Edward Rowland Sill was born at Windsor, Connecticut, in 1841. In 1861 he was graduated from Yale and shortly thereafter his poor health compelled him West. After various unsuccessful experiments, he drifted into teaching, first in the high schools in Ohio, later in the English department of the University of California.

The Hermitage, his first volume, was published in 1867, a later edition (including later poems) appearing in 1889. His two posthumous books are Poems (1887) and Hermione and Other Poems (1899).

Sill died, after bringing something of the Eastern culture to the West, in 1887.

OPPORTUNITY

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:-
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged

A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle's edge,

And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel-
That blue blade that the king's son bears,-but this
Blunt thing-!" he snapt and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,

And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,

And saved a great cause that heroic day.

Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier was born at Macon, Georgia, February 3, 1842. His was a family of musicians (Lanier himself was a skilful

performer on various instruments), and it is not surprising that his verse emphasizes-even overstresses-the influence of music on poetry. He attended Oglethorpe College, graduating at the age of eighteen (1860), and, a year later, volunteered as a private in the Confederate army. After several months' imprisonment (he had been captured while acting as signal officer on a blockade-runner), Lanier was released in February, 1865. After studying and abandoning the practise of law, he became a flute-player in the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in 1873 in Baltimore, where he had free access to the music and literature he craved. Here he wrote all of his best poetry. In 1879, he was made lecturer on English in Johns Hopkins University, and it was for his courses there that he wrote his chief prose work, a brilliant if not conclusive study, The Science of English Verse. Besides his poetry, he wrote several books for boys, the two most popular being The Boy's Froissart (1878) and The Boy's King Arthur (1880).

Lanier ranks high among our minor poets. Such a vigorous ballad as "The Song of the Chattahoochee," lyrics like "The Stirrup Cup" and parts of the symphonic "Hymns of the Marshes" are sure of a place in American literature.

Lanier died, a victim of tuberculosis in the mountains of North Carolina, September 7, 1881.

SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE1

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.

1 From Poems of Sidney Lanier. Copyright, 1884, 1891, 1916, by Mary D. Lanier; published by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the publishers.

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 acloud 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.

Charles Edward Carryl

Charles Edward Carryl, father of the gifted Guy Wetmore Carryl (see page 92), was born in New York City, December 30, 1842. He was an officer and director in various railroads but found leisure to write two of the few worthy rivals of the immortal Alice in Wonderland. These two, Davy and the Goblin (1884), and The Admiral's Caravan (1891), contain many lively and diverting ballads as well as inspired nonsense verses in the manner of his famous model.

C. E. Carryl lived the greater part of his life in New York but, on retiring from business, removed to Boston and lived there until his death, which occurred in the summer of 1920.

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S STORY

The night was thick and hazy
When the "Piccadilly Daisy"

Carried down the crew and captain in the sea;
And I think the water drowned 'em

For they never, never found 'em

And I know they didn't come ashore with me.

Oh! 'twas very sad and lonely When I found myself the only Population on this cultivated shore; But I've made a little tavern In a rocky little cavern,

And I sit and watch for people at the door.

I spent no time in looking

For a girl to do my cooking,

As I'm quite a clever hand at making stews;
But I had that fellow Friday,

Just to keep the tavern tidy,
And to put a Sunday polish on my shoes.

I have a little garden

That I'm cultivating lard in,

As the things I eat are rather tough and dry;
For I live on toasted lizards,

Prickly pears, and parrot gizzards,
And I'm really very fond of beetle-pie.

The clothes I had were furry,

And it made me fret and worry

When I found the moths were eating off the hair; And I had to scrape and sand 'em

And I boiled 'em and I tanned 'em,

Till I got the fine morocco suit I wear.

I sometimes seek diversion

In a family excursion

With the few domestic animals you see;

And we take along a carrot

As refreshment for the parrot

And a little can of jungleberry tea.