In the Foam.

Life swelleth in a whitening wave,
And dasheth thee and me apart.
I sweep out seaward: -    be thou brave.
And reach the shore, Sweetheart.

Beat back the backward-thrusting sea.
Thy weak white arm his blows may thwart,
Christ buffet the wild surge for thee
Till thou'rt ashore, Sweetheart.

Ah, now thy face grows dim apace,
And seems of yon white foam a part.
Canst hear me through the water-bass,
Cry: "To the Shore, Sweetheart?"

Now Christ thee soothe upon the Shore,
My lissome-armed sea-Britomart.
I sweep out seaward, never more
To find the Shore, Sweetheart.


Prattville, Alabama, December, 1867.

Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier, born February 3, 1842, in Macon, Georgia, was an American musician, poet, and author. He was known for his musical and poetic works that embodied the natural beauty and culture of the American South. Lanier fought in the American Civil War, an experience that deeply influenced his later works. He is celebrated for his technical mastery and innovative use of meter and musicality in poetry. Lanier passed away on September 7, 1881, in Lynn, North Carolina.

Sidney Lanier

The Dove.

Sidney Lanier, Simple Poetry

To Charlotte Cushman.

Sidney Lanier, Simple Poetry

Rose-Morals.

Sidney Lanier, Simple Poetry

The Golden Wedding of Sterling and Sarah Lanier, September 27, 1868.

Sidney Lanier, Simple Poetry

English

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Resurrection.

Sometimes in morning sunlights by the river
Where in the early fall long grasses wave,
Light winds from over the moorland sink and shiver
And sigh as if just blown across a grave.

And then I pause and listen to this sighing.
I look with strange eyes on the well-known stream.
I hear wild birth-cries uttered by the dying.
I know men waking who appear to dream.

Then from the water-lilies slow uprises
The still vast face of all the life I know,
Changed now, and full of wonders and surprises,
With fire in eyes that once were glazed with snow.

Fair now the brows old Pain had erewhile wrinkled,
And peace and strength about the calm mouth dwell.
Clean of the ashes that Repentance sprinkled,
The meek head poises like a flower-bell.

All the old s...

Sidney Lanier

A Sea-Shore Grave. To M. J. L.

By Sidney and Clifford Lanier.



O wish that's vainer than the plash
Of these wave-whimsies on the shore:
"Give us a pearl to fill the gash -
God, let our dead friend live once more!"

O wish that's stronger than the stroke
Of yelling wave and snapping levin;
"God, lift us o'er the Last Day's smoke,
All white, to Thee and her in Heaven!"

O wish that's swifter than the race
Of wave and wind in sea and sky;
Let's take the grave-cloth from her face
And fall in the grave, and kiss, and die!

Look! High above a glittering calm
Of sea and sky and kingly sun,
She shines and smiles, and waves a palm -
And now we wish - Thy will be done!


Montgomery, Alabama, 1866.

Sidney Lanier

The Marshes of Glynn.

Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, -
Emerald twilights, -
Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn; -

Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire, -
Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,
Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves, -
Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves,
Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood,
...

Sidney Lanier

Barnacles.

My soul is sailing through the sea,
But the Past is heavy and hindereth me.
The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells
That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells
About my soul.
The huge waves wash, the high waves roll,
Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole
And hindereth me from sailing!

Old Past let go, and drop i' the sea
Till fathomless waters cover thee!
For I am living but thou art dead;
Thou drawest back, I strive ahead
The Day to find.
Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind,
I needs must hurry with the wind
And trim me best for sailing.


Macon, Georgia, 1867.

Sidney Lanier

A Florida Ghost.

Down mildest shores of milk-white sand,
By cape and fair Floridian bay,
Twixt billowy pines - a surf asleep on land -
And the great Gulf at play,

Past far-off palms that filmed to nought,
Or in and out the cunning keys
That laced the land like fragile patterns wrought
To edge old broideries,

The sail sighed on all day for joy,
The prow each pouting wave did leave
All smile and song, with sheen and ripple coy,
Till the dusk diver Eve

Brought up from out the brimming East
The oval moon, a perfect pearl.
In that large lustre all our haste surceased,
The sail seemed fain to furl,

The silent steersman landward turned,
And ship and shore set breast to breast.
Under a palm wherethrough a planet burned
We ate, and sank to rest.

Sidney Lanier

To Wilhelmina.

A white face, drooping, on a bending neck:
A tube-rose that with heavy petal curves
Her stem: a foam-bell on a wave that swerves
Back from the undulating vessel's deck.

From out the whitest cloud of summer steals
The wildest lightning: from this face of thine
Thy soul, a fire-of-heaven, warm and fine,
In marvellous flashes its fair self reveals.

As when one gazes from the summer sea
On some far gossamer cloud, with straining eye,
Fearing to see it vanish in the sky,
So, floating, wandering Cloud-Soul, I watch thee.


Montgomery, Alabama, 1866.

Sidney Lanier