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Martha Washington.

By Sidney Lanier

Topics: classic

Written for the "Martha Washington Court Journal".     Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time,     When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleet     Of Trade have cased us in such icy rime     That hearts are scarcely hot enough to beat,     Thy fame, O Lady of the lofty eyes,     Doth fall along the age, like as a lane     Of Spring, in whose most generous boundaries     Full many a frozen virtue warms again.     To-day I saw the pale much-burdened form     Of Charity come limping o'er the line,     And straighten from the bending of the storm     And flush with stirrings of new strength divine,     Such influence and sweet gracious impulse came     Out of the beams of thine immortal name!     Baltimore, February 22d, 1875.

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"Written for the "Martha Washington Court Journal"...."

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Author:Sidney Lanier

"Written for the "Martha Washington Court Journal"...." by Sidney Lanier

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Sidney Lanier

About Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) was an American poet and musician whose poems—including "The Marshes of Glynn" and "Song of the Chattahoochee"—are known for their musical quality and celebration of the Southern landscape.

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