No More Learning

Of this newly-written poem Mr. Lanier says in a letter of March, 1874:
"Of course, since I have written it to print I cannot make it such
as *I* desire in artistic design: for the forms of to-day
require a certain trim smugness and clean-shaven propriety
in the face and dress of a poem, and I must win a hearing
by conforming in some degree to these tyrannies, with a view
to overturning them in the future. Written so, it is not nearly so beautiful
as I would have it; and I therefore have another still in my heart,
which I will some day write for myself. "


VII. A Song of Love.

`A Song of Love', like `Betrayal', belongs to the early plan
of `The Jacquerie'. It was written for one of the Fool's songs and,
after several recastings, took its present shape in 1879.


To Nannette Falk-Auerbach.

This sonnet was originally written in the German and published
in a German daily of Baltimore, while the author's translation
appeared at the same time in the Baltimore `Gazette'.


To Our Mocking-Bird.

The history of this bird's life is given at length under the title of "Bob",
in `The Independent' of August 3, 1882, and will show that he deserved
to be immortal -- as we hope he is.


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.