Sidney Lanier Poems

By Sidney and Clifford Lanier.

O wish that's vainer than the plash
Of these wave-whimsies on the shore:
...

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
...

I. Sunrise.


In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain
...

Our hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken,
And but the ghosts of homes to us remain,
And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token
From friend to friend of an unspoken pain.
...

To-day the woods are trembling through and through
With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
...

Als du im Saal mit deiner himmlischen Kunst
Beethoven zeigst, und seinem Willen nach
Mit den zehn Fingern fuehrst der Leute Gunst,
Zehn Zungen sagen was der Meister sprach.
...

It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.
...

Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
...

My soul is like the oar that momently
Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave,
...

By Sidney and Clifford Lanier.

[Not long ago a certain Georgia cotton-planter, driven to desperation
by awaking each morning to find that the grass had
...