No More Learning

The local expression "under the hack" is kindly explained
by an authority in middle Georgia dialect, Richard Malcolm Johnston,
author of `The Dukesborough Tales' and other Georgia stories. He says:

"`Under the hack' is a well-known phrase among the country-people,
and is applied, generally in a humorous sense, to those who have been cowed
by any accident. A man who is overruled by his wife,
I have often heard described as `under the hack': `She's got him
under the hack. ' So, when a man has lost spirit from any cause,
he is said to be `under the hack'. The phrase is possibly derived
from `hackle', an instrument used in the breaking of flax. "


"Thar's more in the Man than thar is in the Land".

"Jones" designates Jones County, Ga. , one of the counties
adjoining Bibb County, in which Macon is located.


The Jacquerie. A Fragment.

Although `The Jacquerie' remained a fragment for thirteen years
Mr. Lanier's interest in the subject never abated. Far on in this interval
he is found planning for leisure to work out in romance
the story of that savage insurrection of the French peasantry,
which the Chronicles of Froissart had impressed upon his boyish imagination.


To ----.

The era of verse-writing with Mr.
Lanier reopens in this dream
of the Virginia bay where poet's reveries and war's awakenings
continually alternated.

He presents it for a friend's criticism -- at the age of twenty-one --
in these words: "I send you a little poem which sang itself through me
the other day. 'Tis the first I've written in many years. "


Night.

This poem was not published by the writer and the simile of the second verse
was appropriated to `An Evening Song'. This partial repetition --
like that of portions of `The Tournament' and of `A Dream of June',
which occur in the `Psalm of the West' -- will be pardoned as affording
a favorable opportunity to observe Mr. Lanier's growth in artistic form.






The Centennial Cantata.






The Centennial Meditation of Columbia. 1776-1876. A Cantata.

<Musical Annotations, in angled brackets, precede each section. >



<Full chorus: sober, measured and yet majestic progressions of chords. >

From this hundred-terraced height,
Sight more large with nobler light
Ranges down yon towering years.
Humbler smiles and lordlier tears
Shine and fall, shine and fall,
While old voices rise and call
Yonder where the to-and-fro
Weltering of my Long-Ago
Moves about the moveless base
Far below my resting-place.

<Chorus: the sea and the winds mingling their voices with human sighs.