Sidney Lanier

"To-day the woods are trembling through and through     With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,     Then melt in green as dawn-stars me"

"My soul is like the oar that momently     Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave,     Then glitters out again and sweeps the sea:     Each"

"At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,     When far within the spirit's hearing rolls     The great soft rumble of the course of thing"

"By the Eldest Grandson.     A rainbow span of fifty years,     Painted upon a cloud of tears,     In blue for hopes and red for fears,"

"My soul is sailing through the sea,     But the Past is heavy and hindereth me.     The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells     That hold the fle"

"As Love will carve dear names upon a tree,     Symbol of gravure on his heart to be,     So thought I thine with loving text to set     In the"

"If spicy-fringed pinks that blush and pale     With passions of perfume, - if violets blue     That hint of heaven with odor more than hue, -"

"Death, thou'rt a cordial old and rare:     Look how compounded, with what care!     Time got his wrinkles reaping thee     Sweet herbs from all"

"A Story of Christmas Eve. Strange that the termagant winds should scold The Christmas Eve so bitterly! But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old, Big Cha"

"In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know Two springs that with unbroken flow Forever pour their lucent streams Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams. No"

"What heartache -- ne'er a hill! Inexorable, vapid, vague and chill The drear sand-levels drain my spirit low. With one poor word they tell me all they"

"He's fast asleep. See how, O Wife, Night's finger on the lip of life Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife, Of busy Baby Charley. One arm stretched"

"or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama. You, Dinah! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet. De Lord, HE made dese black-jack roots to twis' i"

"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,"

"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 tok"

"By Sidney and Clifford Lanier.     Not long ago a certain Georgia cotton-planter, driven to desperation by awaking each morning to find that the"

"That air same Jones, which lived in Jones,     He had this pint about him:     He'd swear with a hundred sighs and groans,     That farmers MUS"

"Presenting a portrait-bust of the author.     Since you, rare friend! have tied my living tongue     With thanks more large than man e'er sai"

"The innocent, sweet Day is dead.     Dark Night hath slain her in her bed.     O, Moors are as fierce to kill as to wed!      - Put out the lig"

"By Sidney and Clifford Lanier.     O wish that's vainer than the plash     Of these wave-whimsies on the shore:     "Give us a pearl to fill"

"Joust First.     I.     Bright shone the lists, blue bent the skies,     And the knights still hurried amain     To the tournament under th"

"May the maiden,     Violet-laden     Out of the violet sea,     Comes and hovers     Over lovers,     Over thee, Marie, and me,     Over me"

"Down mildest shores of milk-white sand,     By cape and fair Floridian bay,     Twixt billowy pines - a surf asleep on land -     And the great"

""I saw a sky of stars that rolled in grime.     All glory twinkled through some sweat of fight,     From each tall chimney of the roaring time"

"Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam     Into the slumb'rous tissue of some stream,     Till his bright self o'er his bright copy"

"Written for the "Martha Washington Court Journal".     Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time,     When windy shams and the rain-mocking"

"I asked my heart to say     Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay     Upon my Lady's natal day.     Then said my heart to me:"

"The Day was dying; his breath     Wavered away in a hectic gleam;     And I said, if Life's a dream, and Death     And Love and all are dreams"

"I knowed a man, which he lived in Jones,     Which Jones is a county of red hills and stones,     And he lived pretty much by gittin' of loans,"

"Als du im Saal mit deiner himmlischen Kunst     Beethoven zeigst, und seinem Willen nach     Mit den zehn Fingern fuehrst der Leute Gunst,"

"Into the woods my Master went,     Clean forspent, forspent.     Into the woods my Master came,     Forspent with love and shame.     But the"

"From the German of Heine.     In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone,     Upon a wintry height;     It sleeps: around it snows have throw"

"He's fast asleep. See how, O Wife,     Night's finger on the lip of life     Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife,     Of busy Baby Charley."

""O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead!     The Time needs heart - 'tis tired of head:     We're all for love," the violins said.     "Of what"

"Well: Death is a huge omnivorous Toad     Grim squatting on a twilight road.     He catcheth all that Circumstance     Hath tossed to him."

""Hey, rose, just born     Twin to a thorn;     Was't so with you, O Love and Scorn?     "Sweet eyes that smiled,     Now wet and wild;     O"

"Written for the Art Autograph during the Irish Famine, 1880.     Heartsome Ireland, winsome Ireland,     Charmer of the sun and sea,     Bri"

"Trim set in ancient sward, his manful bole     Upbore his frontage largely toward the sky.     We could not dream but that he had a soul:     W"

"Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud:     Oh loiter hither from the sea.     Still-eyed and shadow-brow'd,     Steal off from yon far-drifting c"

"In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know     Two springs that with unbroken flow     Forever pour their lucent streams     Into my soul's far"

"I.     The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain     Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.     O Love! O Love! across th"

"In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain     Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main.     The little green leaves would not let me alon"

"Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven     With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven     Clamber the forks of the mult"

"Across the brook of Time man leaping goes     On stepping-stones of epochs, that uprise     Fixed, memorable, midst broad shallow flows     Of"

"I.     O Age that half believ'st thou half believ'st,     Half doubt'st the substance of thine own half doubt,     And, half perceiving that t"

""Thou Ship of Earth, with Death, and Birth, and Life, and Sex aboard,     And fires of Desires burning hotly in the hold,     I fear thee, O! I"

"Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him     Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him     Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest.     "Fr"

""If life were caught by a clarionet,     And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed,     Should thrill its joy and trill its fret,     And utter i"

"Thou God, whose high, eternal Love     Is the only blue sky of our life,     Clear all the Heaven that bends above     The life-road of this ma"

"Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,     And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,     How long they kiss in sight of all the lands."

"O Hunger, Hunger, I will harness thee     And make thee harrow all my spirit's glebe.     Of old the blind bard Herve sang so sweet     He made"

"I was drivin' my two-mule waggin,     With a lot o' truck for sale,     Towards Macon, to git some baggin'     (Which my cotton was ready to ba"

"Inscribed to the Memory of John Keats.     Dear uplands, Chester's favorable fields,     My large unjealous Loves, many yet one -     A grav"

"From cold Norse caves or buccaneer Southern seas     Oft come repenting tempests here to die;     Bewailing old-time wrecks and robberies,"

"Oft seems the Time a market-town     Where many merchant-spirits meet     Who up and down and up and down     Cry out along the street     Th"

"Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray     That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,     He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew     The watc"

"Light rain-drops fall and wrinkle the sea,     Then vanish, and die utterly.     One would not know that rain-drops fell     If the round sea-w"

"Time, hurry my Love to me:     Haste, haste! Lov'st not good company?     Here's but a heart-break sandy waste     'Twixt Now and Then. Why, ki"

"Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled     Thy plough to ring this solitary tree     With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,"

"Fine-tissued as her finger-tips, and white     As all her thoughts; in shape like shields of prize,     As if before young Violet's dreaming eye"