Unknown-Habersham-Hall County GaArchives Biographies.....Lanier, Sidney 1842 - 1881 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Francesca Henle-Taylor henle@fmfproductions.com August 8, 2004, 9:23 am Author: Edited by Forkner and Samway SIDNEY LANIER (1842-1881) Sidney Lanier was born in Macon, Georgia, where his father had a law practice. He attended local schools before enrolling at Oglethorpe University, then located in Milledgeville. After graduation, Lanier enlisted in the Confederate army with the Macon Volunteers, one of the first units from Georgia to fight in Virginia. In 1864, he was taken prisoner by the Union army in Maryland where he contracted tuberculosis. After the war he drifted from job to job before settling down as a professional flute player for the Peabody Orchestra in Baltimore. By that time he had married, and had published a Civil War novel, Tiger-Lilies (1867). His first major poem, "Corn," was published in 1875, and in 1877 a collection of his poetry, Poems, appeared, but had little success. In 1879, he became a lecturer in English at Johns Hopkins University. Two of his books were based on courses given at Johns Hopkins: The Science of English Verse (1880) and The English Novel (1883). From The New Reader of the Old South Edited by Ben Forkner and Patrick Samway, S.J. Copyright 1991 Peachtree Publishers, Atlanta Georgia _____________________________________________________________________________ Song of the Chattahoochee (1877) Out of the hills of Habersham, Down in the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall, Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover's pain to attain the plain Far from the hills of Habersham, Far from the valleys of Hall. All down the hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried Abide, abide, The willful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide, Here in the hills of Habersham, Here in the valleys of Hall. High o'er the hills of Habersham, Veiling the valleys of Hall, 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, Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold 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 clefts of the hills of Habersham, 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, The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o’er the hills of Habersham Calls through the valleys of Hall. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/unknown/bios/gbs114lanier.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 3.7 Kb