Select Poems of Sidney Lanier

Edited by Morgan Callaway
Select Poems of Sidney Lanier

Edited With an Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography
By Morgan Callaway, Jr., Ph.D.

Associate Professor of English Philology in the University of Texas,
Formerly Fellow of the Johns Hopkins University;

Author of "The Absolute Participle in Anglo-Saxon"
[Amended to include "The Marshes of Glynn"]

To My Father
Preface

This edition of the `Select Poems of Sidney Lanier' is issued
in the hope of making his poetry known to wider circles than hitherto,

especially among the students of our high-schools and colleges.
To these as to older people, the poems will, it is believed,

prove an inspiration from the stand-point both of literature and of life.
The biographical section of the Introduction rests in the main

upon Dr. Ward's admirable `Memorial' prefixed to the `Poems of Sidney Lanier'
edited by his wife, though a few additional facts have been gleaned

here and there. For most* of the Bibliography down to 1888 I am indebted
to my Hopkins comrade, Dr. Richard E. Burton, now of Hartford, Conn.,

who compiled one for the `Memorial of Sidney Lanier',
published by President Gilman, of the Johns Hopkins University, in 1888.

Obligations to other publications about Lanier are in every instance
acknowledged in the appropriate place.

--
* I say `most of the Bibliography down to 1888', because Dr. Burton's

different purpose led him to exclude items that could not be omitted
in a Bibliography that, like mine, tries to be complete.

--
As to the selections made, I wished to include `The Marshes of Glynn'

and yet not to exclude `Sunrise'. But both could not be put in,
and I finally gave the preference to `Sunrise', chiefly on the ground

of its being Lanier's latest complete poem.* I believe all will admit
that the poems selected fairly exemplify the genius of the poet.

The poems are arranged, not as in the complete edition,
but in their chronological order, the only proper one, I think,

for a text-book. Of course, they are all given complete.
--

* Later opinion generally agrees that "The Marshes of Glynn"
is Lanier's greatest poem, and as this edition has no limitations of space,

it would be inappropriate to exclude it. Therefore it has been inserted
more or less in chronological order (in accordance with Callaway's plan),

with some comments. -- Alan Light, 1998.
--

In the Notes I have made rather copious quotations from poems
familiar to English scholars, because I hope that this book

will go into the hands of many to whom they are not familiar,
and to whom the original texts are not easily accessible.

And yet, if they at all attain their end, the Notes must lead one
to wish to know more of English poetry, of which Lanier's is but a part.

Among the friends that have helped me by counsel or otherwise
I gratefully name Mr. Clifford Lanier, brother of the poet;

Professor Wm. Hand Browne, of the Johns Hopkins University;
Dr. Charles H. Ross, of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute;

and my colleagues in the School of English in the University of Texas,
Mr. L. R. Hamberlin and Professor Leslie Waggener.

Chief-justice Logan E. Bleckley, of Georgia, a man of letters
as well as of law, very kindly put at my use his correspondence with the poet,

the original draft of `Corn', and his criticisms upon the same.
My chief indebtedness, however, is to Mrs. Sidney Lanier,

who has been most generous with her time and her husband's papers.
Morgan Callaway, Jr.

University of Texas, October 1, 1894.
Contents

Introduction
I. A Brief Sketch of Lanier's Life

II. Lanier's Prose Works
III. Lanier's Poetry: Its Themes

IV. Lanier's Poetry: Its Style
V. Lanier's Theory of Poetry

VI. Conclusion
Poems

Life and Song
Jones's Private Argyment

Corn
My Springs

The Symphony
The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama

Rose-morals
To ----, with a Rose

Uncle Jim's Baptist Revival Hymn
The Mocking-bird

Song of the Chattahoochee
The Revenge of Hamish

The Marshes of Glynn
Remonstrance

Opposition
Marsh Song -- At Sunset

A Ballad of Trees and the Master
Sunrise

Bibliography
Select Poems of Sidney Lanier

Introduction
I. A Brief Sketch of Lanier's Life

(1842-1881)
Sidney Lanier has so recently passed from us that it seems desirable

briefly to recount the chief incidents of his life. This task
is much lightened by Dr. Wm. Hayes Ward's `Memorial',* upon which,

as stated in the Preface, is based this section of my essay.
Born at Macon, Ga., February 3, 1842, Sidney Lanier came of a family

noted for their love and cultivation of the fine arts.
From the time of Queen Elizabeth to the Restoration,

several of his paternal ancestors were connected with the English court
as musical composers and as painters. The father of the poet, however,

Robert S. Lanier, was a most industriouslawyer, who,
after a lingering illness of three years, recently** answered `Adsum'

to the summons of the supremetribunal. The poet's mother, Mary Anderson,
a Virginian of Scotch descent, likewisesprang from a family

distinguished for their love of oratory, music, and poetry.
--

* For the full title of works cited see `Bibliography'.
** October 20, 1893, at Macon, Ga.

--
With such an ancestry we are not surprised to learn that

Sidney's earliest passion was for music, and that in boyhood he could,
although untutored, play on almost every kind of instrument. He preferred

the violin, in playing which he sometimes sank into a deep trance,
but in deference to his father's view gave it up for the flute,

his power over which we shall hear of farther on. At first,
strange to say, he considered music unworthy of one's sole attention,

but later he came to rank it as his fullest expression of worship.
At fourteen Sidney entered the Sophomore Class of Oglethorpe College,

near Macon, Ga., and, with a year's intermission, graduated with first honor
in 1860, when just eighteen. To Professor James Woodrow, of Oglethorpe,

now President of South Carolina College, Lanier declared
that he owed "the strongest and most valuablestimulus of his youth."

On graduating he was given a tutorship in his Alma Mater,
a position that he held until the outbreak of the Civil War.

The lecture-room was now exchanged for the battle-field;
in April, 1861, Lanier entered the Confederate Army as a private

in the Macon Volunteers of the Second Georgia Battalion,
an organization among the first to reach Norfolk and that still keeps up