Of this newly-written poem Mr. Lanier says in a letter of March, 1874: "Of course, since I have written it to print I cannot make it such as *I* desire in artistic design: for the forms of to-day require a certain trim smugness and clean-shaven propriety in the face and dress of a poem, and I must win a hearing by conforming in some degree to these tyrannies, with a view to overturning them in the future. Written so, it is not nearly so beautiful as I would have it; and I therefore have another still in my heart, which I will some day write for myself." VII. A Song of Love. `A Song of Love', like `Betrayal', belongs to the early plan of `The Jacquerie'. It was written for one of the Fool's songs and, after several recastings, took its present shape in 1879. To Nannette Falk-Auerbach. This sonnet was originally written in the German and published in a German daily of Baltimore, while the author's translation appeared at the same time in the Baltimore `Gazette'. To Our Mocking-Bird. The history of this bird's life is given at length under the title of "Bob", in `The Independent' of August 3, 1882, and will show that he deserved to be immortal -- as we hope he is. Ode to the Johns Hopkins University. " . . . the soaring genius'd Sylvester That earlier loosed the knot great Newton tied," An algebraic theorem announced by Newton was demonstrated and extended by Sylvester. -- Sidney Lanier. A Ballad of Trees and the Master. `A Ballad of Trees and the Master' was conceived as an interlude of the latest `Hymn of the Marshes', `Sunrise', although written earlier. In the author's first copy and first revision of that `Hymn', the `Ballad' was incorporated, following the invocation to the trees which closes with: "And there, oh there As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air, Pray me a myriad prayer." In Mr. Lanier's final copy the `Ballad' is omitted. It was one of several interludes which he at first designed, but, for some reason, afterwards abandoned. To My Class: On Certain Fruits and Flowers Sent Me in Sickness. A class in English Literature, composed of young girls who had been studying with Mr. Lanier `The Knighte's Tale' of Chaucer. The sonnet `On Violet's Wafers' was addressed to a member of the same class, and is similarly conceived. Under the Cedarcroft Chestnut. "This chestnut-tree (at Cedarcroft, the estate of Mr. Bayard Taylor, in Pennsylvania), is estimated to be more than eight hundred years old." -- Sidney Lanier, 1877. Hard by stood its mate, apparently somewhat younger. It is related in a letter of 1882, from Mrs. Taylor, that in 1880, a year after Mr. Taylor's death, one of these majestic trees gave the first signs of decay: while his comrade lingered two years longer -- to follow as closely the footsteps of Mr. Lanier: the two, faithful-hearted "to their master and to him who sang of them." A Florida Ghost.