25 30 Sobbing: "O, Sheik, I cannot leave thee so; Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son!" "Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, "for with thee My one black thought shall ride away from me; Sidney Lanier is a poet of the South who year by year appeals to a larger number of lovers of good literature. He was born in Georgia of Huguenot and Scotch ancestry and when only a small lad showed great talent and love for music. His mother encour aged him in this, and from beginning with clapping bones it was not long before he learned to play on the guitar, banjo, violin, and flute. On the Christmas when he was seven years old he was given a small one-keyed flute, and from that time on the flute became his favorite instrument. When he grew to manhood he became first flutist in the Baltimore orchestra. So passionately fond was he of music that he could scarcely decide between that and poetry as his choice for a profession. He was graduated from a Georgia college at the age of eighteen, and in the following year, 1861, he enlisted in the Southern army. His younger brother, Clifford, of whom he was very fond, also enlisted, and when opportunities for promotion came to both they declined rather than be separated. They engaged in many battles, but Sidney Lanier found time, even during the war, to continue his study. In 1864 he was taken prisoner, while doing duty as a signal officer, and spent five months in Point Lookout prison. He came home from the hardships of war broken in health, so that from that time on his life was one fierce struggle against disease. From the time when as a boy he spent hours in his father's library reading the tales of King Arthur, the stories of romantic chivalry were of absorbing interest to him. He understood and loved boys, for he had four of his own, and for these he has written "The Boy's Froissart," "The Boy's King Arthur" and the "Knightly Legends of Wales." In 1879 he was appointed lecturer on English literature at the Johns Hopkins University, and his prospects were at last brightening when two years later he died. During the last seven years of his life, struggling ever with poverty and pain, he wrote his one volume of poetry. His poems show his great faith-indeed, his poem, "The Marshes of Glynn," is religion set to music. THE MARSHES OF GLYNN SIDNEY LANIER O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine, 10 Aye, 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, That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore 15 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. 20 To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn, Thus with your favor-soft, with a reverent hand, Free 30 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. Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, Softly the sand beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light. 35 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, 40 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. 45 Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea! 50 And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain. As the marsh hen secretly builds on the watery sod, In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies: 55 By so many roots as the marsh grass sends in the sod 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 60 Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood tide must be: Look how the grace of the sea doth go About and about through the intricate channels that flow Everywhere, 65 Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low-lying lanes, And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, Farewell, my lord Sun! 70 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 whir; Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; And the sea and the marsh are one. 75 How still the plains of the waters be! The tide is in his ecstasy; The tide is at its highest height: And it is night. And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep 80 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 85 On the length and the breadth of the marvelous marshes of Glynn. HELPS TO STUDY What can you tell of the coastal plain in Georgia? What effect on the poet had the "dusks of the oak" at noon? At sunset what appealed more strongly to him? How does the poet account for his lack of fear of the marshes now? |