ay stretched the old oaks that girdled Macon with greenery,
where Sidney Lanier and his brother Clifford used to spend their
schoolboy Saturdays among the birds and rabbits. Near by flows the
Ocmulgee, where the boys, inseparable in sport as well as in the more
serious aspects of life, were wont to fish. Here Sidney cut the reed
with which he took his first flute lesson from the birds in the woods.
Above the town were the hills for which the soul of the poet longed in
after life.

Macon was the "live" city of middle Georgia. She made no effort to
rival Richmond or Charleston as an educational or literary centre, but
she had an admirable commercial standing, and offered a generous
hospitality that kept her in fond remembrance. In the Macon
post-office Sidney Lanier had his first business experience, to offset
the drowsy influence of sleepy Midway, the seat of Oglethorpe College,
where he continued his studies after completing the course laid out in
the "'Cademy" under the oaks and hickories of Macon.

January 6, 1857, Lanier entered the sophomore class of Oglethorpe,
where it was unlawful to purvey any commodity, except Calvinism,
"within a mile and a half of the University"--a sad regulation for
college boys, who, as a rule, have several tastes unconnected with
religious orthodoxy.

Lanier carried with him the "small, yellow, one-keyed flute" which had
superseded the musical reed provided by Nature, and practised upon it
so fervently that a college-mate said that he "would play upon his
flute like one inspired."

Montvale Springs, in the mountains of Tennessee, where Sidney's
grandfather, Sterling Lanier, built a hotel in which he gave his
twenty-five grandchildren a vacation one summer, still holds the
memory of that wondrous flute and yet more marvellous nature among the
"strong, sweet trees, like brawny men with virgins' hearts." From its
ferns and mosses and "reckless vines" and priestly oaks lifting
yearning arms toward the stars, Lanier returned to Oglethorpe as a
tutor. Here amid hard work and haunting suggestions of a coming poem,
"The Jacquerie," he tried to work out the problem of his life's
expression.

* * * * *

When the guns of Fort Sumter thundered across Sidney Lanier's dreams
of music and poetry, he joined the Macon volunteers, the first company
to march from Georgia into Virginia. It was stationed near Norfolk,
camping in the fairgrounds in the time that Lanier de