# A Florida Ghost

Sidney Lanier composed this poem in Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania in 1877. This is one of his Dialect Poems, which were composed in various dialects of the rural 19th-century American South. Lanier had suffered from tuberculosis since the mid-1860s, which likely inspired this subject of consumption (tuberculosis) and sanitariums.
Down mildest shores of milk-white sand,  By cape and fair Floridian bay, Twixt billowy pines—a surf asleep on land—  And the great Gulf at play,
Past far-off palms that filmed to nought,  Or in and out the cunning keys That laced the land like fragile patterns wrought  To edge old broideries,
The sail sighed on all day for joy,  The prow each pouting wave did leave All smile and song, with sheen and ripple coy,  Till the dusk diver Eve
Brought up from out the brimming East  The oval moon, a perfect pearl. In that large lustre all our haste surceased,  The sail seemed fain to furl,
The silent steersman landward turned,  And ship and shore set breast to breast. Under a palm wherethrough a planet burned  We ate, and sank to rest.
But soon from sleep’s dear death (it seemed)  I rose and strolled along the sea Down silver distances that faintly gleamed  On to infinity.
Till suddenly I paused, for lo!  A shape (from whence I ne’er divined) Appeared before me, pacing to and fro,  With head far down inclined.
 ‘A wraith’ (I thought) ‘that walks the shore To solve some old perplexity.’  Full heavy hung the draggled gown he wore;  His hair flew all awry.
He waited not (as ghosts oft use)  To be ‘dearheaven’d!’ and ‘oh’d!’ But briskly said: “Good-evenin’; what’s the news?  Consumption? After boa’d?
“Or mebbe you’re intendin’ of  Investments? Orange-plantin’? Pine? Hotel? or Sanitarium? What above  This yea’th can be your line?
“Speakin’ of sanitariums, now,  Jest look ’ee here, my friend: I know a little story,—well, I swow,  Wait till you hear the end!
“Some year or more ago, I s’pose,  I roamed from Maine to Floridy, And,—see where them Palmettos grows?  I bought that little key,
“Cal’latin’ for to build right off  A c’lossal sanitarium: Big surf! Gulf breeze! Jest death upon a cough!  —I run it high, to hum!
“Well, sir, I went to work in style:  Bought me a steamboat, loaded it With my hotel (pyazers more’n a mile!)  Already framed and fit,
“Insured ’em, fetched ’em safe around,  Put up my buildin’, moored my boat, Com-plete! then went to bed and slept as sound  As if I’d paid a note.
“Now on that very night a squall,  Cum up from some’eres—some bad place! An’ blowed an’ tore an’ reared an’ pitched an’ all,  —I had to run a race
“Right out o’ bed from that hotel  An’ git to yonder risin’ ground, For, ’twixt the sea that riz and rain that fell,  I pooty nigh was drowned!
“An’ thar I stood till mornin’ cum,  Right on yon little knoll of sand, Frequently wishin’ I had stayed to hum  Fur from this tarnal land.
“When mornin’ cum, I took a good  Long look, and—well, sir, sure’s I’m me— That boat laid right whar that hotel had stood,  And hit sailed out to sea!
“No: I’ll not keep you: good-bye, friend.  Don’t think about it much,—preehaps Your brain might git see-sawin’, end for end,  Like them asylum chaps,
“For here I walk, forevermore,  A-tryin’ to make it gee, How one same wind could blow my ship to shore  And my hotel to sea!”
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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