No More Learning

Ode to the Johns Hopkins University.

" . . . the soaring genius'd Sylvester
That earlier loosed the knot great Newton tied,"

An algebraic theorem announced by Newton was demonstrated and extended
by Sylvester. -- Sidney Lanier.


A Ballad of Trees and the Master.

`A Ballad of Trees and the Master' was conceived as an interlude
of the latest `Hymn of the Marshes', `Sunrise', although written earlier.
In the author's first copy and first revision of that `Hymn',
the `Ballad' was incorporated, following the invocation to the trees
which closes with:

"And there, oh there
As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air,
Pray me a myriad prayer. "

In Mr. Lanier's final copy the `Ballad' is omitted.
It was one of several interludes which he at first designed,
but, for some reason, afterwards abandoned.


To My Class: On Certain Fruits and Flowers Sent Me in Sickness.

A class in English Literature, composed of young girls
who had been studying with Mr. Lanier `The Knighte's Tale' of Chaucer.
The sonnet `On Violet's Wafers' was addressed to a member of the same class,
and is similarly conceived.


Under the Cedarcroft Chestnut.

"This chestnut-tree (at Cedarcroft, the estate of Mr. Bayard Taylor,
in Pennsylvania), is estimated to be more than eight hundred years old. "
-- Sidney Lanier, 1877.

Hard by stood its mate, apparently somewhat younger.
It is related in a letter of 1882, from Mrs. Taylor, that in 1880,
a year after Mr. Taylor's death, one of these majestic trees
gave the first signs of decay: while his comrade lingered two years longer --
to follow as closely the footsteps of Mr. Lanier: the two,
faithful-hearted "to their master and to him who sang of them. "


A Florida Ghost.

The incidents recorded of this storm are matter of history
in and around Tampa.


"Nine from Eight".

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.