So thou dost mutually leaven Strength of earth with grace of heaven;So thou dost marry new and old Into a one of higher mould;So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold, [101]
The dark and bright, And many a heart-perplexing opposite, And so, Akin by blood to high and low, Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part, Richly expending thy much-bruised heart In equal care to nourish lord in hall Or beast in stall:
Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all.
O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot [111]
Where thou wast born, that still repinest not --Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot! --Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand Of trade, for ever rise and fall With alternation whimsical, Enduring scarce a day, Then swept away By swift engulfments of incalculable tides Whereon capricious Commerce rides.[121]
Look, thou substantial spirit of content!
Across this little vale, thy continent, To where, beyond the mouldering mill, Yon old deserted Georgian hill Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest And seamy breast, By restless-hearted children left to lie Untended there beneath the heedless sky, As barbarous folk expose their old to die.
Upon that generous-rounding side, [131]
With gullies scarified Where keen Neglect his lash hath plied, Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil, And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil.
Scorning the slow reward of patient grain, He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain, Then sat him down and waited for the rain.
He sailed in borrowed ships of usury A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea, Seeking the Fleece and finding misery.[141]
Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance Should plough for him the stony field of Chance.
Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell, He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell, And turned each field into a gambler's hell.
Aye, as each year began, My farmer to the neighboring city ran;Passed with a mournful anxious face Into the banker's inner place; [151]
Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace;Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass;Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass;With many an `oh' and `if' and `but alas'
Parried or swallowed searching questions rude, And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood.
At last, small loans by pledges great renewed, He issues smiling from the fatal door, And buys with lavish hand his yearly store Till his small borrowings will yield no more.[161]
Aye, as each year declined, With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind He mourned his fate unkind.
In dust, in rain, with might and main, He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain, Fretted for news that made him fret again, Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail --In hope or fear alike for ever pale.
And thus from year to year, through hope and fear,[171]
With many a curse and many a secret tear, Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, And all his best-of-life the easy prey Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way With vile array, From rascal statesman down to petty knave;Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave, A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave.[181]
Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest, He fled away into the oblivious West, Unmourned, unblest.
Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy Lear Whom the divine Cordelia of the year, E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer --King, that no subject man nor beast may own, Discrowned, undaughtered and alone --Yet shall the great God turn thy fate, And bring thee back into thy monarch state [191]
And majesty immaculate.
Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn, Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn Visions of golden treasuries of corn --Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart That manfully shall take thy part, And tend thee, And defend thee, With antique sinew and with modern art.
____
Sunnyside, Ga., August, 1874.
Notes: Corn As stated elsewhere (`Introduction', p.xvii [Part I]), `Corn' was the first of Lanier's poems to attract general attention;for this reason as well as for its absolute merit the poem deserves careful study.
In the first of his letters to the Hon.Logan E.Bleckley, Chief-justice of Georgia, dated October 9, 1874, Lanier tells us how he came to write `Corn': "I enclose MS.of a poem in which I have endeavored to carry some very prosaic matters up to a loftier plane.I have been struck with alarm in seeing the numbers of deserted old homesteads and gullied hills in the older counties of Georgia: and, though they are dreadfully commonplace, I have thought they are surely mournful enough to be poetic."In the introductory note to `Jones's Private Argyment'
I have incidentally stated the theme of `Corn'.Instead of adding a more detailed statement of my own here, I give Judge Bleckley's analysis of the poem, which occurs in his reply to the above-mentioned letter.
After giving various minute criticism (for Lanier had requested his unreserved judgment), Judge Bleckley continues:
"Now, for the general impression which your Ode has made upon me.
It presents four pictures; three of them landscapes and one a portrait.
You paint the woods, a corn-field, and a worn-out hill.
These are your landscapes.And your portrait is the likeness of an anxious, unthrifty cotton-planter who always spends his crop before he has made it, borrows on heavy interest to carry himself over from year to year, wears out his land, meets at last with utter ruin, and migrates to the West.
