_The Song of the Chattahoochee_, _The Symphony_, _The Revenge
of Hamish_, _Clover_, _The Bee_, and _The Waving of the
Corn_. They slowly gained recognition, and brought him the fellowship
and encouragement of not a few literary people of distinction, among whom
Bayard Taylor and Edmund Clarence Stedman deserve especial mention.

Perhaps none of Lanier's poems has been more popular than _The Song of
the Chattahoochee_. It does not reach the poetic heights of a few of
his other poems, but it is perfectly clear, and has a pleasant lilting
movement. Moreover, it teaches the important truth that we are to be dumb
to the siren voices of ease and pleasure when the stern voice of duty
calls. The concluding stanza is as follows:--

"But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall,
Shall hinder the rain from attaining the plain,
For 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 thousand meadows mortally yearn,
And the final main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
And calls through the valleys of Hall."

In 1876, upon the recommendation of Bayard Taylor, Lanier was invited to
write the centennial _Cantata_. As a poem, not much can be said in
its favor. Its thought and form fall far below its ambitious conception,
in which Columbia presents a meditation on the completed century of our
country's history. On its publication it was subject to a good deal of
unfavorable criticism; but through it all, though it must have been a