To J. D. H.

(Killed at Surrey C. H., October, 1866.)



.    .    .    .    .

Dear friend, forgive a wild lament
Insanely following thy flight.
I would not cumber thine ascent
Nor drag thee back into the night;

But the great sea-winds sigh with me,
The fair-faced stars seem wrinkled, old,
And I would that I might lie with thee
There in the grave so cold, so cold!

Grave walls are thick, I cannot see thee,
And the round skies are far and steep;
A-wild to quaff some cup of Lethe,
Pain is proud and scorns to weep.

My heart breaks if it cling about thee,
And still breaks, if far from thine.
O drear, drear death, to live without thee,
O sad life - to keep thee mine.

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

Corn.

Sidney Lanier, Simple Poetry

From the Flats.

Sidney Lanier, Simple Poetry

Special Pleading.

Sidney Lanier, Simple Poetry

A Ballad of Trees and the Master.

Sidney Lanier, Simple Poetry

English

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At First. To Charlotte Cushman.

My crippled sense fares bow'd along
His uncompanioned way,
And wronged by death pays life with wrong
And I wake by night and dream by day.

And the Morning seems but fatigued Night
That hath wept his visage pale,
And the healthy mark 'twixt dark and light
In sickly sameness out doth fail.

And the woods stare strange, and the wind is dumb,
- O Wind, pray talk again -
And the Hand of the Frost spreads stark and numb
As Death's on the deadened window-pane.

Still dumb, thou Wind, old voluble friend?
And the middle of the day is cold,
And the heart of eve beats lax i' the end
As a legend's climax poorly told.

Oh vain the up-straining of the hands
In the chamber late at night,
Oh vain the complainings, the hot demands,
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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

To Bayard Taylor.

To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height,
O'erseeing all that man but undersees;
To loiter down lone alleys of delight,
And hear the beating of the hearts of trees,
And think the thoughts that lilies speak in white
By greenwood pools and pleasant passages;

With healthy dreams a-dream in flesh and soul,
To pace, in mighty meditations drawn,
From out the forest to the open knoll
Where much thyme is, whence blissful leagues of lawn
Betwixt the fringing woods to southward roll
By tender inclinations; mad with dawn,

Ablaze with fires that flame in silver dew
When each small globe doth glass the morning-star,
Long ere the sun, sweet-smitten through and through
With dappled revelations read afar,
Suffused with saintly ecstasies of blue
As all th...

Sidney Lanier

In Absence.

I.

The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring -
Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail
Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss
When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale,
To round and redden for another kiss -
Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee
What time the drear kiss-intervals must be?


II.

So do the mottled formulas of Sense
Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime;
So er...

Sidney Lanier

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

On Huntingdon's "Miranda".

The storm hath blown thee a lover, sweet,
And laid him kneeling at thy feet.
But, - guerdon rich for favor rare!
The wind hath all thy holy hair
To kiss and to sing through and to flare
Like torch-flames in the passionate air,
About thee, O Miranda.

Eyes in a blaze, eyes in a daze,
Bold with love, cold with amaze,
Chaste-thrilling eyes, fast-filling eyes
With daintiest tears of love's surprise,
Ye draw my soul unto your blue
As warm skies draw the exhaling dew,
Divine eyes of Miranda.

And if I were yon stolid stone,
Thy tender arm doth lean upon,
Thy touch would turn me to a heart,
And I would palpitate and start,
- Content, when thou wert gone, to be
A dumb rock by the lonesome sea
Forever, O Miranda.


Baltimore...

Sidney Lanier