第28章 Conclusion(14)

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 -- 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.xxxi [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 analysis 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 analogues 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 Mitchell (`Atlantic', 65.629, May, 1890), Clinton Scollard (`Lippincott', 50.226, August, 1892), etc., etc.

The Revenge of HamishIt 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 passed 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 goFull 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 space of an hour; then he went, and his face was greenish and stern,And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken the eyeballs 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 passed;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 childI 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: