The red hills of Georgia, deserted and barren,
are presented with true pathos. Nevertheless, like a genuine prophet,
the poet looks forward to a better day: --
Yet shall the great God turn thy fate,
And bring thee back into thy monarch state
And majesty immaculate.
Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,
Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn
Visions of golden treasuries of corn --
Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart
That manfully shall take thy part,
And tend thee,
And defend thee,
With antique sinew and with modern art.
This vision of the South's restored agriculture was one
that remained with Lanier to the end. He did not properly appreciate
the development of manufacturing in the South, but he believed
that the redemption of the country would come through
the development of agriculture -- not the restoration of the large plantations
of the old regime, but the large number of small farms
with diversified products. On a later visit to the South
he exclaimed to his brother, "My countrymen, why plant ye not
the vineyards of the Lord?" and later he wrote in his essay on the "New South"
of the actual fulfillment of his prophecy in "Corn".
Encouraged by the success of "Corn", Lanier, while giving
a large part of his time to music during the winter of 1874-75,
looked more and more in the direction of poetry. He writes again
to Judge Bleckley, November 15, 1874: "Your encouraging words give me at once
strength and pleasure.
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