A Song Of The Future.

Sidney Lanier 1842 (Macon) – 1881 (Lynn)



Sail fast, sail fast,
    Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams;
    Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past,
    Fly glittering through the sun's strange beams;
        Sail fast, sail fast.
Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea
With news about the Future scent the sea:
My brain is beating like the heart of Haste:
I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste;
        Go, trembling song,
    And stay not long; oh, stay not long:
    Thou'rt only a gray and sober dove,
    But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

29 sec read
102

Quick analysis:

Scheme AbabAccddeeff
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 515
Words 94
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 13

Sidney Lanier

Sidney Lanier was a poet, writer, composer, critic, professor of literature at Johns Hopkins and first flutist with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltiimore. He wrote the Centennial cantata for the opening ceremony of the 1876 Centennial celebration in Philadelphia. more…

All Sidney Lanier poems | Sidney Lanier Books

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