Sidney Lanier and Paul Hamilton Hayne

SIDNEY LANIER must have felt flattered to receive, I867, a letter from Paul Hamilton Hayne appreciation of a brief lyric by him which had appeared one of the current periodicals. At the time Lanier was serving as principal of an academy at Prattville, Alabama, because, the unrest which followed the Civil War, he had not been able to find another occupation more to his liking. Except for a few poems which he had contributed to Round Table,' a New York weekly paper, and possibly also to some of the various short-lived Southern periodicals, he was unknown as a poet; except for a story-The Three Waterfalls-published the August and September, i867, issues of Scott's Monthly Magazine of Atlanta, he was unknown even as a writer of prose. Tiger Lilies, his one novel and his only published volume before the Florida of i875, was not circulation before October, i867.2 But Hayne, eleven years Lanier's senior, was well known as an author, and his letter complimenting Lanier upon his lyric was probably the first notice Lanier had received from anyone of established literary reputation. Lanier replied to Hayne in a manner so cordial [thus Hayne wrote many years later3] that henceforth a correspondence was established. correspondence, which consisted largely of the exchange of poems manuscript for mutual criticism and discussion, continued spite of many interruptions almost until the time of Lanier's death. From the first Lanier poured out his heart to the older poet. would not have dared to write to any ordinary correspondent what I wrote you, Lanier protested a letter of March Im. I86Q,4 1 Round Table. Saturday review o0 politics, finance, literature, society and art was published from December i9, I863, through July 3, I869. Lanier's signed contributions published during I867 were The Tournament, June 8; A Birthday Song, July 27; and Barnacles, November 9. Spring Greeting, from the German of Herder, had appeared unsigned July i4, i866, with another poem, To J. L., undoubtedly also by Lanier though not included the collected poems edited by his wife (New York, I884). 2Professor Edwin Mims, his biography of Sidney Lanier (Boston, I905), p. 8o, states that The novel appeared October. review Round Table is the issue of December 14, I867. 3 Letters of Sidney Lanier [edited by Heliry Wysham Lanier] (New York, I899), p. 2I9. Seven letters from Lanier to Hayne, with an introduction by Hayne, were published Critic (New York) February, i886, shortly before the death of Hayne. These letters, with suppressed passages restored, and with the introdtuction retained, were reprinted the volume of I899, from which all the quotations this article are taken. 4Letters, p. 222

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