So glad you had a minute to catch up with me.
I’m Lake Lanier’s new mascot and I’m here to help answer your questions about Georgia’s Great Lake. You’re sure to have noticed by now my poetry on the pages of this website. I hope you enjoy learning more about Lake Lanier.
Soon you’ll be able to ask my anything and my AI powered chat box will help find the answers you seek about our great lake.
Until then, read on to learn more about our lake’s namesake, the poet, author, educator and native of Georgia – Sidney Clopton Lanier.
Sidney Lanier (1842-81) was a poet, tutor, soldier, lecturer, clerk, scholar, linguist, novelist, and musician, all before the age of 39, when he died while living in his adopted city of Baltimore. At the time of his death, he was considered one of the country’s great poets, ranking just after Poe, Whitman, and Emerson.
While in Baltimore, Lanier wrote most of his best known poems –“The Marshes of Glenn,” “The Symphony,” “Psalm of the West,” “Ballad of Trees and the Master,” and “Ode to the Johns Hopkins University.” These few short years, from 1873 to 1881, were the happiest of his life. He worked incessantly on the public lectures that he gave at Johns Hopkins and Peabody and above all on his poetry, for which many felt he had forsaken his first love, music.
But by 1881 he had entered the last stages of his consumption and had moved temporarily with his family to Ashville, North Carolina, for the healing air of the mountains. It was there that he died, just after completing “Sunrise,” considered one of his greatest poems.
Since his untimely passing, Lanier has been remembered for his lyrical poems and teachings of the English language. Monuments, schools, bridges, lakes and other landmarks are dedicated in his honor across the country.
Most certainly the most visited landmark named in his honor is Lake Sidney Lanier in Georgia with over 12 Million visitors each year.
