Sidney Lanier

"Dear Mother-Earth     Of Titan birth,     Yon hills are your large breasts, and often I     Have climbed to their top-nipples, fain and dry"

"In the South lies a lonesome, hungry Land;     He huddles his rags with a cripple's hand;     He mutters, prone on the barren sand,     What ti"

"What time I paced, at pleasant morn,     A deep and dewy wood,     I heard a mellow hunting-horn     Make dim report of Dian's lustihood     F"

"(Killed at Surrey C. H., October, 1866.)     .    .    .    .    .     Dear friend, forgive a wild lament     Insanely following thy flight"

"Sometimes in morning sunlights by the river     Where in the early fall long grasses wave,     Light winds from over the moorland sink and shive"

"Out of the hills of Habersham,     Down the valleys of Hall,     I hurry amain to reach the plain,     Run the rapid and leap the fall,     Sp"

"Through seas of dreams and seas of phantasies,     Through seas of solitudes and vacancies,     And through my Self, the deepest of the seas,"

"In o'er-strict calyx lingering,     Lay music's bud too long unblown,     Till thou, Beethoven, breathed the spring:     Then bloomed the perfe"

"A Story of Christmas Eve.     Strange that the termagant winds should scold     The Christmas Eve so bitterly!     But Wife, and Harry the f"

"So one in heart and thought, I trow,     That thou might'st press the strings and I might draw the bow     And both would meet in music sweet,"

"Once, at night, in the manor wood     My Love and I long silent stood,     Amazed that any heavens could     Decree to part us, bitterly repini"

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

"A white face, drooping, on a bending neck:     A tube-rose that with heavy petal curves     Her stem: a foam-bell on a wave that swerves     Ba"

"Sail fast, sail fast,     Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams;     Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past,     Fly glittering through the sun's stran"

"Died of a cat, May, 1878.     I.     Trillets of humor, - shrewdest whistle-wit, -     Contralto cadences of grave desire     Such as from"

"Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands     Pourest thy pilgrim's tale, discoursing still     Thy silver passages of sacred lands,     Wi"

""So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon     That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills,     In languid palpitation, half a-swoon"

"If haply thou, O Desdemona Morn,     Shouldst call along the curving sphere, "Remain,     Dear Night, sweet Moor; nay, leave me not in scorn!""

"From the German of Herder.     All faintly through my soul to-day,     As from a bell that far away     Is tinkled by some frolic fay,"

"The sun has kissed the violet sea,     And burned the violet to a rose.     O Sea! wouldst thou not better be     Mere violet still? Who knows?"

"A rose of perfect red, embossed     With silver sheens of crystal frost,     Yet warm, nor life nor fragrance lost.     High passion throbbing"

"The robin laughed in the orange-tree:     "Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:     While breasts are red and wings are bold     And green trees wa"

"I. - Red.     Would that my songs might be     What roses make by day and night -     Distillments of my clod of misery     Into delight."

"Were silver pink, and had a soul,     Which soul were shy, which shyness might     A visible influence be, and roll     Through heaven and eart"

"The storm hath blown thee a lover, sweet,     And laid him kneeling at thy feet.     But, - guerdon rich for favor rare!     The wind hath all"

""Spring-germs, spring-germs,     I charge you by your life, go back to death.     This glebe is sick, this wind is foul of breath.     Stay: fe"

"O marriage-bells, your clamor tells     Two weddings in one breath.     SHE marries whom her love compels:      - And I wed Goodman Death!"

"Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found,     Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep,     Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost l"

""Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine.     Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear     To feature me my Lord by rule and line.     Thou cans"

"Through all that year-scarred agony of height,     Unblest of bough or bloom, to where expands     His wandy circlet with his bladed bands"

"Read on the Fourth Commemoration Day, February, 1880.     How tall among her sisters, and how fair, -     How grave beyond her youth, yet deb"

"My crippled sense fares bow'd along     His uncompanioned way,     And wronged by death pays life with wrong     And I wake by night and dream"

""To heal his heart of long-time pain     One day Prince Love for to travel was fain     With Ministers Mind and Sense.     `Now what to thee mo"

"To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height,     O'erseeing all that man but undersees;     To loiter down lone alleys of delight,     And he"

"Land of the willful gospel, thou worst and thou best;     Tall Adam of lands, new-made of the dust of the West;     Thou wroughtest alone in the"

"By Sidney and Clifford Lanier.     You, Dinah! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet.     De Lord, HE made dese black-jack roots to"

"Over the monstrous shambling sea,     Over the Caliban sea,     Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest:     Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West,"

"Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day.     Each rules a half of earth with different sway,     Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway."

"Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill,     Complain no more; for these, O heart,     Direct the random of the will     As rhymes direct the rage"

"For ever wave, for ever float and shine     Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine     Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine,     A"

"Chapter I.     Once on a time, a Dawn, all red and bright     Leapt on the conquered ramparts of the Night,     And flamed, one brilliant inst"

""Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle."     "Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train."     "Let us cross the river and rest in the sh"

"Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art,     The massive message of Beethoven tell     With thy ten fingers to the people's heart     As if t"

"Life swelleth in a whitening wave,     And dasheth thee and me apart.     I sweep out seaward: -    be thou brave.     And reach the shore, Swe"