A Sample of Sidney Lanier--Georgia's Poet
Georgia is inordinately proud of this native son. He's probably best known for this poem, although he has many others very similar in tone and diction. I sometimes wonder whether these can be successful if you have never seen of what he speaks. Don't know, because I have, and it is lovely beyond any words--but these come close.
from "The Marshes of Glynn" Sidney LanierGLOOMS of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, -
Emerald twilights, -
Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn; -
Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire, -
Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,
Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves,
Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves,
Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood,
Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good; - . . .
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