Notes and Questions.
Find the Chattahoochee river on your map with its source in the "hills of Habersham" and its course through the "valleys of Hall."
Compare this poem with Tennyson's "The Brook."
What is peculiar in the phrases: "run the rapid," "flee from folly," "wilful waterweeds," "loving laurel," etc.
Find alliteration in other lines.
What is added to the poem by alliteration?
Notice the rhythm in the third line of the first stanza.
What is the peculiarity of the eighth line of the first stanza?
Find lines in the other stanzas which contain rhymes. Notice the last word in each of these lines. What two things have you found out?
Lanier believed that poetry is a kind of music. Does the rhythm in this poem sustain this definition?