Sidney Lanier Oak

His fascination with the writings of Byron, Tennyson, and Scott, combined with a love of nature acquired while growing up in rural Georgia, led Sidney Lanier to a career as a famous American poet and novelist. For decades school children in the South would recite the verses of the Marshes Glynn where today in Brunswick near Jekyll Island stands the Sidney Lanier Oak symbolizing beauty and balance of nature and geography.

During his visits to Brunswick in the 1870's Lanier frequently sat beneath this live oak tree and looked out over "a world of marsh that borders a world of sea." Here he received the inspiration to many of his finest poems. It served as well as inspiration to nature artist Stephen Malkoff.

Born in Macon in 1842, Lanier served in the Confederate army and later became a prisoner of war. He was first flutist with Baltimore's Peabody Orchestra and a professor at John Hopkins University.

Lanier's first novel, Tiger-Lilies, was based on his wartime experiences. All of his writings reflected his love of music, poetry, nature, and the old south of his boyhood.

He died at the age of 39, a victim of tuberculosis contracted during the war.