefer to surrender ... or to attempt an escape 
 ... he is at liberty to do so. My own choice is to 
 stay in the fort and die for my country, fighting as 
 long as breath shall remain in my body. This will I 
 
 160 do, even if you leave me alone. Do as you think 
 best; but no man can die with me without afford- 
 ing me comfort in the hour of death V 
 
 " Colonel Travis then drew his sword, and with its 
 point traced a line upon the ground extending from 
 
 165 the right to the left of the file. Then, resuming his 
 position in front of the centre, he said, 'I now want 
 every man who is determined to stay here and die 
 with me to come across this line. Who will be first ? 
 March !' The first respondent was Tapley Holland, 
 
 170 who leaped the line at a bound, exclaiming, 'I am 
 ready to die for my country ! ' His example was in- 
 stantly followed by every man in the file with the 
 exception of Rose. . . . Every sick man that could 
 walk, arose from his bunk and tottered across the 
 
 175 line. Colonel Bowie, who could not leave his bed, 
 said, ' Boys, I am not able to come to you, but I wish 
 some of you would be so kind as to remove my cot 
 over there.' Four men instantly ran to the cot, and 
 each lifting a corner, carried it across the line. Then 
 
 180 every sick man that could not walk made the same 
 
 request, and had his bunk removed in the same way. 
 
 "Rose, too, was deeply affected, but differently 
 
 from his companions. He stood till every man but 
 
PROSE 113 
 
 himself had crossed the line. ... He sank upon the 
 ground, covered his face, and yielded to his own re- iss 
 flections. ... A bright idea came to his relief; he 
 spoke the Mexican dialect very fluently, and could 
 he once get safely out of the fort, he might easily 
 pass for a Mexican and effect an escape. . . . He di- 
 rected a searching glance at the cot of Colonel Bowie. i9o 
 . . . Colonel David Crockett was leaning over the 
 cot, conversing with its occupant in an undertone. 
 After a few seconds Bowie looked at Rose and said, 
 'You seem not to be willing to die with us. Rose.' 
 'No,' said Rose; 'I am not prepared to die, and i95 
 shall not do so if I can avoid it.' Then Crockett also 
 looked at him, and said, 'You may as well conclude 
 to die with us, old man, for escape is impossible.' 
 Rose made no reply, but looked at the top of the wall. 
 'I have often done worse than to climb that wall,' 200 
 thought he. Suiting the action to the thought, he 
 sprang up, seized his wallet of unwashed clothes, and 
 ascended the wall. Standing on its top, he looked 
 down within to take a last view of his dying friends. 
 They were all now in motion, but what they were 205 
 doing he heeded not; overpowered by his feelings, he 
 looked away and saw them no more. ... He threw 
 down his wallet and leaped after it. . . . He took 
 the road which led down the river around a bend to 
 the ford, and through the town by the church. He 210 
 waded the river at the ford and passed through the 
 town. He saw no person . . . but the doors were all 
 closed, and San Antonio appeared as a deserted city. 
 "After passing through the town he turned down 
 the river. A stillness as of death prevailed. When 215 
 
114 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 he had gone about a quarter of a mile below the 
 town, his ears were saluted by the thunder of the 
 bombardment, which was then renewed. That 
 thunder continued to remind him that his friends 
 
 220 were true to their cause, by a continual roar with but 
 
 slight intervals until a little before sunrise on the 
 
 morning of the 6th, when it ceased and he heard it no 
 
 more. " * 
 
 And well may it "cease" on that morning of that 
 
 225 6th; for after that thrilling 3d the siege goes on, 
 the enemy furious, the Texans replying calmly and 
 slowly. Finally Santa Ana determines to storm. 
 Some hours before daylight on the morning of the 
 6th the Mexican infantry, provided with scaling- 
 
 230 ladders, and backed by the cavalry to keep them 
 up to the work, surround the doomed fort. At 
 daylight they advance and plant their ladders, 
 but give back under a deadly fire from the Tex- 
 ans. They advance again, and again retreat. A 
 
 235 third time — Santa Ana threatening and coaxing by 
 turns — they plant their ladders. Now they mount 
 the walls. The Texans are overwhelmed by sheer 
 weight of numbers and exhaustion of continued 
 watching and fighting. The Mexicans swarm into 
 
 240 the fort. The Texans club their guns; one by one 
 they fall fighting — now Travis yonder by the west- 
 
 1 Rose succeeded in making his escape, and reached the 
 house of the Zubers, as before stated, in fearful condition. 
 After remaining here some weeks, he started for his home in 
 Nacogdoches, but on the way his thorn-wounds became in- 
 flamed anew, and when he reached home "his friends thought 
 that he could not live many months." This was "the last" 
 that the Zubers "heard of him.". 
 
PROSE 115 
 
 ern wall, now Crockett here in the angle of the 
 church-wall, now Bowie butchered and mutilated 
 in his sick-cot, breathe quick and pass away; and 
 presently every Texan lies dead, while there in 245 
 horrid heaps are stretched five hundred and twenty- 
 one dead Mexicans and as many more wounded I 
 Of the human beings that were in the fort five re- 
 main alive: Mrs. Dickinson and her child, Colonel 
 Travis's negro-servant, and two Mexican women. 250 
 The conquerors endeavor to get some more revenge 
 out of the dead, and close the scene with raking to- 
 gether the bodies of the Texans, amid insults, and 
 burning them. 
 
 The town did not long remain in the hands of the 255 
 Mexicans. Events followed each other rapidly until 
 the battle of San Jacinto, after which the dejected 
 Santa Ana wrote his famous letter of captivity under 
 the tree, which for a time relieved the soil of Texas 
 from hostile footsteps. San Antonio was neverthe- 260 
 less not free from bloodshed, though beginning to 
 drive a sharp trade with Mexico and to make those 
 approaches toward the peaceful arts which neces- 
 sarily accompany trade. The Indians kept life from 
 stagnating, and in the year 1840 occurred a bloody 265 
 battle with them in the very midst of the town. 
 Certain Camanche chiefs, pending negotiations for 
 a treaty of peace, had promised to bring in all the 
 captives they had, and on the 19th of March, 1840, 
 met the Texan Commissioners in the Council-house 270 
 in San Antonio to redeem their promise. Leaving 
 twenty warriors and thirty-two women and children 
 outside, twelve chiefs entered the council-room and 
 
116 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 presented the only captive they had brought — a little 
 
 275 white girl — declaring that they had no others. 
 
 This statement the little girl pronounced false, 
 asserting that it was made solely for the purpose of 
 extorting greater ransoms, and that she had but re- 
 cently seen other captives in their camp. An awk- 
 
 280 ward pause followed. Presently one of the chiefs 
 inquired. How the Conmiissioners liked it. By way 
 of reply, the company of Captain Howard, who had 
 been sent for, filed into the room, and the Indians 
 were told that they would be held prisoners until 
 
 285 they should send some of their party outside after 
 the rest of the captives. The Commissioners then 
 rose and left the room. 
 
 As they were in the act of leaving, however, one of 
 the Indian chiefs attempted to rush through the door, 
 
 290 and being confronted by the sentinel, stabbed him. 
 Seeing the sentinel hurt, and Captain Howard also 
 stabbed, the other chiefs sprang forward with knives 
 and bows and arrows, and the fight raged until they 
 were all killed. Meantime the warriors outside be- 
 
 295 gan to fight, and engaged the company of Captain 
 Read; but, taking shelter in a stone-house, were sur- 
 rounded and killed. Still another detachment of the 
 Indians managed to continue the fight until they 
 had reached the other side of the river, when they 
 
 300 were finally despatched. Thirty-two Indian war- 
 riors and five Indian women and children were slain, 
 and the rest of the women and children were made 
 prisoners. The savages fought desperately, for seven 
 Texans were killed and eight wounded. 
 
PROSE 117 
 
 THE STORY OF A PROVERB 
 
 Once upon a time — if my memory serves me cor- 
 rectly, it was in the year 6J^ — His Intensely-Serene- 
 and-Altogether-Perfectly-Astounding Highness the 
 King of Nimporte was reclining in his royal palace. 
 The casual observer (though it must be said that 5 
 casual observers were as rigidly excluded from the 
 palace of Nimporte as if they had been tramps) might 
 easily have noticed that his majesty was displeased. 
 
 The fact is, if his majesty had been a little boy, he 
 would have been whipped and sent to bed for the lo 
 sulks; but even diu-ing this early period of which I 
 am writing, the strangeness of things had reached 
 such a pitch that in the very moment at which this 
 story opens the King of Nimporte arose from his 
 couch, seized by the shoulders his grand vizier (who is 
 was not at all in the sulks, but was endeavoring, as 
 best he could, to smile from the crown of his head to 
 the soles of his feet), and kicked him down-stairs. 
 
 As the grand vizier reached the lowest step in the 
 course of his tumble, a courier covered with dust was 20 
 in the act of putting his foot upon the same. But 
 the force of the grand vizier's fall was such as to 
 knock both the courier's legs from under him; and 
 as, in the meantime, the grand vizier had wildly 
 clasped his arms around the courier's body, to arrest 25 
 his own descent, the result was such a miscellaneous 
 rolling of the two men, that for a moment no one was 
 able to distinguish which legs belonged to the grand 
 vizier and which to the courier. 
 
118 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 30 " Has she arrived ? " asked the grand vizier, as soon 
 as his breath came. 
 
 "Yes," said the courier, already hastening up the 
 stairs. 
 At this magic word, the grand vizier again threw 
 
 35 his arms around the courier, kissed him, released 
 him, whirled himself about like a teetotum, leaped 
 into the air and cracked his heels thrice before again 
 touching the earth, and said: 
 
 "Allah be praised I Perhaps now we shall have 
 
 40 some peace in the palace." 
 
 In truth, the King of Nimporte had been waiting 
 two hours for his bride, whom he had never seen; 
 for, according to custom, one of his great lords had 
 been sent to the court of the bride's father, where he 
 
 45 had married her by proxy for his royal master, and 
 whence he was now conducting her to the palace. 
 For two hours the King of Nimporte had been wait- 
 ing for a courier to arrive and announce to him tha,t 
 the cavalcade was on its last day's march over the 
 
 50 plain, and was fast approaching the city. 
 
 As soon as the courier had delivered his message, 
 the king kicked him down-stairs (for not arriving 
 sooner, his majesty incidentally remarked), and 
 ordered the grand vizier to cause that a strip of velvet 
 
 55 carpet should be laid from the front door of the grand 
 palace, extending a half-mile down the street in the 
 direction of the road by which the cavalcade was 
 approaching; adding that it was his royal intention 
 to walk this distance, for the purpose of giving his 
 
 60 bride a more honorable reception than any bride of 
 any king of Nimporte had ever before received. 
 
PROSE 119 
 
 The grand vizier lost no time in carrying out his 
 instructions, and in a short time the king appeared 
 stepping along the carpet in the stateliest manner, 
 followed by a vast and glittering retinue of courtiers, 65 
 and encompassed by multitudes of citizens who had 
 crowded to see the pageant. 
 
 As the king, bareheaded and barefooted (for at this 
 time everybody went barefoot in Nimporte), ap- 
 proached the end of the carpet, he caught sight of his 7o 
 bride, who was but a few yards distant on her milk- 
 white palfrey. 
 
 Her appearance was so ravishingly beautiful, that 
 the king seemed at first dazed, like a man who has 
 looked at the sun; but, quickly recovering his wits, 75 
 he threw himself forward, in the ardor of his admira- 
 tion, with the intention of running to his bride and 
 dropping on one knee at her stirrup, while he would 
 gaze into her face with adoring humility. And as 
 the king rushed forward with this impulse, the pop- so 
 ulace cheered with the wildest enthusiasm at finding 
 him thus capable of the feelings of an ordinary man. 
 
 But in an instant a scene of the wildest commo- 
 tion ensued. At the very first step which the king 
 took beyond the end of the carpet, his face grew sud- 85 
 denly white, and, with a loud cry of pain, he fell 
 fainting to the earth. He was immediately sur- 
 rounded by the anxious courtiers; and the court 
 physician, after feeling his pulse for several minutes, 
 and inquiring very carefully of the grand vizier 90 
 whether his majesty had on that day eaten any green 
 fruit, was in the act of announcing that it was a vio- 
 lent attack of a very Greek disease indeed, when the 
 
120 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 bride (who had dismounted and run to her royal lord 
 95 with wifely devotion) called the attention of the ex- 
 cited courtiers to his majesty's left great toe. It was 
 immediately discovered that, in his first precipitate 
 step from off the carpet to the bare ground, his 
 majesty had set his foot upon a very rugged pebble, 
 100 the effect of which upon tender feet, accustomed to 
 nothing but velvet, had caused him to swoon with 
 pain. 
 
 As soon as the King of Nimporte opened his eyes 
 in his own palace, where he had been quickly con- 
 ies veyed and ministered to by the bride, he called his 
 trembling grand vizier and inquired to whom be- 
 longed the houses at that portion of the street where 
 his unfortunate accident had occurred. Upon learn- 
 ing the names of these unhappy property-owners, he 
 110 instantly ordered that they and their entire kindred 
 should be beheaded, and the adjacent houses burned 
 for the length of a quarter of a mile. 
 
 The king further instructed the grand vizier that 
 he should instantly convene the cabinet of councillors 
 115 and devise with them some means of covering the 
 whole earth with leather, in order that all possibility 
 of such accidents to the kings of Nimporte might be 
 completely prevented — adding, that if the cabinet 
 should fail, not only in devising the plan, but in ac- 
 120 tually carrying it out within the next three days, then 
 the whole body of councillors should be executed on 
 the very spot where the king's foot was bruised. 
 
 Then the king kissed his bride, and was very 
 happy. 
 125 But the grand vizier, having communicated these 
 
PROSE 121 
 
 instructions to his colleagues of the cabinet — 
 namely, the postmaster-general, the praetor, the 
 sachem, and the three Scribes-and-Pharisees — ^pro- 
 ceeded to his own home, and consulted his wife, 
 whose advice he was accustomed to follow with the i30 
 utmost faithfulness. After thinking steadily for two 
 days and nights, on the morning of the third day the 
 grand vizier's wife advised him to pluck out his 
 beard, to tear up his garments, and to make his will; 
 declaring that she could not, upon the most mature 135 
 deliberation, conceive of any course more appropri- 
 ate to the circumstances. 
 
 The grand vizier was in the act of separating his 
 last pair of bag-trousers into very mmute strips 
 indeed, when a knocking at the door arrested his i40 
 hand, and in a moment afterward the footman 
 ushered in a young man of very sickly complexion, 
 attired in the seediest possible manner. The grand 
 vizier immediately recognized him as a person well 
 known about Nimporte for a sort of loafer, given to 145 
 mooning about the clover-fields, and to meditating 
 upon things in general, but not commonly regarded 
 as ever likely to set a river on fire. 
 
 "O grand vizier I" said this young person, "I have 
 come to say that if you will procure the attendance iso 
 of the king and court to-morrow morning at eleven 
 o'clock in front of the palace, I will cover the whole 
 earth with leather for his majesty in five minutes." 
 
 Then the grand vizier arose in the quietest possible 
 manner, and kicked the young person down the back- 155 
 stairs; and when he had reached the bottom stair, 
 the grand vizier tenderly lifted him in his arms and 
 
122 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 carried him back to the upper landing, and then 
 kicked him down the front-stairs — in fact, quite out 
 
 160 of the front gate. 
 
 Having accomplished these matters satisfactorily, 
 the grand vizier returned with a much lighter heart, 
 and completed a draft of his last will and testament 
 for his lawyer, who was to call at eleven. 
 
 165 Punctually at the appointed time — being exactly 
 three days from the hour when the grand vizier re- 
 ceived his instructions — the King of Nimporte and 
 all his court, together with a great mass of citizens, 
 assembled at the scene of the accident to witness the 
 
 170 decapitation of the entire cabinet. The headsman 
 had previously arranged his apparatus; and pres- 
 ently the six unfortunate wise men were seen stand- 
 ing with hands tied behind, and with heads bent for- 
 ward meekly over the six blocks in a row. 
 
 175 The executioner advanced and lifted a long and 
 glittering sword. He was in the act of bringing it 
 down with terrific force upon the neck of the grand 
 vizier, when a stir was observed in the crowd, which 
 quickly increased to a commotion so great that the 
 
 180 king raised his hand and bade the executioner wait 
 
 until he could ascertain the cause of the disturbance. 
 
 In a moment more, the young person appeared in 
 
 the open space which had been reserved for the 
 
 court, and with a mingled air of proud self-confidence 
 
 185 and of shrinking reserve, made his obeisance before 
 the king. 
 
 "O king of the whole earth I" he said, "if within 
 the next five minutes I shall have covered the whole 
 earth with leather for your majesty, will your gra- 
 
PROSE 123 
 
 cious highness remit the sentence which has been loo 
 pronoimced upon the wise men of the cabinet ? " 
 
 It was impossible for the king to refuse. 
 
 "Will your majesty then be kind enough to ad- 
 vance your right foot ? " 
 
 The young person kneeled, and drawing a bundle 195 
 from his bosom, for a moment manipulated the 
 king's right foot in a manner which the courtiers 
 could not very well understand. 
 
 "Will your majesty now advance your majesty's 
 left foot?" said the young person again; and again 200 
 he manipulated. 
 
 "Will your majesty now walk forth upon the 
 stones?" said the young person; and his majesty 
 walked forth upon the stones. 
 
 "Will your majesty now answer: If your majesty 205 
 should walk over the entire globe, would not your 
 majesty's feet find leather between them and the 
 earth the whole way ? " 
 
 "It is true," said his majesty. 
 
 "Will your majesty further answer: Is not the 210 
 whole earth, so far as your majesty is concerned, now 
 covered with leather ? " 
 
 "It is true," said his majesty. 
 
 "0 king of the whole earth, what is it?" cried the 
 whole court in one breath. 215 
 
 "In fact, my lords and gentlemen," said the king, 
 "I have on, what has never been known in the whole 
 great kingdom of Nimporte until this moment, a 
 pair of — of " 
 
 And here the king looked inquiringly at the young 220 
 person. 
 
124 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 "Let us call them — shoes," said the young person. 
 
 Then the king, walking to and fro over the pebbles 
 
 with the greatest comfort and security, looked inquir- 
 
 225 ingly at him. "Who are you?" asked his majesty. 
 
 "I belong," said the young person, "to the tribe 
 
 of the poets — who make the earth tolerable for the 
 
 feet of man." 
 
 Then the king turned to his cabinet, and pacing 
 
 230 along in front of the six blocks, pointed to his feet, 
 
 and inquired: 
 
 " What do you think of this invention ? " 
 "I do not like it; I cannot understand it; I think 
 the part of wisdom is always to reject the unintelli- 
 235 gible; I therefore advise your majesty to refuse it," 
 said the grand vizier, who was really so piqued that 
 he would much rather have been beheaded than Uve 
 to see the triumph of the young person whom he had 
 kicked down both pairs of stairs. 
 240 It is worthy of note, however, that when the grand 
 vizier found himself in his own apartments, alive and 
 safe, he gave a great leap into the air and whirled him- 
 self with joy, as on a former occasion. 
 The postmaster-general also signified his disap- 
 245 proval. "I do not like it," said he; "they are not 
 rights and lefts; I therefore advise your majesty to 
 refuse the invention." 
 
 The praetor was like minded. " It will not do," he 
 said; "it is clearly obnoxious to the overwhelming 
 250 objection that there is absolutely nothing objection- 
 able about it; in my judgment, this should be suf- 
 ficient to authorize your majesty's prompt refusal of 
 the expedient and the decapitation of the inventor." 
 
PROSE 125 
 
 "Moreover," added the sachem, "if your majesty 
 once wears them, then every man, woman and child 255 
 will desire to have his, her, and its whole earth cov- 
 ered with leather; which will create such a demand 
 for hides, that there will shortly be not a bullock or a 
 cow in your majesty's dominions; if your majesty 
 will but contemplate the state of this kingdom with- zeo 
 out beef and butter — there seems no more room for 
 argument!" 
 
 "But these objections," cried the three Scribes- 
 and-Pharisees, "although powerful enough in them- 
 selves, O king of the whole earth, have not yet 265 
 touched the most heinous fault of this inventor, and 
 that is, that there is no reserved force about this in- 
 vention; the yoimg person has actually done the very 
 best he could in the most candid manner; this is 
 clearly in violation of the rules of art — witness the 270 
 artistic restraint of our own behavior in this matter ! " 
 
 Then the King of Nimporte said: "0 wise men of 
 my former cabinet, yoiu* wisdom seems folly; I will 
 rather betake me to the counsels of the poet, and he 
 shall be my sole adviser for the future; as for you, 275 
 live — ^but live in shame for the littleness of your 
 souls I " And he dismissed them from his presence in 
 disgrace. 
 
 It was then that the King of Nimporte uttered 
 that proverb which has since become so famous 280 
 among the Persians; for, turning away to his palace, 
 with his bride on one arm and the young person on 
 the other, he said : 
 
 " To him who wears a shoe, ii is as if the whale earth 
 was covered toith leaiher." 285 
 
126 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LAMER 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ST. LEONOR 
 
 Once upon a time St. Leonor, with sixty disciples, 
 came to an inhospitable region at the mouth of the 
 Ranee in Armorica, and settled. Their food was of 
 the rudest description, being only what they could 
 
 5 obtain from the woods and waters. One day the 
 good Bishop Leonor, while praying, happened to see a 
 small bird carrying a grain of wheat in its beak. He 
 immediately set a monk to watching the bird, with 
 instructions to follow it when it flew away. The 
 
 10 monk followed the bird, and was led to a place in the 
 forest, where he found several stalks of wheat grow- 
 ing. This was probably the last relic of some an- 
 cient Gallo-Roman farm. St. Leonor, on learning 
 the news, was overjoyed. " We must clear the forest 
 
 15 and cultivate the ground," he exclaimed, and imme- 
 diately put the sixty at work. Now the work was 
 hard, and the sixty disciples groaned with tribula- 
 tion as they toiled and sweated over the stubborn 
 oaks and the briery underbrush. But when they 
 
 20 came to plough, the labor seemed beyond all human 
 endurance. I do not know how they ploughed; 
 but it is fair to suspect that they had nothing better 
 than forked branches of the gnarly oaks with sharp- 
 ened points for ploughs, and as there is no mention 
 
 25 of cattle in the legend, the presumption is fair that 
 these good brothers hitched themselves to the 
 plough and pulled. This presumption is strength- 
 ened by the circumstance that, in a short time, the 
 sixty rebelled outright. They begged the Bishop to 
 
 30 abandon agriculture and go away from that place. 
 
PROSE 127 
 
 But the stout old father would not recede. No; 
 we must get into beneficial relations with this soil. 
 Then the monks assembled together by night, and, 
 having compared opinions, found it the sense of the 
 meeting that they should leave the very next day, 35 
 even at pain of the abandonment of the Bishop. 
 So, next morning, when they were about to go, be- 
 hold ! a miracle stopped them : twelve magnificent 
 stags marched proudly out of the forest and stood by 
 the ploughs, as if inviting the yoke. The monks 40 
 seized the opportunity. They harnessed the stags, 
 and these diligently drew the ploughs all that day. 
 When the day's work was done, and the stags were 
 loosed from harness, they retired into the forest. 
 But next morning the faithful wild creatures again 45 
 made their appearance and submitted their royal 
 necks to the yoke. Five weeks and three days did 
 these animals labor for the brethren. 
 
 When the ground was thoroughly prepared,* the 
 Bishop pronounced his blessing upon the stags, and 50 
 they passed quietly back into the recesses of the 
 forest. Then the Bishop sowed his wheat, and that 
 field was the father of a thousand other wheat-fields, 
 and of a thousand other homes, with all the ameni- 
 ties and sweetnesses which are implied in that rav- 55 
 ishing word. 
 
 Now, here is the point of this legend in this place. 
 Of course, the twelve stags did not appear from the 
 forest and plough; and yet the story is true. The 
 thing which actually happened was that the Bishop eo 
 Leonor, by, his intelligence, foresight, practical wis- 
 dom, and faithful perseverance, reclaimed a piece 
 
128 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 of stubborn and impracticable ground, and made it 
 good, arable soil. (It is also probable that the story 
 
 65 was immediately suggested by the retaming of 
 cattle which the ancient Gallo-Roman people had 
 allowed to run wild. The bishops did this some- 
 times.) This was a practical enough thing; it 
 is being done every day; it was just as prosaic as any 
 
 70 commercial transaction. 
 
 But, mark you, the people — for this legend is a 
 pure product of the popular imagination of Brittany 
 — the people who came after saw how the prosaic 
 wheat-field of the Bishop had flowered into the 
 
 75 poetical happiness of the rude and wild inhabitants 
 who began to gather about his wheat-patch, and to 
 plant fields and build homes of their own; and, seeing 
 that the prose had actually become thus poetic, the 
 people (who love to tell things as they really are, 
 
 80 and in their deeper relations) — the people have re- 
 lated- it in terms of poetry. The bird and the stags 
 are terms of poetry. But, notice again, that these 
 are not silly, poetic licenses; they are not merely a 
 child's embellishments of a story; the bird and the 
 
 8S stags are not real; but they are true. 
 
 For what do they mean ? They mean the powers 
 of Nature. They mean, as here inserted, that if a 
 man go forth, sure of his mission, fervently loving his 
 fellow-men, working for their benefit; if he adhere 
 
 90 to his mission through good and evil report; if he 
 resist all endeavor to turn him from it, and faith- 
 fully stand to his purpose — ^presently he will suc- 
 ceed; for the powers of Nature will come forth out 
 of the recesses of the universe and offer themselves 
 
PROSE 129 
 
 as draught-animals to his plough. The popular 95 
 legend is merely an affirmation in concrete forms of 
 this principle; the people, who are all poets, know 
 this truth. We moderns, indeed — we, whose prac- 
 tical experiences beggar the wildest dreams of 
 antiquity — ^have seen a wilder (beast) creature than 100 
 a stag come out of the woods for a faithful man. We 
 have seen steam come and plough the seas for Ful- 
 ton; we have seen lightning come and plough the 
 wastes of space for Franklin and Morse. 
 
 BOB: THE STORY OF OUR MOCKING-BIRD 
 
 Not that his name ought to be Bob at all. In 
 respect of his behavior during a certain trying period 
 which I am presently to recount, he ought to be 
 called Sir Philip Sidney; yet, by virtue of his con- 
 duct in another very troublesome business which I 5 
 will relate, he has equal claim to be known as Don 
 Quixote de la Mancha; while, in consideration that 
 he is the Voice of his whole race, singing the passions 
 of all his fellows better than anyone could sing his 
 own, he is clearly entitled to be named William 10 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 For Bob is our mocking-bird. He fell to us out 
 of the top of a certain great pine in a certain small 
 city on the sea-coast of Georgia. In this tree and a 
 host of his lordly fellows which tower over that little 15 
 city, the mocking-birds abound in unusual numbers. 
 They love the prodigious masses of the leaves, and 
 the generous breezes from the neighboring Gulf 
 
130 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 Stream, and, most of all, the infinite flood of the 
 
 20 sunlight, which is so rich and cordial that it will 
 make even a man lift his head toward the sky, as a 
 mocking-bird lifts his beak, and try to sing some- 
 thing or other. 
 About three years ago, in a sandy road which 
 
 25 skirts a grove of such tall pines, a wayfarer found 
 Bob lying in a lump. It could not have been more 
 than a few days since he was no. bird at all, only an 
 egg with possibilities. The finder brought him to 
 our fence and turned him over to a young man who 
 
 30 had done us the honor to come out of a strange 
 country and live at our house about six years before. 
 Gladly received by this last. Bob was brought 
 within, and family discussions were held. He could 
 not be put back into a tree : the hawks would have 
 
 35 had him in an hour. The original nest was not to be 
 found. We struggled hard against committing the 
 crime — as we had always considered it — of caging a 
 bird. But finally it became plain that there was 
 no other resource. In fact, we were obliged to rec- 
 
 40 ognize that he had come to us from the hand of 
 Providence; and, though we are among the most 
 steady-going democrats of this Republic, we were yet 
 sufl3ciently acquainted with the etiquette of courts 
 to know that one does not refuse the gift of The 
 
 45 King. 
 
 Dimly hoping, therefore, that we might see our 
 way clear to devise some means of giving Bob an 
 education that would fit him for a forester, we ar- 
 ranged suitable accommodations for him, and he was 
 
 50 tended with motherly care. 
 
PROSE 131 
 
 He repaid our attentions from the very beginning. 
 He immediately began to pick up in flesh and to 
 increase the volume of his rudimentary feathers. 
 Soon he commenced to call for his food as lustily as 
 any spoiled child. When it was brought he would 55 
 throw his head back and open his yellow-lined beak 
 to a width which no one would credit who did not 
 see it. Into this enormous cavity, which seemed 
 almost larger than the bird, his protectress would 
 thrust — and the more vigorously the better he eo 
 seemed to like it — ball after ball of the yolk of hard- 
 boiled egg mashed up with Irish potato. 
 
 How, from this dry compound which was his only 
 fare, except an occasional worm off the rose-bushes. 
 Bob could have wrought the surprising nobleness of 65 
 spirit which he displayed about six weeks after he 
 came to us, is a matter which I do not believe I can 
 account for. I refer to the occasion when he fairly 
 earned the title of Sir Philip Sidney. A short time 
 after he became our guest a couple of other fledglings 70 
 were brought and placed in his cage. One of these 
 soon died, but the other continued for some time 
 longer to drag out a drooping existence. One day, 
 when Bob was about six weeks old, his usual ration 
 had been delayed, owing to the pressure of other 75 
 duties upon his attendant. He was not slow to 
 make this circumstance known by all the language 
 available to him. He was very hungry indeed, and 
 was squealing with every appearance of entreaty 
 and of indignation when at last the lady of the house so 
 was able to bring him his breakfast. He scrambled 
 to the bars of the cage — which his feeble companion 
 
132 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 was unable to do — took the proffered ball of egg-and- 
 potato fiercely in his beak, and then, instead of swal- 
 
 85 lowing it, deliberately flapped back to his sick guest 
 in the corner and gave him the whole of it without 
 tasting a morsel. 
 
 Now when Sir Philip Sidney was being carried off 
 the battle-field of Zutphen, with a fearful wound in 
 
 90 his thigh, he became very thirsty and begged for 
 water. As the cup was handed him, a dying soldier 
 who lay near cast upon it a look of great longing. 
 This Sidney observed; refusing the cup, he ordered 
 that it should be handed to the soldier, saying, "His 
 
 95 necessity is greater than mine." 
 
 A mocking-bird is called Bob just as a goat is called 
 Billy or Nan, as a parrot is called Poll, as a squirrel 
 is called Bunny, or as a cat is called Pussy or Tom. 
 In spite of the suggestions forced upon us by the 
 
 100 similarity of his behavior to that of the sweet young 
 gentleman of Zutphen, our bird continued to bear 
 the common appellation of his race, and no efforts 
 on the part of those who believe in the fitness of 
 things have availed to change the habits of Bob's 
 
 105 friends in this particular. Bob he was, is, and wUl 
 probably remain. 
 
 Perhaps under a weightier title he would not have 
 thriven so prosperously. His growth was amazing 
 in body and in mind. By the time he was two 
 
 110 months old he already showed that he was going to be 
 a singer. About this period certain little feeble trills 
 and experimental whistles began to vary the monot- 
 ony of his absurd squeals and chirrups. The musical 
 business and the marvellous work of feathering him- 
 
PROSE 133 
 
 self occupied his thoughts continually. I cannot but lis 
 suppose that he superintended the disposition of the 
 black, white, and gray markings on his wings and his 
 tail as they successively appeared : he certainly man- 
 ufactured the pigments with which those colors were 
 laid on somewhere within himself — and all out of 120 
 egg-and-potato. How he ever got the idea of ar- 
 ranging his feather-characteristics exactly as those 
 of all other male mocking-birds are arranged, is more 
 than I know. It is equally beyond me to conceive 
 why he did not — while he was about it — exert his 125 
 individuality to the extent of some little peculiar 
 black dot or white stripe whereby he could at least 
 tell himself from any other bird. His failure to 
 attend to this last matter was afterward the cause 
 of a great battle from which Bob would have 130 
 emerged in a plight as ludicrous as any of Don 
 Quixote's — considering the harmless and unsub- 
 stantial nature of his antagonist — had not this view 
 of his behavior been changed by the courage and 
 spirit with which he engaged his enemy, the gal- 135 
 lantry with which he continued the fight, and the 
 good faithful blood which he shed while it lasted. 
 In all these particulars his battle fairly rivalled any 
 encounter of the much-bruised Knight of La Mancha. 
 
 He was about a year old when it happened, and i4o 
 the fight took place a long way from his native 
 heath. He was spending the summer at a pleasant 
 country home in Pennsylvania. He had appeared 
 to take just as much delight in the clover-fields and 
 mansion-studded hills of this lovely region as in the 145 
 lonesome forests and sandy levels of his native land. 
 
134 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 He had sung, and sung: even in his dreams at night 
 his sensitive Uttle soul would often get quite too full 
 and he would pour forth rapturous bursts of senti- 
 
 150 ment at any time between twelve o'clock and day- 
 break. If our health had been as little troubled by 
 broken slumber as was his, these melodies in the 
 late night would have been glorious; but there were 
 some of us who had gone into the country specially 
 
 155 to sleep; and we were finally driven to swing the 
 stiu-dy songster high up in an outside porch at night, 
 by an apparatus contrived with careful reference to 
 cats. Several of these animals in the neighborhood 
 had longed unspeakably for Bob ever since his ar- 
 
 160 rival. We had seen them eying him from behind 
 bushes and through windows, and had once res- 
 cued him from one who had thrust a paw between 
 the very bars of his cage. That cat was going to eat 
 him, art and all, with no compunction in the world. 
 
 165 His music seemed to make no more impression on 
 cats than Keats's made on critics. If only some 
 really discriminating person had been by, with a shot- 
 gun, when The Quarterly thrust its paw into poor 
 Endymion's cage ! 
 
 170 One day at this country-house Bob had been let 
 out of his cage and allowed to fly about the room. 
 He had cut many antics, to the amusement of the 
 company, when presently we left him to go down to 
 dinner. What occurred afterward was very plainly 
 
 175 told by circumstantial evidence when we returned. 
 As soon as he was alone, he had availed himself of 
 his unusual freedom to go exploring about the room. 
 In the course of investigation he suddenly found him- 
 
PROSE 135 
 
 self confronted by — it is impossible to say what he 
 considered it. If he had been reared in the woods iso 
 he would probably have regarded it as another 
 mocking-bird — for it was his own image in the 
 looking-glass of a bureau. But he had never seen 
 any member of his race, except the forlorn little un- 
 fledged specimen which he had fed at six weeks of iss 
 age, and which bore no resemblance to this tall, gal- 
 lant, bright-eyed figure in the mirror. He had thus 
 had no opportunity to generalize his kind, and he 
 knew nothing whatever of his own personal appear- 
 ance except the partial hints he may have gained 190 
 when he smoothed his feathers with his beak after 
 his bath in the morning. It may therefore very well 
 be that he took this sudden apparition for some 
 Chimaera or dire monster which had taken advan- 
 tage of the family's temporary absence to enter the 195 
 room, with evil purpose. Bob immediately deter- 
 mined to defend the premises. He flew at the in- 
 vader, literally beak and claw. But beak and claw 
 taking no hold upon the smooth glass, with each 
 attack he slid struggling down to the foot of the 200 
 mirror. Now it so happened that a pin-cushion lay 
 at this point, which bristled not only with pins, but 
 with needles which had been temporarily left in it, 
 and which were nearly as sharp at the eye-ends as at 
 the points. Upon these, Bob's poor claws came down 205 
 with fury: he felt the wounds and saw the blood: 
 both he attributed to the strokes of his enemy, and 
 this roused him to new rage. In order to give addi- 
 tional momentum to his onset he would retire to- 
 ward the other side of the room and thence fly at the 210 
 
136 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 foe. Again and again he charged; and as many 
 times slid down the smooth surface of the mirror and 
 wounded himself upon the perilous pin-cushion. As 
 I entered, being the first up from the table, he was 
 
 215 in the act of fluttering down against the glass. The 
 counterpane on the bed, the white dimity cover of 
 the bureau, the pin-cushion, all bore the bloody 
 resemblances of his feet in various places, and 
 showed how many times he had sought distant 
 
 220 points in order to give himself a running start. His 
 heart was beating violently, and his feathers were 
 ludicrously tousled. And all against the mere 
 shadow of himself ! Never was there such a temp- 
 tation for the head of a family to assemble his people 
 
 225 and draw a prodigious moral. But better thoughts 
 came: for, after all, was it not probable that the 
 poor bird was defending — or at any rate believed he 
 was defending — the rights and properties of his 
 absent masters against a foe of unknown power? 
 
 230 All the circumstances go to show that he made 
 the attack with a faithful valor as reverent as that 
 which steadied the lance of Don Quixote against the 
 windmills. In after days, when his cage has been 
 placed among the boughs of trees, he has not shown 
 
 235 any warlike feelings against the robins and sparrows 
 that passed about, but only a sincere friendly in- 
 terest. 
 
 At this present writing. Bob is the most elegant, 
 trim, electric, persuasive, cunning, tender, coura- 
 
 240 geous, artistic little dandy of a bird that mind can 
 imagine. He does not confine himself to imitating 
 the songs of his tribe. He is a creative artist. I 
 
PROSE 137 
 
 was witness not long ago to the selection and adop- 
 tion by him of a rudimentary whistle-language. Dur- 
 ing an illness it fell to my lot to sleep in a room alone 245 
 with Bob. In the early morning when a lady, to 
 whom Bob is passionately attached, would make her 
 appearance in the room, he would salute her with a 
 certain joyful chirrup which appears to belong to 
 him peculiarly. I have not heard it from any other 250 
 bird. But sometimes the lady would merely open 
 the door, make an inquiry, and then retire. It was 
 now necessary for his artistic soul to find some form 
 of expressing grief. For this purpose he selected a 
 certain cry almost identical with that of the cow- 255 
 bird — an indescribably plaintive, long-drawn, thin 
 whistle. Day after day I heard him make use of 
 these expressions. He had never done so before. 
 The mournful one he would usually accompany, as 
 soon as the door was shut, with a sidelong inquiring 260 
 posture of the head, which was a clear repetition of 
 the lover's Is she gone f Is she really gone f 
 
 There is one particular in which Bob's habits 
 cannot be recommended: He eats very often. In 
 fact, if Bob should hire a cook it would be abso- 265 
 lutely necessary for him to write down his hours for 
 her guidance; and this writing would look very 
 much like a time-table of the Pennsylvania, or the 
 Hudson River, or the Old Colony Railroad. He 
 would have to say: " Bridget will be kind enough to 270 
 get me my breakfast at the following hours : 5, 5.20, 
 5.40, 6, eJS, 6.30, 6.45, 7, 7.20, 7.40, 8 (and so on, 
 every fifteen or twenty minutes until 12 m.); my 
 dinner at 12, 12.20, 12.40, 1, 1.15, 1.30 (and so on. 
 
138 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 275 every fifteen or twenty minutes until 6 p. M.); my 
 supper is irregular, but I wish Bridget particularly 
 to remember that I always eat whenever I awake in 
 the night, and that I usually awake four or five times 
 between bed-time and daybreak." With all this 
 
 280 eating. Bob never neglects to wipe his beak after 
 each meal. This he does by drawing it quickly, 
 three or four times on each side, against his perch. 
 
 I never tire of watching his motions. There does 
 not seem to be the least friction between any of the 
 
 285 component parts of his system. They all work, give, 
 play in and out, stretch, contract, and serve his de- 
 sires generally with a smoothness and soft precision 
 truly admirable. Merely to see him leap from his 
 perch to the floor of his cage is to me a never-failing 
 
 290 marvel. It is so instantaneous, and yet so quiet: 
 cli'p, and he is down, with his head in the food-cup; 
 I can compare it to nothing but the stroke of Fate. 
 It is perhaps a strained association of the large with 
 the small; but when he suddenly leaps down in this 
 
 295 instantaneous way, I always feel as if I suddenly 
 heard the clip of the fatal shears. 
 
 His list of songs is extensive. Perhaps it would 
 have been much more so if his life had been in the 
 woods, where he would have had the opportunity to 
 
 300 hear the endlessly various calls of his race. So far 
 as we can see, the stock of songs which he now sings 
 must have been brought in his own mind out of the 
 egg — or from some further source whereof we know 
 nothing. He certainly never learned these calls; 
 
 305 many of the birds of whom he gives perfect imitations 
 
PROSE 139 
 
 have been always beyond his reach. He does not 
 apprehend readily a new set of tones. He has 
 caught two or three musical phrases from hearing 
 them whistled near him. No systematic attempt, 
 however, has been made to teach him anything. 310 
 His procedure in learning these few tones was pecul- 
 iar. He would not, on first hearing them, make any 
 sign that he desired to retain them, beyond a certain 
 air of attention in his posture. Upon repetition on a 
 different day, his behavior was the same: there was 315 
 no attempt at imitation. But some time afterward, 
 quite unexpectedly, in the hilarious flow of his bird- 
 songs, would appear a perfect reproduction of the 
 whistled tones. Like a great artist he was rather 
 above useless and amateurish efforts. He took 320 
 things into his mind, turned them over, and, when 
 he was perfectly sure of it, brought it forth with 
 perfection and with unconcern. 
 
 He has his little joke. His favorite response to 
 the endearing terms of the lady whom he loves is to 325 
 scold her. Of course he understands that she un- 
 derstands his wit. He uses for this purpose the 
 angry warning cry which mocking-birds are in the 
 habit of employing to drive away intruders from their 
 nests. At the same time he expresses his delight 330 
 by a peculiar gesture which he always uses when 
 pleased. He extends his right wing and stretches 
 his leg along the inner surface of it as far as he is 
 able. 
 
 He has great capacities in the way of elongating 335 
 and contracting himself. When he is curious or 
 alarmed, he stretches his body until he seems in- 
 
140 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 credibly tall and of the size of his neck all the way. 
 When he is cold, he makes himself into a perfectly 
 
 340 round ball of feathers. 
 
 I think I envy him most when he goes to sleep. 
 He takes up one leg somewhere into his bosom, 
 crooks the other a trifle, shortens his neck, closes his 
 eyes — and it is done. He does not appear to hover 
 
 345 a moment in the border-land between sleeping and 
 waking, but hops over the line with the same superb 
 decision with which he drops from his perch to the 
 floor. I do not think he ever has anything on his 
 mind after he closes his eyes. It is my belief that 
 
 350 he never committed a sin of any sort in his whole life. 
 There is but one time when he ever looks sad. This 
 is during the season when his feathers fall. He is 
 then unspeakably dejected. Never a note do we get 
 from him until it is over. Nor can he be blamed. 
 
 355 Last summer not only the usual loss took place, but 
 every feather dropped from his tail. His dejection 
 during this period was so extreme that we could not 
 but believe he had some idea of his personal appear- 
 ance under the disadvantage of no tail. This was 
 
 360 so ludicrous that his most ardent lovers could 
 scarcely behold him without a smile; and it ap- 
 peared to cut him to the soul that he should excite 
 such sentiments. 
 
 But in a surprisingly short time his tail-feathers 
 
 365 grew out again, the rest of his apparel reappeared 
 fresh and new, and he lifted up his head; inso- 
 much that whenever we wish to fill the house with a 
 gay, confident, dashing, riotous, innocent, sparkling 
 glory of jubilation, we have only to set Bob's cage 
 
PROSE 141 
 
 where a spot of sunshine will fall on it. His beads 370 
 of eyes glisten, his form grows intense, up goes his 
 beak, and he is off. 
 
 Finally we have sometimes discussed the question, 
 is it better, on the whole, that Bob should have lived 
 in a cage than in the wildwood ? There are conflict- 37s 
 ing opinions about it; but one of us is clear that it is. 
 He argues that although there are many songs which 
 are never heard, as there are many eggs which never 
 hatch, yet the general end of a song is to be heard, as 
 that of an egg is to be hatched. He further argues aso 
 that Bob's life in his cage has been one long blessing 
 to several people who stood in need of him; whereas 
 . in the woods, leaving aside the probability of hawks 
 and bad boys, he would not have been likely to gain 
 one appreciative listener for a single half-hour out of sss 
 each year. And, as I have already mercifully re- 
 leased you from several morals (continues this dis- 
 putant) which I might have drawn from Bob, I am 
 resolved that no power on earth shall prevent me 
 from drawing this final one. We have heard much 390 
 of "the privileges of genius," of "the right of the 
 artist to live out his own existence free from the 
 conventionalities of society," of "the un-morality of 
 art," and the like. But I do protest that the greater 
 the artist, and the more profound his piety toward 395 
 the fellow-man for whom he passionately works, the 
 readier will be his willingness to forego the privi- 
 leges of genius and to cage himself in the conven- 
 tionalities, even as the mocking-bird is caged. His 
 struggle against these will, I admit, be the greatest: 400 
 
142 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 he will feel the bitterest sense of their uselessness in 
 restraining him from wrong-doing. But, neverthe- 
 less, one consideration will drive him to enter the 
 door and get contentedly on his perch: his fellow- 
 
 405 men, his fellow-men, these he can reach through the 
 respectable bars of use and wont; in his wild thickets 
 of lawlessness they would never hear him, or, hear- 
 ing, would never listen. In truth, this is the sub- 
 limest of self-denials, and none but a very great 
 
 410 artist can compass it: to abandon the sweet, green 
 forest of liberty, and live a whole life behind needless 
 constraints, for the more perfect service of his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 AN ENGLISH HERO OF A THOUSAND 
 YEARS AGO 
 
 And now who was Byrhtnoth? The chronicler, 
 overmuch given to recording investitures and 
 deaths of bishops and abbots, tells us but little; 
 but from the Book of Ely, an abbey founded by 
 
 5 Byrhtnoth himself, we get glimpses of him, probably 
 from the hand of one who had seen him face to face. 
 He was Ealdorman — that is, lord or general — of the 
 East Saxons, and one of the greatest nobles in 
 England. "He was," says the monkish historian, 
 
 10 "eloquent of speech, great of stature, exceeding 
 strong, most skillful in war, and of courage that 
 knew no fear. He spent his whole life in defending 
 the liberty of his country, being altogether ab- 
 sorbed in this one desire, and preferring to die rather 
 
 15 than to leave one of its injuries unavenged. And all 
 
PROSE 143 
 
 the leaders of the shires put their trust altogether in 
 him." 
 
 After telling of several of his victories, the his- 
 torian comes to his last fight. His force was far in- 
 ferior to that of the invaders, but he hastened to 20 
 meet them without waiting for reinforcements, — a 
 piece of rashness like that recorded in the poem, 
 where, from mere excess of haughty courage, he dis- 
 dains to defend the ford of Panta, and lets the 
 vikings cross unmolested, a fatal hardihood which 25 
 cost him the battle and his life. On his march 
 hither he stopped at Ramsey Abbey, and asked for 
 provisions for his men. The abbot said that it was 
 not possible for him to feed so great a number, but, 
 not to seem churlish, he would receive as his guests 30 
 the ealdorman himself and seven others. Byrht- 
 noth rejected the mean offer with scorn: "I cannot 
 fight without them," he said, "and I will not eat 
 without them," and so marched on to Ely, where 
 Abbot Aelfsig bounteously entertained him and his 35 
 force. "But the ealdorman, thinking that he had 
 been burdensome to the abbey, would hot leave it 
 unrewarded; and on the following morning be- 
 stowed upon it six rich manors, and promised nine 
 more, with thirty marks of gold, and twenty pounds 40 
 of silver, on the condition that if he fell in the battle 
 his body should be brought and buried there. To 
 this gift he also added two crosses of gold and two 
 vestments richly adorned with gold and gems, and a 
 pair of curiously wrought gloves. And so, com- 45 
 mending himself to the prayers of the brethren, he 
 went forth to meet the enemy. 
 
144 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 "When he met them, undeterred by the multitude 
 of foes and the fewness of his own men, he attacked 
 
 50 them at once, and for fourteen days fought with 
 them daily. But on the last day, but few of his men 
 being left alive, and perceiving that he was to die, he 
 attacked them with none the less courage, and had 
 almost put them to flight, when the Danes, taking 
 
 55 heart from the small numbers of the English, formed 
 their force into a wedge and threw themselves upon 
 them. Byrhtnoth was slain, fighting valiantly, and 
 the enemy cut off his head and bare it with them to 
 their own country." 
 
 60 In both the metrical and unmetrical portions of 
 the translation I have discarded the arrangement 
 into lines as interfering with the objects in view; 
 the poem showing clearly enough, by the plane of its 
 thought, that it is a poem, though presented in what- 
 
 65 ever forms of prose. 
 
 The fragment begins with the last two words of 
 some sentence, "brocen wurde" (was broken), and 
 then proceeds as follows. 
 
 Bade then (that is, Byrhtnoth bade) each warrior 
 
 70 loose him his horse and drive it afar, and fare thus 
 on to the hand-fight, hopeful of heart: 
 
 Then straightway the stripling of Offa beheld that 
 the earl would abide no cowardly thing; so there 
 from his hand he let fly his falcon, beloved, away 
 
 75 through the wood and strode to the battle, and man 
 might know that never that youth would fail from 
 the fight when once he fell to his weapon. Thereat 
 Eadric was minded to stand by his ealdorman fast 
 in the fight; forth 'gan bear his javelin foe-ward. 
 
PROSE 145 
 
 manful in mood, whilever that he in his hands might so 
 hold his buckler and broadsword; his vaunt he 
 avouched with his deeds, that there he should fight 
 in front of his prince. 
 
 Then Byrhtnoth began to array him his warriors, 
 rode and directed, counselled the fighters how they ss 
 should stand and steadfastly hold to their places, 
 showed them how shields should be gripped full hard 
 with the hand, and bade them to fear not at all. 
 When fairly his folk were formed he alighted in 
 midst of the liegemen that loved him fondliest; 90 
 there full well he wist that his faithfuUest hearth- 
 fighters were. 
 
 Then stood forth one from the vikings, strongly 
 called, uttered his words, shouted the sea-rogues' 
 threat to the earl where he stood on the adverse 95 
 shore: "Me have the scathful seamen sent, and 
 bidden me say that now must thou render rings for 
 thy ransom, and better for you shall it be that ye 
 buy off a battle with tribute than trust the hard- 
 dealing of war. ' No nfeed that we harm its, if only 100 
 ye heed this message; firm will we fashion a peace 
 with the gold. If thou that art richest wouldst 
 ransom thy people, pay, for a peace, what the sea- 
 men shall deem to be due; we will get us to ship 
 with the gold, and fare off over the flood, and hold 105 
 you acquit." 
 
 Byrhtnoth cried to him, brandished the buckler, 
 shook the slim ash, with words made utterance, 
 wrathful and resolute, gave him his answer: "Hear- 
 est thou, sea-rover, that which my folk sayeth? 110 
 Yes, we will render you tribute ... in javelins — 
 
146 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 poisonous point, and old-time blade — good weapons, 
 yet forward you not in the fight. Herald of pirates, 
 be herald once more; bear to thy people a bitterer 
 
 115 message, — that here stands dauntless an earl with 
 his warriors, will keep us this country, land of my 
 lord, Prince Aethelred, — ^f oik and field : the heathen 
 shall perish in battle. Too base, methinketh, that 
 ye with your gold should get you to ship all un- 
 ( 120 foughten with, now that so far ye have come to be in 
 cur land: never so soft shall he slink with your 
 treasure away: us shall persuade both point and 
 blade — grim game of war — ere we pay you for 
 peace." 
 
 125 Bade he then bear forward bucklers, and warriors 
 go, till they all stood ranged on the bank that was 
 east. Now there, for the water, might never a foe- 
 man come to the other: there came flowing the flood 
 after ebb-tide, mingled the streams: too long it 
 
 130 seemed to them, ere that together the spears would 
 come. 
 
 [There stood they in their strength by Panta's 
 stream, the East-Saxon force and the ship-host: nor 
 might either of them harm the other, save when one 
 135 fell by an arrow's flight. 
 
 The tide outflowed; the pirates stood yare, many 
 vikings wistful for war.] 
 
 Bade them the Shelter-of-Men a war-hardened 
 warrior hold him the bridge, who Wulfstan was 
 140 hight, bold with his kinsmen. Cola's son; he smote 
 with his spear the first man down that stepped over- 
 bold on the bridge. There stood by Wulfstan war- 
 
PROSE 147 
 
 riors dauntless, Maccus, and Aelfere, proud-souled 
 twain; they recked not of flight at the ford, but 
 stoutly strove with the foe what while they could 145 
 wield their weapons. Then they encountered and 
 eagerly saw how bitter the bridge-wards were; the 
 hostile guests betook them to cunning: ordered to 
 seize the ascents, and fare through the ford and lead 
 up the line. Now the earl in his over-bold mood iso 
 gave over-much land to the foe. There, while the 
 warriors whist, fell Byrhthelm's bairn to calling over 
 the waters cold : — 
 
 "Now there is room for you, rush to us, warriors 
 to warfare; God wot, only, which of us twain shall iss 
 possess this place of the slaughter." 
 
 Waded the war-wolves west over Panta, recked 
 not of water, warrior vikings. There, o'er the wave 
 they bore up their bucklers, the seamen lifted their 
 shields to the land. In wait with his warriors, 160 
 Byrhtnoth stood; he bade form the war-hedge of 
 bucklers, and hold that ward firm to the foe. The 
 fight was at hand, the glory of battle; the time was 
 come for the falling of men that were doomed. 
 
 There was a scream uphoven, ravens hovered, les 
 (and) the eagle sharp for carnage; on earth was 
 clamor. 
 
 They let from (their) hand (the) file-hard spears, 
 (the) sharp-ground javelins, fly; bows were busy, 
 shield caught spear-point, bitter was the battle-rush, i70 
 warriors fell, on either hand warriors lay. Wounded 
 was Wulfmaer, chose (his) bed of death, Byrhtnoth's 
 kinsman, his sister's son; he with bills was in pieces 
 hewn. (But) there to the vikings was quittance 
 
148 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 175 made; heard I that Edward slew one sheerly with 
 his sword, withheld not the swing (of it), that to 
 him at feet fell (the) fated warrior. For that his 
 prince said thanks to him — to his bower-thane — 
 when he had time. So dutiful wrought (the) strong- 
 
 180 souled fighters at battle, keenly considered who 
 there might quickliest pierce with (his) weapon; 
 carnage fell on earth. Stood (they) steadfast. 
 Byrhtnoth heartened them, bade that each warrior 
 mind him of battle that would fight out glo'ry upon 
 
 185 (the) Danes. 
 
 Waded then (forward) (a) warrior tough, upheaved 
 (his) weapon, shield at ward, and strode at the earl; 
 as resolute went the earl to the carl : each of them to 
 the other meant mischief. Sent then the sea-war- 
 
 190 rior (a) Southern spear that the lord of warriors 
 was wounded; he wrought then with his shield that 
 the shaft burst in pieces and that spear broke that 
 it sprang again. Angry-souled was the warrior; 
 he with (his) spear stung the proud viking that gave 
 
 195 him his wound. Prudent was the chieftain; he let 
 his spear wade through the viking's neck; (his) 
 hand guided it that it reached to the life of his dan- 
 gerous foe. Then he suddenly shot another that 
 his corselet burst; he was wounded in the breast 
 
 200 through the ring-mail; at his heart stood the fatal 
 spear-point. The earl was all the blither; laughed 
 the valorous man, said thanks to the Creator for 
 the day's work that the Lord gave him. 
 
 Then some (one) of the warriors let fly from his 
 
 205 hand a dart that it forthright passed through the 
 noble thane of Aethelred. Then stood him beside 
 
PKOSE 149 
 
 an unwaxen warrior, a boy in fight; he full boldly- 
 plucked from the prince the bloody javelin (Wulf- 
 stan's son, Wulfmaer the young); let the sharp 
 (steel) fare back again; the spear-point pierced that 210 
 he lay on the earth who before had grievously 
 wounded the prince. Ran there a cunning warrior 
 to the earl; he wished to plunder the prince of (his) 
 treasures, armor and rings and adorned sword. 
 Then Byrhtnoth drew from sheath his broad and 215 
 brown-edged sword and smote on the (warrior's) 
 corselet: (but) too soon one of the pirates prevented 
 him; he maimed the arm of the earl; fell to the 
 ground the yellow-hilted sword; he might not hold 
 the hard blade, not wield (a) weapon. There never- 220 
 theless some words spoke the hoary chieftain, heart- 
 ened his warriors, bade the good comrades go for- 
 ward; now no longer could he stand firm on (his) 
 feet; he looked towards heaven: — 
 
 "I thank Thee, Ruler of nations, for all the de- 225 
 lights that were mine in the world; now do I own, 
 mild Creator, most need that Thou give good to my 
 ghost, whereby my soul may depart unto Thee in 
 Thy kingdom. Prince of (the) angels, may it fare 
 forth in peace; I am suppliant to Thee, that the 230 
 hell-foes may humble it not." 
 
 Then the heathen-men hewed him and both the 
 chieftains that stood by him; Aelfnod and Wulf- 
 maer lay slain; by the side of their prince they 
 parted with life. 235 
 
 And hereupon — as the next hundred and twenty- 
 five lines go on to relate — ^there was like to be a most 
 
150 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 sorrowful panic on the English side. Several cow- 
 ards fled: notably one Godric, who leaped upon 
 
 240 Byrhtnoth's own horse, and so cast many into dead 
 despair with the belief that they saw — what no man 
 had ever dreamed he saw before — Byrthnoth in 
 flight. But presently Aelfwine and Offa and other 
 high-souled thanes heartened each other and led up 
 
 245 their people, yet to no avail; and so thane after thane 
 and man after man fell for the love of Byrhtnoth 
 and of manhood, and no more would flee. 
 
 Finally (at line 309, after which there are but six- 
 teen lines more of the Fragment), we find Byrht- 
 
 250 wold, an old warrior, sturdily bearing up his shield 
 and waving his ash and exhorting the few that re- 
 mained, beautifully crying: — 
 
 "Soul be the scornfuller, heart be the bolder, front 
 be the firmer, the fewer we grow ! Here, all hewn, 
 
 255 lieth our chieftain, a good man on the ground; for 
 ever let (one) mourn who now from this war-play 
 thinketh to wend. I am old of life; hence will I 
 not; for now by the side of my lord, by the so-be- 
 loved man, I am minded to lie ! " 
 
 260 Then Aethelgar's son (Godric), the warriors all to 
 combat urged; oft he (a) javelin let hurl — a bale- 
 spear — upon the vikings; so he among the folk went 
 foremost, hewed and felled, till that he sank in fight; 
 he was not that Godric who fled from the battle. 
 
PROSE 151 
 
 THE STORY OF SILAS MARNER 
 
 FROM "the ENGLISH NOVEL" 
 
 The fullness 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: The Scenes of 
 Clerical Life had appeared in book form in 1858, 5 
 Adam Bede was printed in 1859, The Mill on the 
 Floss came out in 1860, and now, in 1861, followed 
 Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe. It is with the 
 greatest reluctance that I find myself obliged to pass 
 this book without comment. In some particulars lo 
 Silas Marner is the most remarkable novel in our 
 language. On the one hand, when I read the im- 
 mortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village 
 functionaries, the butcher, the farrier, the parish 
 clerk and so on are discussing ghosts, bullocks and is 
 other matters over their even-ale, my mind runs to 
 Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shake- 
 speare were sitting somewhere not far oif . On the 
 other hand, the downright ghastliness of the young 
 Squire's punishment for stealing the long-hoarded 20 
 gold of Silas Marner the weaver always carries me 
 straight to that pitiless Pardoner's Tale of Chaucer 
 in which gold is so cunningly identified with death. 
 I am sure you will pardon me if I spend a single 
 moment in recalling the plots of these two stories so 25 
 far as concerns this point of contact. 
 
 In Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, three riotous young 
 men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern. 
 
152 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 In the midst of their merriment they hear the dink 
 30 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 sud- 
 denly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; 
 and they rush forth to slay him wherever they may 
 35 find him. Presently they meet an old man. "Why 
 do you live so long ? " they mockingly inquire of him. 
 "Because," says he, 
 
 "Deth, alas, ne will not han my lif; 
 Thus walke I like a resteles caitif, 
 ,40 And on the ground, which is my modres gate, 
 
 I knocke with my staf erlich and late 
 And say to hire 'Leve moder, let me in.'" 
 
 "Where is this Death of whom you have spoken ? " 
 furiously demanded the three young men. The old 
 
 45 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 the treasure into town by day lest 
 
 50 they be suspected of robbery. They therefore re- 
 solve 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 
 
 55 the tree resolve to murder their companion on his 
 return so that they may be the richer by his portion 
 of the treasure; he, on the other hand, whilst buy- 
 ing his victual in town, shrewdly drops a great lump 
 of poison into the bottle of drink he is to carry 
 
PROSE 153 
 
 back, so that his companions may perish and he 60 
 take all. 
 
 To make a long story short, the whole plot is car- 
 ried out. As soon as he who was sent to town re- 
 turns, his companions fall upon him and murder 
 him; they then proceed merrily to eat and drink 65 
 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 have found death under that 
 tree. In George Eliot's story the young English 70 
 Squire also finds death in finding gold. You will 
 remember how Dunstan Cass in returning late 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 75 
 trade, and where he is known to have concealed a 
 large sum in gold. The young man is extraordi- 
 narily pressed for money; he resolves to take Mar- 
 ner's gold; the night is dark and misty, he makes 
 his way through mud and darkness to the cottage so 
 and finds the door open, Marner being, by the rarest 
 of accidents, away from the hut. The young man 
 quickly discovers the spot in the floor where the 
 weaver kept his gold; he seizes the two heavy leath- 
 ern bags filled with guineas, and the chapter ends, ss 
 "So he stepped forward into the darkness." All 
 this occurs in Chapter IV. The story then pro- 
 ceeds: nothing more is heard of Dunstan Cass in 
 the village for many years; the noise of the robbery 
 has long ago died away; Silas Marner has one day 90 
 found a golden head of hair lying on the very spot 
 
154 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 of his floor where he used to finger his own gold; the 
 little outcast who had fallen asleep with her head in 
 this position, after having wandered into Marner's 
 95 cottage, has 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 years stood filled with rain-water near his house, 
 
 100 becomes dry, and on the bottom is revealed a skele- 
 ton with a leathern 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 afterwards brought to light as another phase 
 
 105 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 apoth- 
 ecary cries: 
 
 110 "There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, 
 Doing more murder in this loathsome world 
 Than these poor compounds which thou mayst not 
 
 sell. 
 I sell thee poison ; thou hast sold me none. 
 Farewell : buy food and get thyself in flesh." 
 
 115 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 
 
 120 obscure sect of a small manufacturing town of Eng- 
 land; suddenly a false accusation of theft in which 
 
PROSE 155 
 
 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 Rave- 125 
 loe, begins aimlessly to pursue his trade of weaving, 
 presently is paid for some work in gold; in handling 
 the coin 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 lao 
 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 leathern bags with gold; 
 and George Eliot gives us some vivid pictures of 
 how, when his day's work would be done, he would 135 
 brighten up the fire in his stone hut which stood at 
 the edge of the village, eagerly lift up the particular 
 brick of the stone floor under which he kept his 
 treasure concealed, pom- out the bright yellow heaps 
 of coin and run his long white fingers through them i4o 
 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 golden-haired child is mak- 145 
 mg her way along the road past Marner's cottage; 
 she is the wife, by private marriage, of the Squire's 
 eldest 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 iso 
 on at the Squire's to-day, there to expose all and 
 demand justice. It so happens however that in her 
 troubles she has become an opium-taker; just as 
 
156 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 she is passing Marner's cottage the effect of an un- 
 
 155 usually large dose becomes overpowering; 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, 
 
 160 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 il- 
 luminates the little one's head. Marner now re- 
 
 165 turns; 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 hun- 
 gry heart and brings up the little girl who becomes 
 a beautiful woman and faithful daughter to him. 
 
 170 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 con- 
 stantly places before us lives which change in a 
 
 175 manner of which this is typical; 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, 
 
 ISO and thereafter loving larger loves, and living larger 
 lives. 
 
NOTES 
 
 THE TOURNAMENT (Page 1) 
 
 Joust Fibst 
 
 A joust or just was a combat with spears or lances between 
 two armed knights, and was usually a feature of a tourna- 
 ment. A tournament might extend over several days and 
 include armed contests of various kinds. 
 
 Line 1. — lists. The enclosed space in which tournaments 
 were held. For a good description of such hsts and of the 
 encounters between armed knights see Scott's Ivanhoe, Chap- 
 ters VII and VIII. 
 
 9. — palfrey. Strictly speaking, a horse ridden by a lady or 
 by a non-combatant, as opposed to a war-horse, caracoled. 
 Pranced in zigzag fashion. 
 
 10, — tra-li-ra'd. Sounded his trumpet. 
 
 13. — favors. A favor was a scarf, glove, or some other small 
 article given to a knight by his lady-love to be worn in a con- 
 test at arms. 
 
 15. — casque. Helmet. 
 
 16. — or . . . or. Either ... or; poetical usage. 
 
 Joust Second 
 
 9. — or ere. Literally, before ever; a poetical phrase. 
 
 15. — hauberk. Coat of mail. 
 
 n.^alchion. Sword, baldric. Belt worn over the shoulder. 
 
 20. — for grace. To win favor. 
 
 24. — sans. Without. Cf. Shakespeare's As You Like It, 
 Act II, sc. vii, 1. 166: "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans 
 everything." 
 
 30. — lance in rest. The lance was placed in an iron rest 
 attached to the right side of the breastplate. It extended 
 back under the rider's arm and was grasped and aimed by the 
 right hand. 
 
 43. — doffed. To doff means to do off or take off. 
 
 44. — dole. Charity offering. 
 157 
 
158 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 LIFE AND SONG (Page 5) 
 
 19-20. — His song, etc. These lines were selected by La- 
 nier's wife to be placed on his tombstone. They are a strik- 
 ingly apt characterization of his life. 
 
 SONG FOR "THE JACQUERIE"— II (Page 7) 
 
 This fragment is striking partly because of the haunting 
 swing of the verse and partly owing to the suggestion it gives 
 of a larger and romantic story. It piques the curiosity. 
 
 13. — Wit. Sense or intelligence, as in the expression half- 
 witted. 
 
 THAR'S MORE IN THE MAN THAN THAR IS IN 
 THE LAND (Page 8) 
 
 6. — pones. Flat cakes or loaves of com meal. 
 
 11. — houghten. This form, now a provinciaMsm heard in 
 various parts of the United States, was in Shakespeare's time 
 in the best of usage. 
 
 THE POWER OF PRAYER (Page 10) 
 
 Mr. Clifford A. Lanier was a younger brother of Sidney, and 
 though not a writer by profession he was the author of a num- 
 ber of prose sketches and poems. The present poem was 
 suggested to him by a brief newspaper notice. He wrote the 
 poem and sent it to his brother Sidney, who revised it and 
 published it under their joint authorship. A sketch by Mark 
 Twain called Uncle Daniel's Apparition and Prayer, which 
 appeared a year or two before The Power of Prayer, has a very 
 similar plot. The Laniers did not know of the existence of 
 this sketch, however, until Doctor Holland, then editor of 
 Scribner's Monthly, in which the poem appeared, called Clif- 
 ford Lanier's attention to the fact. 
 
 THE SYMPHONY (Page 15) 
 
 In a letter to his friend Gibson Peacock, dated March 24, 
 1875, Lanier thus speaks of The Symphony: i 
 
 "About four days ago, a certain poem which I had vaguely 
 ruminated for a week before took hold of me like a real James 
 River ague, and I have been in a mortal shake with the same, 
 day and night, ever since. I caU it The Symphony : I person- 
 
NOTES 159 
 
 ify each instrument in the orchestra, and make them discuss 
 various deep social questions of the times,, in the progress of 
 the music. It is now nearly finished; and I shall be rejoiced 
 thereat, for it verily racks all the bones of my spirit." 
 
 This poem was the means of bringing about an acquaintance 
 between Lanier and Bayard Taylor. Taylor was at that 
 time one of the leading Mterary men of America while Lanier 
 was comparatively unknown. Mr. Peacock, the warm friend 
 and admirer of Lanier, had sent Taylor the newly pubMshed 
 Symphony. The friendly criticism of the poem by Taylor 
 brought a letter to him from Lanier which began a friendship 
 that lasted until Taylor's death. 
 
 The Symphony first appeared in Lippincott's Magazine in 
 June, 1875. It is a protest against commerciaHsm and an 
 appeal for a return to a wider charity, purer ideals, and greater 
 love. In championing the cause of the poor Lanier shows a 
 singularly modem attitude. If he had Hved to the present, we 
 may be sure that he would have been intensely interested in 
 the great social and economic questions now so fervently 
 discussed, for he beheved heart and soul in the universal 
 brotherhood of man. 
 
 The Trade of the poem might well be the capital of the 
 present day, and its reply to the appeal of the poor has a mod- 
 em ring. 
 
 "Go! 
 
 There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know. 
 
 Move out, if you think you're underpaid. 
 
 The poor are prolific; we're not afraid; 
 
 Trade is trade." 
 
 As also the lines: 
 
 "Does business mean. Die, you — Uve, I? 
 Then 'Trade is trade' but sings a he: 
 'Tis only war grown miserly. 
 If business is battle, name it so: 
 War-crimes less will shame it so, 
 And widows less will blame it so." 
 
 102. — polyphone. A complex of many sounds. 
 
 145. — minevers. Minever was a fur often mentioned in 
 early English writers; it is not certain from what animal it 
 came. 
 
160 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 161. — lotos-sleeps. The lotos if eaten was supposed to pro- 
 duce forgetfulaess of the past. Read Tennyson's The Lotos- 
 Eaters. 
 
 166. — leal. Loyal. 
 
 171-177. — Much time is run, etc. These lines allude to the 
 days of pagan mythology when instead of loving Nature her- 
 self directly men gave their praise and worship to inferior 
 divinities. 
 
 178-182. — Later, a sweet Voice, etc. The teaching of Christ 
 with its message of human brotherhood. 
 
 180. — confines of ethnic dread. Boundaries imposed by the 
 dread of or prejudice against people of other races than one's 
 own. 
 
 181. — covenant head. Bound by the covenant or compact 
 of the Jewish church. 
 
 240. — mercery. Trading. A mercer was originally a dealer 
 in cloths. 
 
 241-248. — 7 would my lover, etc. An ideal of manly love 
 worthy of Galahad himself. 
 
 254. — lorn. Lost, from the Anglo-Saxon past participle loren. 
 
 270. — caitiff. Originally meant captive; hence miserable, 
 cowardly. 
 
 294-302. — Shall woman scorch, etc. Lanier was a firm be- 
 liever in a single standard of virtue for men and women. 
 
 Sn.— Pembroke. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648), 
 who served in the EngUsh army in the Netherlands, was 
 knighted by James I; author of The Life of Lord Herbert. A 
 descendant of the Earl of Pembroke. 
 
 326. — hautboy. An oboe; a slender wood-wind instrument 
 with a mouthpiece containing a reed. 
 
 332. — Man. Jesus Christ. Lanier may have had in mind 
 the passage in Mark x, 15: "Verily I say unto you, whoso- 
 ever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a httle child, 
 he shall in no wise enter therein." 
 
 336. — bassoon. A wood-wind instrument with a heavier, 
 deeper tone than the oboe. 
 
 340. — runes. Poetry of the early Teutonic peoples; more 
 strictly, the alphabetic characters in which the poetry was 
 written. 
 
 347. — sea-fugue. A fugue is a kind of musical composition 
 in which different independent themes or melodies are devel- 
 oped through a succession of measures and at last are blended 
 into a unified whole. 
 
NOTES 161 
 
 355. — weltering. Confused, palimpsest. A parchment that 
 has been used several times, the eariier writings having been 
 erased or merely written over. 
 
 364. — glozing. Deceits. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY (Page 27) 
 
 The following eight sonnets with the six introductory lines 
 are merely a part of the complete poem. The poem first ap- 
 peared in Ldppincott's Magazine, Jime, 1876. 
 
 41-42. — Judas needle, etc. An allusion to the variation in 
 the compass which occurred during the voyage of Columbus 
 and which so alarmed the crew. 
 
 50. — o'er-defalking. Over-yielding, too easy. 
 
 55. — Pahs. The port in Spain from which, in 1492, Co- 
 lumbus set sail on his famous voyage of discovery. 
 
 63. — Gomera. One of the Canary Islands west of Africa. 
 
 64. — caravels. A kind of vessel with broad, blunt bows, 
 high, narrow stern, and three or four masts. Two of the ves- 
 sels of Columbus were caravels. 
 
 77. — Slimy^iveeded sea. The Sargasso Sea, a section of the 
 Atlantic west of Africa filled with vast masses of seaweed. 
 
 79. — sunk Atlantis. An allusion to the ancient belief that 
 somewhere off the straits of Gibraltar there was an island that 
 had been sunk deep in the sea by some great natural cata- 
 clysm. 
 
 93. — Salve Regina. The opening words of a hymn to the 
 Virgin, much used in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 110. — Pedro Gutierrez. "A gentleman of the King's bed- 
 chamber" who accompanied Columbus on the Santa Maria. 
 
 113. — Sanchez of Segovia. A gentleman sent by the King 
 and Queen of Spain to accompany the expedition as an in- 
 spector. 
 
 EVENING SONG (Page 32) 
 
 This poem appeared in Lippincott's Magazine, January, 
 1877. 
 
 6-7. — As Egypt's pearl, etc. An allusion to the story that 
 at a banquet given to Antony, Cleopatra once had a pearl dis- 
 solved in some strong Uquid which she afterwards drank to the 
 great Roman's health. 
 
162 SELECTIONS FROM SIDiSTEY LANIER 
 
 SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE (Page 32) 
 
 This is the most musical of Lanier's poems and one of the 
 most musical in the whole range of English poetry. The 
 remarkable effect of the poem is chiefly produced by skillful 
 alliteration, or by repetition of words or of similar vowel 
 sounds sometimes in the same hne, sometimes in neighboring 
 hnes. The student should read, for purposes of comparison, 
 Southey's Cataract oj Lodore and Tennyson's Brook. 
 
 1, 2. — Habersham, Hall. Counties in the northeastern part 
 of Georgia. 
 
 14. — thrall. Captive. The thrall was in early England a 
 serf or bondman. 
 
 THE MOCKING-BIRD (Page 34) 
 
 3. — summ'd the woods in song. This may mean that he 
 summed up in himself the musical life of the woods, or that he 
 imitated in his songs all the birds of the woods. 
 
 3-7. — or typic drew, etc. Representing different types of 
 birds, he imitated the cry made by hungry watching hawks, 
 the notes of lonely, languid doves, etc. 
 
 7. — bosky. Bushy, wooded. 
 
 TAMPA ROBINS (Page 35) 
 18. — Gramercy. Thanks; from the French grand merci. 
 
 THE REVENGE OF HAMISH (Page 36) 
 
 Lanier got the plot of this poem from William Black's novel 
 MacLeod of Dare. In Chapter III MacLeod tells the story 
 to his London host. 
 
 9. — he stood as if Death had the form of a deer. He stood stiU 
 as death. 
 
 16. — quarry. Game. 
 
 17. — waxed wild. Grown very angry. 
 
 22. — henchman. Follower, attendant. 
 
 23. — burn. Brook. 
 
 28. — nether. Lower. 
 
 41. — kern. In Shakespeare this word is used of Ught-armed 
 or irregular soldiers. See Macbeth, I, ii, 13; and V, vii, 17. 
 Here used in the sense of mean or wretched fellow. 
 
NOTES 163 
 
 55. — Lazarus. The young man raised from the dead by 
 Jesiis. See John xi. 
 
 60. — giUie. In the Scotch Highlands, a servant or male 
 attendant. 
 
 63. — fee. In the old feudal sense of a piece of landed prop- 
 erty; explained in the next line "Yon castle and lands." 
 
 82. — bonny. The usual meaning is handsome, fine; here 
 rather a term of endearment, "dear." bairn. Scottish for 
 child. 
 
 THE MARSHES OF GLYNN (Page 43) 
 39. — mete. Boundary. 
 
 MARSH SONG AT SUNSET (Page 53) 
 
 2. — Caliban. The huge misshapen half-man half-beast of 
 Shakespeare's Tempest. 
 
 3. — Ariel-cloud. Ariel was the airy spirit of the Tempest 
 who did the bidding of Prospero, the banished duke and 
 worker of magic. 
 
 5. — Prospero. See above. 
 
 13. — Antonio. Brother of Prospero who usurps from him 
 the dukedom and sets him and his daughter Miranda adrift 
 on the sea. 
 
 OWii AGAINST ROBIN (Page 53) 
 
 i8.— Chesterfield stars. The Earl of Chesterfield (1674r- 
 1773) was celebrated for his fine manners. His Letters to his 
 son, containing advice as to manners and conduct, are famous. 
 
 49. — unnk at. Fail to see, ignore. 
 
 51 . — Baalbec. A famous ancient city of Syria about 35 miles 
 northwest of Damascus. The center of worship of Baal, the 
 sun-god. 
 
 71. — cultu^. Cult; used of the worship of, or devotion to, a 
 god or system of rehgion or philosophy. 
 
 SUNRISE (Page 58) 
 
 This was Lanier's last poem. It was written in Baltimore 
 in December, 1880, when he was in an extremely weakened 
 
164 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 condition. Mrs. Lanier says of the circumstances of its com- 
 position: 
 
 "... The lines of Sunrise were so silently traced that 
 for successive days I removed the little bedside desk and 
 replaced in its sliding drawer the pale-blue leaves faintly 
 penciled, with no leisure for even mental conjecture of them. 
 . . . That hand 'too weak to sustain the effort of carrying 
 food to the lips,' I had propped to the level of the adjustable 
 writing desk. 
 
 "After New Year the perfect manuscript was put into my 
 hand, and I was bidden to read it." 
 
 17. — gospelling. Teaching truths, preaching. 
 
 26-28. — This is a very difficult passage to explain. The 
 general drift of it is as follows: 
 
 Oh, you cunning green leaves ! Just as you light up the 
 darkness and bring some meaning out of it, just as you throw 
 light on the mystery of man's existence, so you have lighted 
 up the darkness of my mind and taught me that really we 
 know more than we appear to know about the great questions 
 of the universe. 
 
 32. — jmrfling. Embroidering, decorating. 
 
 59. — alchemy. The false science of the Middle Ages, which 
 aimed at transmuting the baser metals into gold, finding a uni- 
 versal cure for disease and indefinitely prolonging human life. 
 
 62. — menstruum. Anything that will dissolve another body, 
 a solvent. 
 
 72-79. — Oh, if thy soul's, etc. If your soul feels stifled from 
 trying to live in a close spiritual atmosphere just because you 
 craved the companionship of other men, when you have found 
 no man wise or hberal enough to accept the new message you 
 bring, then here in the free wide spaces of the marsh you can 
 open your heart freely. 
 
 90. — diaphanous. Transparent. 
 
 96. — If a bound of degree to this grace he laid. If any at- 
 tempt is made to measure or define its limits. 
 
 143. — dateless Olympian leisure. The leisure of the Olym- 
 pian gods. 
 
 153. — born in the purple. Of imperial rank. Purple was 
 the official color worn by the Roman emperors, hence, born in 
 the purple or in the royal palace came to mean of unques- 
 tioned imperial birth or rank. 
 
 155. — innermost Guest At the marriage of elements. An allu- 
 sion to the chemical action of the sun in the world of matter. 
 
NOTES 165 
 
 156. — fellow of publicans. One who associates with every- 
 body, a thorough democrat. The publicans, or tax col- 
 lectors, in the time of the Roman empire were a despised 
 class. 
 
 POEM OUTLINES (Page 67) 
 
 The poem outlines which appear in the text are only a few 
 out of a large number which Lanier left among his papers. 
 "These poem sketches were jotted in pencil on the backs of 
 envelopes, on the margins of musical programmes, on Uttle 
 torn scraps of paper, amid all sorts of surroundings, whenever 
 the dream came to him. Some are mere flashes of simile in 
 unrhymed couplets; others are definite rounded outUnes, in- 
 stinct with the beauty of idea, but not yet hewn to the line of . 
 perfect form; one, at least, is the beginning of quite a long 
 narrative in verse." 
 
 These fragments are here given to show the student some- 
 thing of the way the poet's mind worked. From some such 
 suggestions as these probably developed most of his finished 
 poems. 
 
 THE WAR FLOWER (Page 70) 
 
 The War Flower is an interlude of nearly two chapters 
 midway of Lanier's novel. Tiger Lilies, which was written 
 and pubUshed in 1867. The subject has a special signifi^ 
 cance at the present time because of the great European war 
 now in progress and the discussions that have grown out of a 
 consideration of its many aspects. 
 
 THE CHARGE OF CAIN SMALLIN (Page 76) 
 
 This episode was based on a personal experience of Lanier's 
 during the war. 
 
 98. — Herr von Hardenberg. George Friedrich Philipp von 
 Hardenberg (1772-1801), whose pen-name was NovaUs, was 
 a noted German poet and prose writer. 
 
 102-105. — Hans Dietrich, etc. This allusion has not been 
 identified. 
 
 105. — A fortiori. With the greater force. 
 
 136. — modus agendi. Mode of procedure, the thing to do. 
 
166 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 143. — jigote. Mixture; usually spelled "gigot." 
 186. — cahallero. Horseman, cavalier; a Spanish word used 
 here humorously. 
 
 THE OCKLAWAHA RIVER (Page 90) 
 
 This selection was part of a book on Florida written during 
 the early summer of 1875. The present chapter first ap- 
 peared in Lippincolt's Magazine in November of that year; 
 the book itself was pubUshed the following year. 
 
 26. — wry-trussed. Carelessly dressed. 
 
 126. — in famdbus. In [his] jaws. 
 
 156.— Elysian tranquillity. A tranquillity like that of the 
 Elysian fields which, according to the mythology of the an- 
 cient Greeks, was the abode of the blessed after death. 
 
 187. — Saurian. A hzard-like reptile. 
 
 228. — coign of vantage. Corner or point, an echo from 
 Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act I, sc. vi, U. 6-8: 
 
 "No jutty, frieze, 
 Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird 
 Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle." 
 
 239. — favleuils. A French word for easy chair. 
 
 244. — machicolated towers. Towers having openings at the 
 top through which the defenders may throw down missiles 
 on their assailants. 
 
 246. — Una. A character in Spenser's Faerie Queene, sup- 
 posed to be a personification of truth. Angela's Moses. The 
 celebrated statue of Moses by the great Itahan painter and 
 sculptor Michelangelo (1475-1564). 
 
 247. — the Laocoon group. The celebrated group of statu- 
 ary representing Laocoon and his two sons being devoured 
 by serpents. According to the story in Virgil's Mneid the 
 priest Laocoon incurred the wrath of Athena when he at- 
 tempted to dissuade the Trojans from taking into Troy the 
 wooden horse which the Greeks had built and filled with 
 armed men. In anger Athena sent thi-ee huge serpents 
 which devoured Laocoon and his sons. 
 
 248. — Arthur and Lancelot. Characters in certain mediaeval 
 romances; the former a legendary king of Britain, the latter 
 his bravest knight. 
 
 252. — columbiads. A kind of heavy, old-fashioned muzzle- 
 loading cannon. 
 
NOTES 167 
 
 266. — purfling. Border ornamentation. Chasement. Chas- 
 ing, engraving. 
 
 321. — plagal cadence. A technical musical term difficult for 
 any one but a trained musician to understand. Syncopation. 
 A peculiar system of musical accent, much used in our mod- 
 ern "rag-time." 
 
 327. — tempo. Time as applied to music. 
 
 330. — allegro. A musical term meaning fast. 
 
 331. — Da capo. A musical term meaning to return to the 
 beginning and repeat; usually indicated by the letters D. C. 
 
 332. — dominant. The fifth note in the scale of any musical 
 key; so called because of its great importance in musical 
 harmony. 
 
 350. — m^dus. Usage. 
 
 355. — Asger Hamerik. See Introduction, p. xxiii, for La- 
 nier's relations with this noted musician. Edward Grieg. The 
 well-known Norwegian composer (1843-1907). 
 
 356. — Thomas's orchestra. For many years Theodore 
 Thomas (1835-1905) conducted a symphony orchestra, first 
 in New York, and later in Chicago. He was one of the fore- 
 most musical conductors in America. 
 
 358. — Nordische Suite. Northern Suite. A musical suite 
 is a composition consisting of several closely related move- 
 ments or parts, usually written for the orchestra. See p. 74 
 of Letters of Sidney Lanier. 
 
 S59.— concerto. An elaborate musical composition for the 
 piano, usually with an orchestral accompaniment. 
 
 392. — the apostate Julian. The Roman emperor (361-363), 
 under whose reign the empire relapsed into paganism. 
 
 441. — lymph. Pure, transparent Uquid. 
 
 442. — gar-fish. A long-bodied, long-nosed fish found in 
 southern waters. 
 
 499. — malachite. A kind of green stone used in making 
 jeweby. 
 
 502. — Bodmer. Karl Bodmer, a Swiss landscape artist and 
 etcher who Uved in the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 506. — boscage. Foliage. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF THE ALAMO (Page 107) 
 
 This chronicle of heroism is taken from a longer article on 
 San Antonio which was written in 1875 and first appeared in 
 Lippincott's Magazine in October of the same year. 
 
168 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 36. — General Santa Ana. Mexican general and for a time 
 President of Mexico. 
 
 42. — James Bowie. Famous frontiersman and hunter; 
 his name was given to a kind of hunting-knife that was very 
 popular on the early western frontier. 
 
 '^Z.— David Crockett. Famous hunter, pohtician, and hu- 
 morist; for several terms member of Congress from Tennes- 
 see; author of an entertaining and humorous Autobiography 
 (1786-1836). 
 
 THE STORY OF A PROVERB (Page 117) 
 
 This selection appeared in St. Nicholas in May, 1877. 
 
 15. — grand vizier. Chief minister; the name still given to 
 the chief adviser of the Sultan of Turkey. 
 
 36. — teetotum. A child's toy, somewhat like a top to be 
 twirled by the fingers. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ST. LEONOR (Page 126) 
 
 3. — Armorica. In the geography of the Middle Ages the 
 northwestern part of France, Brittany. 
 
 BOB: THE STORY OF OUR MOCKING-BIRD 
 
 (Page 129) 
 
 4. — Sir Philip Sidney. Famous English soldier and writer; 
 author of Arcadia, Defense of Poesy, and a series of sonnets, 
 Astrophel and Stella; died of wounds received in the battle 
 of Zutphen (1554r-1586). 
 
 6. — Don Quixote de la Mancha. A romantic and half- 
 deranged Spanish knight who is the hero of a famous work 
 by Cervantes (1547-1616). 
 
 89. — Zutphen. A town in Holland, scene of a famous bat- 
 tle between the Dutch and English against the Spanish in 
 1586. 
 
 166. — Keats. John Keats, famous English poet (1795- 
 1821). His death is said to have been hastened by a savage 
 review of his long poem, Endymion, which appeared in the 
 Quarterly Review, in 1818. 
 
 194. — Chimoera. A monster which, according to Greek 
 mythology, had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and 
 the tail of a dragon. 
 
NOTES 169 
 
 296. — the fatal shears. An allusion to the belief of the 
 ancient Greeks that the destinies of men were determined 
 by three fates. One, Clotho, spun the thread of life; another, 
 Lachesis, measured its length; and the third, Atropos, cut it 
 off with her shears. 
 
 AN ENGLISH HERO OF A THOUSAND YEARS AGO 
 (Page 142) 
 
 This selection is from Music and Poetry, a collection of 
 essays which appeared separately in various magazines and 
 were collected and pubhshed in book form after Lanier's 
 death. 
 
 The story herein told is from an Anglo-Saxon poem by an 
 unknown author, dating about 993 A. D., and called the 
 Battle oj Maldon. 
 
 1. — the chronicler. The writer of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
 an ancient record of historical events extending from about 
 A. D. 449 to 1154. It is the work of many hands. 
 
 2. — investitures. The official investing or conferring of 
 ofiBce on a church dignitary. 
 
 26. — vikings. The North Sea pirates who plundered the 
 coasts of western Europe from the eighth to the tenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 30. — churlish. Rude, unobliging. 
 
 39. — manor. A landed estate. 
 
 40. — mark. A weight used in reckoning gold and silver, 
 equivalent to about eight ounces. 
 
 79. — javelin. Short spear or dart to be thrown. 
 
 81. — buckler. Shield. 
 
 90. — liegemen. Sworn followers. 
 
 91. — wist. Knew. 
 
 06. — scathful. Bearing soath or harm. 
 
 97. — render rings. Pay with rings. The ancient chieftains 
 often rewarded services by the giving of rings or armlets of 
 gold or silver. 
 
 108. — slim ash. Slender spear. 
 
 117. —Prince Aethelred. King of the English (978-1016). 
 
 136. — yare. Ready. 
 
 138. — Shelter-of-Men. A complimentary epithet for Byrht- 
 noth. 
 
 144. — recked not of. Cared not for. 
 
 147. — bridge-wards. Guardians or defenders of the bridges. 
 
170 SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 151. — gave over-much land. Voluntarily withdrew so as to 
 allow the vikings to cross the stream and approach to fight. . 
 
 152. — whisl. Were silent. Byrhihelm's bairn. Byrhtnoth. 
 bairn. Child. 
 
 155. — wot. Knows. 
 
 162. — ward. Defence. 
 
 173. — bills. Long-handled weapons with a hook and pike 
 at the end. 
 
 174. — quittance. Payment. 
 
 175. — sheerly. Fairly, clearly. 
 
 178. — bower-thane. Literally chamber follower, something 
 more intimate than mere follower. 
 
 188. — carl. Churl, common fellow. 
 
 199. — corselet. Breastplate. 
 
 201 . — blither. Happier. 
 
 207. — unwaxen. Not fully grown. 
 
 257. — wend. Go. 
 
 261. — bale-spear. Death-bearing spear. 
 
 THE STORY OF SILAS MARNER (Page 151) 
 
 This selection is taken from one of a course of lectures which 
 Lanier delivered at Johns Hopkins University in the spring of 
 1881. The original name for the course was From jEschylus 
 to George Eliot, The Development of Personality, but when the 
 lectures were published after Lanier's death the briefer title, 
 The English Novel, was given to them. 
 
 14. — farrier. A man who combined the trade of a black- 
 smith with that of veterinary surgeon. 
 
 17. — Dogberry. The ignorant, self-important, and talkative 
 constable in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Verges. 
 Another humorous character in the same play. 
 
 22. — Chaucer. The great English poet, sometimes called 
 the father of English poetry, chiefly known as the author of 
 The Canterbury Tales (1340-1400). 
 
 38-42. — Death alas, etc. Freely paraphrased, these Unes 
 run as follows: "Death alas will not take my life; therefore I 
 walk about a miserable, restless fellow; and on the ground, 
 which is my mother's gate, I knock with my staff early and 
 late, and say to her, ' Dear mother, let me in.' "