18. Paul Hamilton Hayne, whose love of nature rivals Lanier's,
has an interesting poem entitled `Muscadines' (`Poems', Boston, 1882,
pp. 222-224).
21. Compare `The Symphony', l. 117 ff.
57. See `Introduction', p. l [Part V].
125. In her introductory note to `Corn' Mrs. Lanier thus localizes the poem:
"His `fieldward-faring eyes took harvest' `among the stately corn-ranks,'
in a portion of middle Georgia sixty miles to the north of Macon.
It is a high tract of country from which one looks across the lower reaches
to the distant Blue Ridge Mountains, whose wholesome breath,
all unobstructed, here blends with the woods-odors of the beech, the hickory,
and the muscadine: a part of a range recalled elsewhere by Mr. Lanier
as `that ample stretch of generous soil, where the Appalachian ruggednesses
calm themselves into pleasant hills before dying quite away
into the sea-board levels' -- where `a man can find
such temperances of heaven and earth -- enough of struggle with nature
to draw out manhood, with enough of bounty to sanction the struggle --
that a more exquisite co-adaptation of all blessed circumstances
for man's life need not be sought.'"
140. See `Jason' in any Dictionary of Mythology.*
--
* Gayley's `The Classic Myths in English Literature' (Boston, Ginn & Co.)
is an excellent book.
--
157. `Dives': See Appendix to Webster's `International Dictionary'.
168. `Future Sale' -- sale for future delivery.
185-6. See Shakespeare's `King Lear'.
My Springs
In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know [1]
Two springs that with unbroken flow
Forever pour their lucent streams
Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams.
Not larger than two eyes, they lie
Beneath the many-changing sky
And mirror all of life and time,
-- Serene and dainty pantomime.
Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,
And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns,
-- Thus heaven and earth together vie [11]
Their shining depths to sanctify.
Always when the large Form of Love
Is hid by storms that rage above,
I gaze in my two springs and see
Love in his very verity.
Always when Faith with stifling stress
Of grief hath died in bitterness,
I gaze in my two springs and see
A Faith that smiles immortally.
Always when Charity and Hope, [21]
In darkness bounden, feebly grope,
I gaze in my two springs and see
A Light that sets my captives free.
Always, when Art on perverse wing
Flies where I cannot hear him sing,
I gaze in my two springs and see
A charm that brings him back to me.
When Labor faints, and Glory fails,
And coy Reward in sighs exhales,
I gaze in my two springs and see [31]
Attainment full and heavenly.
O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,
-- My springs from out whose shining gray
Issue the sweet celestial streams
That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.
Oval and large and passion-pure
And gray and wise and honor-sure;
Soft as a dying violet-breath
Yet calmly unafraid of death;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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