I remember this poem from, I think, a high school lit book. Might have been college, but I think it was high school. This was the time during which I was memorizing poems and copying a lot more poems into notebooks, which I still have in a drawer somewhere, I think. I Googled “poets with birthdays in February,” and recognized Lanier’s name at once because of this poem, which has a simple rhyme and quite a bit of alliteration. This, I think, helps give the poem a rushing feeling, like a swift river. See what you think:
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 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 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
— 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.
***
Lots of other poems here. Here’s one with an evocative title … and it’s short … sure, let me include this one in the post as well:
Once, at night, in the manor wood
My Love and I long silent stood,
Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
My Love, in aimless love and grief,
Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.
A star that had remarked her pain
Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
“Thus Time,” I cried, “is but a tear
Some one hath wept ‘twixt hope and fear,
Yet in his little lucent sphere
Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming.”
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There are whole epic fantasy stories going on in those Hills of Habersham and valleys of Hall.
Kim, I agree.
I like the alliteration and the rhythm, and the title makes me see and hear a tumbling Appalachian stream.
TIL that the Sidney Lanier junior high school my father attended in Houston in the 1930s was named for this poet. I remember him speaking of the school but had no idea where the name came from. I certainly don’t remember reading any of the poetry.
I also learned that the school was renamed in 2016 as a part of renaming all district schools whose namesakes had a connection to the confederacy. The argument was made that Lanier’s fame was not as a confederate soldier but for his poetry after the war, but the school was renamed anyway.