And tend thee,
And defend thee,
With antique sinew and with modern art.

____
Sunnyside, Ga., August, 1874.



Notes: Corn


As stated elsewhere (`Introduction', p. xvii [Part I]),
`Corn' was the first of Lanier's poems to attract general attention;
for this reason as well as for its absolute merit the poem deserves
careful study.

In the first of his letters to the Hon. Logan E. Bleckley,
Chief-justice of Georgia, dated October 9, 1874, Lanier tells us
how he came to write `Corn': "I enclose MS. of a poem
in which I have endeavored to carry some very prosaic matters
up to a loftier plane. I have been struck with alarm
in seeing the numbers of deserted old homesteads and gullied hills
in the older counties of Georgia: and, though they are
dreadfully commonplace, I have thought they are surely mournful enough
to be poetic."

In the introductory note to `Jones's Private Argyment'
I have incidentally stated the theme of `Corn'. Instead of adding
a more detailed statement of my own here, I give Judge Bleckley's