Today Could Have Been a Celebration....

We've been reading and studying poetry the last couple of weeks, a nice repreive from all of the essay-writing we tackled during the fall. It's such a nice change of pace as we peer into the words of poets past looking for examples of alliteration, personification, and imagery... the magic pixie dust of writing.

This week, as we read about Sidney Lanier, we realized that this is his birthday week, and that today, February 3, is his birthday. Oh how I wish I had thought ahead and bought a birthday cake in honor of this amazing poet. How fun it would have been to bring party hats to school and let my students partake in the festivities. But, I thought too late and wasn't too sure I would be willing to pay for a sheet-cake big enough for 93 hungry eighth-graders. And they wouldn't want me to bake one myself.

But it was a good idea. Maybe next year?

In the meantime, here's a favorite of mine...

The Song of the Chattahoochee

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.

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 a-cloud 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.

~ Sidney Lanier 1877

P.S. Happy Birthday!

Photo: Sierra Club