Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring. I cease from my song for thee, From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night. XX Yet each I keep and all, retrievements out of the night; With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woe, With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odor; With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird, Comrades mine, and I in the midst, and their memory ever I keep for the dead I loved so well; . For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands. . . and this for his dear sake; Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul, SIDNEY LANIER [Born at Macon, Georgia, February 3, 1842; died at Lynn, North Carolina, September 7, 1881] SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE Out of the hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, Far from the valleys of Hall. All down the hills of Habersham, The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, High o'er the hills of Habersham, The hickory told me manifold Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, These glades in the valleys of Hall. And oft in the hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, And many a luminous jewel lone - Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, and amethyst — Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 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 Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls through the valleys of Hall. A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER Into the woods my Master went, Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him; Out of the woods my Master went, And He was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 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, - O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine, Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak, And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know, And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within, That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore, And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face 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 : So: Affable live-oak, leaning low,— Thus with your favor - soft, with a reverent hand, (Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!) Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand On the firm-packed sand, Free By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea. Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl. Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light. And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky! A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high broad in the blade, Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade, Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain, To the terminal blue of the main. Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea? 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. Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea! |