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of Lee"; the "Song of the Mystic" is one of his most beautiful productions.

WILLIAM GORDON MCCABE.

1841-

WILLIAM GORDON MCCABE was born near Richmond, and educated at the University of Virginia. He was a captain in the Confederate service; and since the war he has had at Petersburg one of the best schools preparatory to the University. He is a poet, and has also edited several Latin authors for school use.

WORKS.

Ballads of Battle and Bravery

Defence of Petersburg.

DREAMING IN THE TRENCHES. *

I picture her there in the quaint old room,
Where the fading fire-light starts and falls,

Alone in the twilight's tender gloom

With the shadows that dance on the dim-lit walls.

Alone, while those faces look silently down

From their antique frames in a grim repose-
Slight scholarly Ralph in his Oxford gown,
And stanch Sir Alan, who died for Montrose.

There are gallants gay in crimson and gold,
There are smiling beauties with powdered hair,
But she sits there, fairer a thousand-fold,
Leaning dreamily back in her low arm-chair.

And the roseate shadows of fading light
Softly clear steal over the sweet young face,
Where a woman's tenderness blends to-night
With the guileless pride of a haughty race.
* By permission of the author.

Her hands lie clasped in a listless way

On the old Romance-which she holds on her knee-
Of Tristram, the bravest of knights in the fray,
And Iseult, who waits by the sounding sea.

And her proud, dark eyes wear a softened look
As she watches the dying embers fall-
Perhaps she dreams of the knight in the book,

Perhaps of the pictures that smile on the wall.

What fancies I wonder are thronging her brain,
For her cheeks flush warm with a crimson glow!
Perhaps ah! me, how foolish and vain!

But I'd give my life to believe it so!

Well, whether I ever march home again
To offer my love and a stainless name,
Or whether I die at the head of my men,—
I'll be true to the end all the same.

Petersburg Trenches, 1864.

SIDNEY LANIER.

1842-1881.

SIDNEY LANIER was born in Macon, Georgia, descended from a line of artist ancestors, through whom he inherited great musical ability. He was educated at Oglethorpe College, being graduated in 1860. He and his brother Clifford entered the Confederate Army together in 1861 and served through the war; but the exposure and hardships and imprisonment developed consumption which finally caused his death.

After the war he lived for two years in Alabama as a clerk and a teacher; but his health failed and he was forced

to return home where he practised law with his father till 1873. Then deciding to devote himself to music and poetry, he went to Baltimore where he was engaged as first flute in the Peabody Symphony Concerts and in 1879 as lecturer on English Literature in Johns Hopkins University. His dread disease never relaxed and he was often obliged to quit work and go to Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania in search of strength. His death occurred at Lynn, Polk County, North Carolina, on his last quest for strength and life with which to continue the work he so much loved.

His "Science of English Verse" is said to be a new and valuable addition to the study of poetry. His poems belong to the new order of thought and life. His "TigerLilies" is a prose-poem, written in three weeks just after the war and laid in the mountains of Tennessee and on the eastern shore of Virginia where he was stationed. "Beauty is holiness, and holiness is beauty," was his favorite remark on the subject of Art. His work and influence are growing in importance in the regard of students.

In 1876 he was invited to write the poem for the Centennial Exposition; and the "Meditation of Columbia," composed with the musical expression always in mind, and so too it should be read,-was the grand Ode that graced the opening day at Philadelphia. See under Waitman Barbe.

WORKS.

POEMS:

Edited by his wife, Mary Day Lanier, with a Memorial by William Hayes Ward,

Tiger Lilies, [novel].

Florida: its Scenery, Climate, and History.

English Novel and Principles of Its Development.

Science of English Verse.

Boy's Froissart.

Boy's King Arthur.

Boy's Mabinogion.

Boy's Percy.

SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE.
(From Poems.*)

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,
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,
All though 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 grass 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,

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, Pass 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,

And oft in the valleys of Hall,

The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,

And many a luminous jewel lone,

* By permission of Mrs. Lanier, and Charles Scribner's Sons, N. Y.

1877.

-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,

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.

WHAT IS MUSIC?

Music is Love in search of a word.

THE TIDE RISING IN THE MARSHES.

(From The Marshes of Glynn.*)

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free

Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God;
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies

In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies:
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God:
Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
* By permission of Mrs. Lanier, and Charles Scribner's Sons, N. Y.

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