Select Poems of Sidney Lanier Part 16

Song of the Chattahoochee

Out of the hills of Habersham, [1]

Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall, Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover's pain to attain the plain Far from the hills of Habersham, Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the hills of Habersham, [11]

All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried 'Abide, abide,'

The willful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling gra.s.s said 'Stay,'

The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed 'Abide, abide, Here in the hills of Habersham, Here in the valleys of Hall.'

High o'er the hills of Habersham, [21]

Veiling the valleys of Hall, The hickory told me manifold Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, Said, 'Pa.s.s not, so cold, these manifold Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, These glades in the valleys of Hall.'

And oft in the hills of Habersham, [31]

And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone Did bar me of pa.s.sage with friendly brawl, And many a luminous jewel lone -- Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, and amethyst -- Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

But oh, not the hills of Habersham, [41]

And oh, not the valleys of Hall Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.

Downward the voices of Duty call -- Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, Calls through the valleys of Hall.

____ 1877.

Notes: Song of the Chattahoochee

The Chattahoochee River rises in Habersham County, in northeast Georgia, and, intersecting Hall County, flows southwestward to West Point, then southward until it unites with the Flint River at the southwestern extremity of Georgia. The Chattahoochee is about five hundred miles long, and small steamboats can ascend it to Columbus, Ga. Hon. Henry R. Jackson, of Savannah, Ga., late Minister to Mexico, has an interesting poem 'To the Chattahoochee River', in his 'Tallulah and Other Poems' (Savannah, Ga., 1850); and Mr. M. V. Moore, in his poem, 'Southern Rivers' ('Harper', 66. 464, February, 1883), has a paragraph on the rivers of Georgia, in which he speaks of "the sandy Chattahoochee".

In the 'Introduction' (pp. x.x.xi [Part III], xliv, xlvii [Part IV]) I have spoken of this 'Song' as Lanier's most finished nature poem, as the most musical of his productions. "The music of a song easily eludes all a.n.a.lysis and may be dissipated by a critic's breath, but let us try to catch the means by which the effect is in part produced.

In five stanzas, of ten lines each, alliteration occurs in all save twelve lines. In eleven of these twelve lines internal rhyme occurs, sometimes joining the parts of a line, sometimes uniting successive lines.

Syzygy is used for the same purpose. Of the letters occurring in the poem about one-fifth are liquids and about one-twelfth are sibilants.

The effect of the whole is musical beyond description.

It sings itself and yet nowhere sacrifices the thought" (Kent).

Another way to test the beauty of 'The Song of the Chattahoochee'

is to compare it with other kindred poems. There are many stream-songs in English, several of which are very pretty, but there is, I think, but one rival to our 'Song', and that is Tennyson's 'The Brook'.

Even so careful a critic as Mr. Ward says that 'The Song of the Chattahoochee'

"strikes a higher key, and is scarcely less musical." It will be instructive, too, to compare Lanier's poem with Southey's 'The Cataract of Lodore'

(see 'Gates', p. 25), which exhibits considerable talent, if not inspiration; with P. H. Hayne's 'The Meadow Brook', which is simple and sweet; and with Wordsworth's 'Brook! whose society the Poet seeks', which is grave and elevated. Professor Kent suggests as interesting a.n.a.logues Poe's 'Ulalume' and Buchanan Read's 'Bay of Naples'; and, if the student cares to extend his list, he should read the stream-songs by Bryant, Mary Ainge De Vere ('Century', 21. 283, December, 1891), Longfellow, Weir Mitch.e.l.l ('Atlantic', 65. 629, May, 1890), Clinton Scollard ('Lippincott', 50. 226, August, 1892), etc., etc.

The Revenge of Hamish

It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay; [1]

And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man, Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and pa.s.sed that way.

Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe; In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern She reared, and rounded her ears in turn.

Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown did go

Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer; And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose, For their day-dream slowlier came to a close, [11]

Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.

Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by, The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvelous bound, The hounds swept after with never a sound, But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry was nigh.

For at dawn of that day proud Maclean of Lochbuy to the hunt had waxed wild, And he cursed at old Alan till Alan fared off with the hounds For to drive him the deer to the lower glen-grounds: "I will kill a red deer," quoth Maclean, "in the sight of the wife and the child."

So gayly he paced with the wife and the child to his chosen stand; [21]

But he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead: "Go turn," -- Cried Maclean -- "if the deer seek to cross to the burn, Do thou turn them to me: nor fail, lest thy back be red as thy hand."

Now hard-fortuned Hamish, half blown of his breath with the height of the hill, Was white in the face when the ten-tined buck and the does Drew leaping to burn-ward; huskily rose His shouts, and his nether lip twitched, and his legs were o'er-weak for his will.

So the deer darted lightly by Hamish and bounded away to the burn.

But Maclean never bating his watch tarried waiting below.

Still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go [31]

All the s.p.a.ce of an hour; then he went, and his face was greenish and stern,

And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken the eyeb.a.l.l.s shone, As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were shame to see.

"Now, now, grim henchman, what is't with thee?"

Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon the wind hath upblown.

"Three does and a ten-tined buck made out," spoke Hamish, full mild, "And I ran for to turn, but my breath it was blown, and they pa.s.sed; I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast."

Cried Maclean: "Now a ten-tined buck in the sight of the wife and the child

I had killed if the gluttonous kern had not wrought me a snail's own wrong!" [41]

Then he sounded, and down came kinsmen and clansmen all: "Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall, And reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of thong!"

So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes; at the last he smiled.

"Now I'll to the burn," quoth Maclean, "for it still may be, If a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me, I shall kill me the ten-tined buck for a gift to the wife and the child!"

Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that; and over the hill Sped Maclean with an outward wrath for an inward shame; And that place of the lashing full quiet became; [51]

And the wife and the child stood sad; and b.l.o.o.d.y-backed Hamish sat still.

But look! red Hamish has risen; quick about and about turns he.

"There is none betwixt me and the crag-top!" he screams under breath.

Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death, He s.n.a.t.c.hes the child from the mother, and clambers the crag toward the sea.

Now the mother drops breath; she is dumb, and her heart goes dead for a s.p.a.ce, Till the motherhood, mistress of death, shrieks, shrieks through the glen, And that place of the lashing is live with men, And Maclean, and the gillie that told him, dash up in a desperate race.

Not a breath's time for asking; an eye-glance reveals all the tale untold. [61]

They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the sea, And the lady cries: "Clansmen, run for a fee! -- Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook him and hold