“The Raven Days” By Sidney Lanier

Our hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken,

And but the ghosts of homes to us remain,

And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token

From friend to friend of an unspoken pain.

O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,

Bring to us in your whetted ivory beaks

Some sign out of the far land of To-morrow,

Some strip of sea-green dawn, some orange streaks.

Ye float in dusky files, forever croaking.

Ye chill our manhood with your dreary shade.

Dumb in the dark, not even God invoking,

We lie in chains, too weak to be afraid.

O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,

Will ever any warm light come again?

Will ever the lit mountains of To-morrow

Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain?

The poem “The Raven Days” by Sidney Lanier has a haunting and mournful tone. The overall mood of this poem immediately made me think of a quote I heard once (the source I have no memory of unfortunately) that says something to the notion that everyone is drowning, but there’s an unspoken understanding that we’re all drowning together. The line in this poem states “From friend to friend of an unspoken pain.” (line 4), which is what made me think that although this poem is very somber, remarking on a time in which struggle is all around and unescapable, the idea that everyone is suffering through this together brings an ounce of warmth to this very cold idea. I’ve never read anything by this author, so I was curious to see how his poems compared in overall mood and tone to each other. Surprisingly, Lanier has several more uplifting poems. Uplifting may be a strong word, but Lanier’s poetry tends to comment on the complexity and beauty of human emotion– whether that be extreme sorrow or adoration of humanity and nature. In his poem titled “The Song Of The Chattahoochee”, he remarks on the importance of human appreciation with nature, portraying the speaker in awe of the world around him: “I hurry amain to reach the plain, / Run the rapid and leap the fall,” (lines 3-4). 

With my adopted poem, however, the excitement remains marked on a foreseeable future where the speaker and those in the same situation are no longer facing such sorrow: “Will ever the lit mountains of To-morrow / Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain?” (lines 15-16). The end of this poem shows a possibility of a better tomorrow, a tomorrow where the “dark Raven days” eventually thaw and warm up into a future where people are no longer so used to this life of sorrow that they are “too weak to be afraid” (line 12). In this poem, the rhyme scheme remains unmoving, continuing in an ABAB CDCD etc. meter. I think this rhyme scheme was put in place to not only allow the reader to speak the poem aloud, putting emphasis on the rhyming words that adhere to the mood (sorrow, pain, afraid, etc), but to also show that the struggle of human nature is repeating, although changing. In other words, the rhyme scheme stays concrete, in the same way that struggle is inevitable and for some, consistent. The changing of the rhyming sounds, however, shows that life is fluctuating from despair to hope, as Lanier shows in the poem: “Some sight out of the far land of To-morrow,” (line 7). 

My relationship with poetry I feel aligns with my earlier statement regarding Lanier’s work– the poems I enjoy the most are two sides of the extreme. I like to read about either soul crushing, world ending, gut wrenching sorrow and pain (spoken in the most beautiful way, of course), or I like to read poems that make me feel like I’m walking on clouds afterwards, like I immediately have a new brief appreciation for each and every soul I encounter that day because the poem I read two minutes prior talked about how beautiful life is. Lanier writes about extreme human emotion, which one could argue is necessary for every poet to acknowledge, but expresses it in a way (specifically in “The Raven Days”) that allows the reader room to interpret the speaker’s specific position in their community. The line that personally read somewhat ambiguous and open-ended is lines 6 and 7 where the speaker states: “Bring to us in your whetted ivory beaks…” (line 6). The overwhelming “us” in line 6 could mean that the speaker is a part of any community that was then facing struggle or oppression of some capacity. As stated above, the tone of this poem is very somber, but there are notes of community throughout the poem. Communal struggle tends to bring up a sense of human understanding that we will get through this together. This poem was written in 1868, following the American Civil War. Lanier writes this poem to show the overwhelming destruction of the south– both of land and people. The poem remarks on the ruin left after the American Civil War, and its repercussions on the struggling land and inhabitants of said land. Sidney Lanier served as a Confederate States Army private, giving this poem more context to his personal relationship with the war. He writes about a devastation that he was somewhat a part of, which adds layers to his writing and motivation for his poetry.

Works Cited

Sidney Lanier – Wikisource, the Free Online Library. Wikisource, 2024, en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Sidney_Lanier. Accessed 20 Apr. 2024.