The music and poetry of Sidney Lanier: a Southern voice in Post-Civil War America | EarRelevant

Mark Gresham | 24 SEP 2025

Stand on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in Habersham County, Georgia, and you can almost hear it: the rush of water over smooth stones, the whisper of laurel leaves, the sigh of reeds urging the river to linger. At a roadside stop next to the Chattahoochee, just north of the tourist town of Helen, an inconspicuous historic plaque marks this spot where Sidney Lanier, poet and flutist, found his muse in 1877. Here, he penned “Song of the Chattahoochee,” a poem that sings like a melody and flows like the river itself.

Born in Macon, Georgia, in 1842, as the United States was territorially surging westward to the Pacific, Lanier was more than a poet; he was a musician whose flute carried the soul of the South, weaving its landscapes and struggles into notes and verses that spoke of a nation healing after division. Lanier’s story—of music, poetry, and a heart torn by war—invites us to feel the pulse of America’s resilience, even in the face of challenges to the unity forged in 1776.

Lanier’s Georgia childhood was steeped in sound. Born to a lawyer father and a mother with Virginia’s aristocratic roots, Sidney Lanier was raised in Macon in a family that cherished music, learning to play the flute, violin, piano, banjo, and guitar. At Oglethorpe College, he devoured Romantic literature and science, dreaming of study in Germany, but the Civil War changed everything.

When the Civil War began in 1861, he was 19, and like many young Southerners, he enlisted as a Confederate private, Lanier serving as a blockade runner, only to be captured and imprisoned by Union forces in 1864. There, in a Maryland prison, he contracted tuberculosis, a shadow that haunted him for life. Yet, even in captivity, he played his flute, its silvery tones lifting the spirits of fellow prisoners—a testament to music’s power to heal.

After the war ended in 1865, Lanier faced a South in ruins and a body weakened by illness. Determined to make his mark, he moved to Baltimore in 1873, joining the Peabody Symphony Orchestra as principal flutist. His performances were electrifying, with one critic noting his “flute seemed to sing with the soul of the South.”

Lanier’s compositions, such as Black Birds (1873), a flute piece that mimics the calls of Georgia’s birds, showcased his knack for blending nature and music. Black Birds was not just virtuosic; it was an early example of American program music, painting the Southern landscape in sound, much as his poetry painted it in words. His role at the Peabody, one of America’s first professional orchestras, placed him at the heart of a burgeoning classical tradition, a Southern voice in a field dominated on the East Coast by New Englanders like John Knowles Paine and George Whitefield Chadwick.

Lanier’s genius lay in marrying music and poetry. In 1877, he stood by the Chattahoochee River, its currents inspiring “Song of the Chattahoochee.” The poem personifies the river as it rushes from Habersham’s hills to the Gulf of Mexico, resisting the temptations of reeds and laurels to fulfill its duty to “water the plain.” Its rhythm, a blend of anapests and iambs, mimics the river’s flow, while alliteration (“hills of Habersham”) evokes the rush of water. Lanier considered it his finest work, and critics agree, praising its lyrical flow and Southern spirit. Visiting the river’s banks today, all along its course, you can feel its pull—the same energy that drove Lanier to capture its voice, a reminder of nature’s call to purpose that urged a nation forward.

It was Lanier’s 1880 theoretical treatise, The Science of English Verse, that took this fusion further, arguing that poetic meter mirrors musical rhythm. This groundbreaking idea influenced later composers and poets, demonstrating how America’s artistic identity could transcend disciplinary boundaries. Dudley Buck’s Centennial Cantata (1876), composed for the nation’s 100th anniversary in Philadelphia, set Lanier’s words to music, celebrating America’s unity with soaring choral lines.

Lanier’s life was not without complexity. His Confederate service, though driven by circumstance, places him in a fraught historical context. Post-war, he sought to transcend division, writing poetry and music that embraced the South’s beauty while aspiring to national unity. His poem “The Symphony” (1875) uses orchestral metaphors to lament social discord, urging reconciliation through art. His flute performances for Northern and Southern audiences alike carried this same hope, their melodies a bridge across a fractured land. Lanier’s Danse des Moucherons (1873), a lesser-known flute piece with playful, insect-like trills, reveals his wit and technical skill that delighted Baltimore audiences and hinted at his vision for a shared American culture.

Tuberculosis cut Lanier’s life short in 1881, at age 39, while he sought relief in the mountains of western North Carolina. Yet, his legacy endures. Composers like George Chadwick and Charles Griffes set his poems to music (as has this writer), while modern flutists like Paula Robison revive his compositions. Lake Lanier, created in 1957 in Hall County, bears his name, a nod to the river he immortalized. Standing by the Chattahoochee River, where the water still sings, you can feel Lanier’s presence—his flute’s echo, his words’ rhythm, his heart’s longing for a nation made whole. ■

This article is the eleventh in The Year of American Music, EarRelevant’s year-long series that explores how American music, from the colonial period to the present, has reflected the nation’s struggles, ideals, and aspirations. Join us each Wednesday as we continue to celebrate the sounds that shaped a nation.

About the author:

Mark Gresham is publisher and principal writer of EarRelevant. He began writing as a music journalist over 30 years ago, but has been a composer of music much longer than that. He was the winner of an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for music journalism in 2003.

Read more by Mark Gresham.