IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // {./ ,<" mp. signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent gtre filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est filmd d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauk he d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 r 1 2 3 4 5 6 i^smi w^m. SELECT POEMS OF SIDNEY LANIER ipsww '"'^.CV^-.-i- :'-JrWtX^~-r^'-. i.lii ^M 4 j^ SIDNEi' lyANIKR'S POEMS. Edited by his Wife, with a Memorial by Williaixi Hayes Ward. With portrait. New edition. 12mo, ,52.00. «ii-*'-^'-VOL- ^-v '•^\;.\ FflTOWl^ jgr3S£-"W'?| SELECT POEMS OP SIDNEY LANIER / EDITED With an Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography BY MORGAN CALLAWAY, Jr., Ph.D. ASSOCIATE PS0FKS30R OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY IN THE UNI- VERSITY OK TFXAS, FORMERLY FELLOW OF THE J.. HNS HOPKINS university; author of "the abso- lute PARTICIPLE !N At.GLO-SAXON " ■'%i\ TORONTO GEORGE N. MORANG h CO.; Limited 1900 itir;^^ Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year Nineteen Hundred by George N. Morang & Company, l,imited, at the Department of Agriculture. the TO MY FATHER iS!m.-m^ I It ! PREFACE This edition of the Select Poems of Sidney Lanier is issued in the hope of making his poetry known to wider circles than hitherto, especially among the students of our high-schools and col- leges. To these as to older people, the poems will, it is believed, prove an inspiration from the stand-point both of literature and oi life. The biographical section of the Introduction rests in the main upon Dr. Ward's admirable Memorial prefixed to the Poems of Sidney Lanier edited by his wife, though a few additional facts have been gleaned here and there. For most ' of the Bibliog- raphy down to 1888 I am indebted to my Hopkins comrade. Dr. Richard E. Burton, now of Hartford, Conn., who compiled one for the Memorial of Sid- ney Lanier, published by President Oilman, of the Johns Hopkins University, in 1888. Obligations to other publications about Lanier are in every instance acknowledged in the appropriate place. As to the selections made, 1 wished to include The Marshes of Glynn and yet not to exclude Sun- rise. But both could not be put in, and I finally gave the preference to Sunrise, chiefly on the » I say most of the Bibliography down to iSSS, because Dr. Burton's different purpose led him to exclude items that could not be emitted in a Bibliography that, like mine, tries to be complete. :^mTm*^ Vlll Preface il ground of its being Lanier's latest complete poem. I believe all will admit that the poems selected fairly exemplify the genius of the poet. The poems are arranged, not as in the complete edition, but in their chronological order, the only proper one, I think, for a text-book. Of course, they are all given com- plete. In the Notes I have made rather copious quota- tions from poems familiar to English scholars, be- cause I hope that this book will go into the hands of many to whom they are not familiar, and to whom the original texts are not easily accessible. And yet, if they at all attain their end, the Notes must lead one to wish to know more of English poetry, of which Lanier's is but a part. Among the friends that have helped me by coun- sel or otherwise I gratefully name Mr. Clifford Lanier, brother of the poet; Professor Wm. Hand Browne, of the Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Charles H. Ross, of the Alabama Polytechnic Insti- tute ; and m.y colleagues in the School of English in the University of Texas, Mr. L. R. Hamberlin and Professor Leslie Waggener. Chief-justice Logan E. Bleckley, of Georgia, a man of letters as well as of law, very kindly put at my use his correspond- ence with the poet, the original draft of Corn, and his criticisms upon the same. My chief indebted- ness, however, is to Mrs. Sidney Lanier, who has been most generous with her time and her hus- band's papers. Morgan Callaway, Jr. University of Texas, October i, 1894. jaii-^iivf Haiiim::^ir«is^^j?^iif3"s^.-»¥?i: CONTENTS Introduction, L A Brief Sketch of Lanier's Life II. Lanier's Prose Works, . . III. Lanier's Poetry : Its Themes, IV. Lanier's Poetry : Its Style, V. Lanier's Theory of Poetry, VI. Conclusion, .... Poems, ........ Life and Song, .... Jones's Private Argyment, . Corn, My Springs, The Symphony, .... The Power of Prayer, . . Rose-morals, To , with a Rose, . . Uncle Jim's Baptist Revival Hymn, The Mocking-bird, PAGB xi • •• xni xxin xxvi xl xlix liv 3 4 6 12 14 26 30 'I 32 33 X Contents PAGE Song of the Chattahoochee, 34 The Revenge of Ilamish, 36 Remonstrance, 42 Opposition, . 45 Marsh Song — At Sunset, 46 A Ballad of Trees and the Master, ... 46 Sunrise, 47 Notes 57 Bibliography, 85 I! ,:i!fv»-ri,i^Mt)i!u:p« W! iit iijjB.ttmTBte ,^ INTRODUCTION v?y H P aB!il'll !W ( | MMIIlB«gWW«!M!IUl^.'"U^ ^ J!i.- J I. INTRODUCTION A BRIEF SKETCH OF LANIER'S LIFE (1842-1881) Sidney Lanier has so recently passed from us that it seems desirable briefly to recount the chief incidents of his life. This task is much lightened by Dr. Wm. Hayes Ward's Memorial} upon which, as stated in the Preface, is based this section of my essay. Born at Macon, Ga., February 3, 1842, Sid- ney Lanier came of a family noted for their love and cultivation of the fine arts. From the time of Queen Elizabeth to the Restoration, several of his paternal ancestors were connected with the English court as musical composers and as painters. The father of the poet, however, Robert S. Lanier, was a most industrious lawyer, who, after a lingering illness of three years, recently ' answered Adsum to the summons of the supreme tribunal. The poet's mother, Mary Anderson, a Virginian of Scotch de- scent, likewise sprang from a family distinguished for their love of oratory, music, and poetry. With such an ancestry we are not surprised to learn that Sidney's earliest passion was for music, and that in boyhood he could, although untutored, > For the fall title of works cited see Bibli<)fi/ ^phy. ' October 20, 1893, at Macon, Ga. ^SSfStKSfS^^ xiv Introduction play on almost every kind of instrument. He pre- ferred the violin, in playing which he sometimes sank mto a deep trance, but in deference to his father's view gave it up for the flute, his power over which we shall hear of farther on. At first, strange to say, he considered music unworthy of one's sole attention, but later he came to rank it as his fullest expression of worship. At fourteen Sidney entered the Sophomore Class of Oglethorpe College, near Macon, Ga., and, with a year's mtermission, graduated with first honor in i860, when just eighteen. To Professor James Woodrow, of Oglethorpe, now President of South Carolina College, Lanier declared that he owed " the strongest and most valuable stimulus of his youth." On graduating he was given a tutorship in his Alma Mater, a position that he held until the outbreak of the Civil War. The lecture - room was now exchanged for the battle-field ; in April, 1861, Lanier entered the Con- federate Army as a private in the Macon Volunteers of the Second Georgia Battalion, an organization among the first to reach Norfolk and that still keeps up Its corporate existence. In the spring of 1862 Lanier was joined by his young brother, Clifford • and throughout the war each seemed to vie with the other in brotherly love ; for, while both were offered promotion, neither would accept it, since to do so would have entailed separation from the other. The leisure time of his first year's service Sidney spent in the study of music and the modern language*.. He was engaged in several battles in Virginia, but afterward was transferred, with Clif- .^Hik;i;;t!E"1'ti*H,:^i!^h^#.f!^^.QS\.on, 1883), pp. 27-28. < Tiger-lilies, p. 115 ff. I" I ij \i 1 ' i! iil'i 111 ; l|H XXIV Introduction the style is grandiloquent ; owing to which blem- ishes the author wisely discouraged its republica- tion. But, in spite of these defects, the book has one very strongly put scene,' the interview between Smallin and his deserter brother, and several beau- tiful passages" that distinctly proclaim the high- souled poet. Lanier's next publication, Florida : Its Scenery, Climate, and History, was written by commission of the Atlantic Coast Line, and appeared in 1876. To use the author's own epithet, Florida is " a spiritualized guide-book." Exclusive of the 1877 volume of Poems, Lanier's next original work was The Science of English Verse, which in lecture-form was delivered to the students of the Johns Hopkins in the winter of 1879 and was published in 1880. According to compe- tent critics, the book gives as searching an investiga- tion of the science of verse on its formal side as is to be had in any language. Since the treatise is so evi- dently an epoch-making one, I regret that the tech- nicality of the subject forbids my attempting in this connection even a brief exposition ^ of its principles. I can say only that Lanier treats verse in the terms of music ; that, according to the promise of the pref- ace, he gives " an account of the true relations of music and verse ; " and that in so doing he has given us the best working theory for English verse from Casdmon to Tennyson. This is a high estimate, * Tiger-lilies, p. 149 ff. ' Thpt on " love " (p. 26) is quoted later. » This may be found in Professor Tolman's article, cited in the Bibliography. Introduction XXV IS to but it is by no means so high as that of the lament- ed poet-p.ofessor, Edmund Rowland Sill, who said of The Science of English Verse, " It is the only- work that has ever made any approach to a rational view of the subject. Nor are the standard ones overlooked in making this assertion." ' Lanier's second course of lectures at the Johns Hopkins University, delivered in the winter and spring of 1881, was published in 1883 under the title. The English No7>el and the Principles of Its De7'clopment:^ According to the author's state- ment, the purpose of the book is " first, to inquire what is the special relation of the novel to the mod- ern man, by virtue of which it has become a para- mount literary form ; and, secondly, to illustrate this abstract inquiry, when completed, by some concrete readings in the greatest of modern Eng- lish novelists " (p. 4). Addressing himself to the former, Lanier attempts to prove (i) that our time, when compared with that of ^schylus, shows an " enormous growth in the personality of man " (p. 5) ; (2) that what we moderns call Physical Science, Music, and the Novel, all had their origin at practi- cally the same time, about the middle of the seven- teenth century (p. 9) ; and (3) " that the increase of personalities thus going on has brought about such complexities of relation that the older forms of ex- pression were inadequate to them ; and that the re- 1 Quoted by Tolman. 2 Mrs. Lanier informs me that The English Novel will soor. be issued in an amended form and with a new sub-title, Studies in the Development of Personality, which indicates precisely what Mr. Lanier intended to attempt, and relieves the book of its seem- ing incompleteness as to scope. XXVI Introduction I /•.'■« Introduction xxvu what problems engaged his attention and how were they solved ? A careful investigation will show, I believe, that, despite the brevity of his life and its consuming cares, Lanier studied the chief questions of our age, and that in his poems he has offered us noteworthy solutions. What, for instance, is more characteristic of our age than its tendency to agnosticism ? I pass by the manifestations of this spirit in the world of re- ligion, of which so much has been heard, and give an illustration or two from the field of history and politics. Picturesque Pocahontas, we are told, is no more to be believed in ; moreover, the Pilgrim Fathers did not land at Plymouth Rock, nor did Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. Which way we turn there is a big interrogation- point, often not for information but for negation. Of the good resulting from the inquisitive spirit, we all know ; of the baneful influence of inquisitive- ness that has become a mere intellectual pastime or amateurish agnosticism, we likewise have some knowledge ; but the evil side of this tendency has seldom been put more forcibly, I think, than in this stanza from Lanier's Acknowledgment : " O Age that half believ'st thou half believ'st, Half doubt'st the substance of thine own half doubt, And, half perceiving that thou half perceiv'st, Stand'st at thy temple door, heart in, head out! Lo ! while thy heart's within, helping the choir, Without, thine eyes range up and down the time, Blinking at o'er-bright Science, smit with desire To see and not to see. Hence, crime on crime. Yea, if the Christ (called thine) now paced yon street, Thy halfness hot with his rebuke would swell ; XXVIU Introduction I ^>A i!ii|M Legions of scribes would rise and run and beat His fair intolerable Wholeness twice to hell."' » More hurtful than agnosticism, because affectintr larger masses of people, is the rapid growth of .ae mercantile spirit during the present century, es- pecially in America. This evil the poet saw most clearly and felt most keenly, as every one may learn by reading The Symphotiy, his great poem in which the speakers are the various musical in- struments. The violins begin : " O Trade ! O Trade ! would thou wert dead 1 The Time needs heart — 'tis tired of head. " " Then all the stringed instruments join with the violins in giving the wail of the poor, who " stand wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand : " " ' We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, We sieve mine-meshes under the hills, And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills, To relieve, O God, what manner of ills ? — The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die ; And so do we, and the world's a sty ; Hush, fellow-swine : why nuzzle and cry ? Swhtchood hath no remedy Say many men, and hasten by. Clamping the nose and blinking the eye. But who said once, in the lordly tone, Man shall not live by bread alone But all that cometh from the throne ? Hath God said so ? But Trade saith A'b; And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say Go : There' s plenty that can, if you can't : we know. 1 Acknoivledgment^ 11. 1-12. The Symphony, II. i-a. tm'M Introduction XXIX Move out, if you think you're underpaid. The poor are prolific ; we're not afraid; Trade is Trade. ' " Thereat this passionate protesting Meekly changed, and softened till It sank to sad requesting And suggesting sadder still : 'And oh, if men might some time see How piteous-false the poor decree That trade no more than trade must be I Does business mean. Die, you — live, 1 f Then " Trade is trade " but sings a lie : 'Tis only war grown miserly. If business is battle, name it so.' " ' Of even wider sweep than mercantilism is the spirit of intolerance; for, while the diffusion of knowledge and of grace has in a measure repressed this spirit, it lacks much of being subdued. I do not wonder that Lanier " fled in tears from men's ungodly quarrel about God," and that, in his poem entitled Remonstrance, he denounces intolerance with all the vehemence of a prophet of old. But Lanier had an eye for life's beauties as well as its ills. To him music was one of earth's chief blessings. Of his early passion for the violin and his substitution of the flute therefor, we have already learned. According to competent critics he was possibly the greatest flute-player" in the world, a fact all the more interesting when we remember that, as he himself tells us,' he never had a teacher. With such a talent for music the poet has naturally ' The Symphony, 11. 31-61. ' See Ward's Memorial, pp. xx, xxxi. » Hayne's (P. H.) A Poefs Letters to a Friend. M XXX Introduction strewn his pages with fine tributes thereto. In Ttger-lilieSy for instance, he tells us that, while ex- plorers say that they have found some nations that had no god, he knows of none that had no music, and then sums up the matter in this sentence : " Music means harmony ; harmony means love ; and love means — God ! " ' Even more explicit is this declaration in a letter of May, 1873, to Hayne: " I don't know that I've told you that whatever turn I may have for art is purely musical ; poetry being with me a mere tangent into which I shoot sometimes. I could play passably on several in- struments before I could write legibly, and since then the very deepest of my life has been filled with music, which I have studied and cultivated far more than poetry." "^ We have already seen inci- dentally that in his Symphony the speakers are musical instruments ; and it is in this poem that oc- curs his felicitous definition, " Music is love in search of a word." ' In To Beethoven he describes the effect of music upon himself : " I know not how, I care not why, Thy music brings this broil at ease, And melts my passion's mortal cry In satisfying symphonies. 1 Tiger-lilies, p. 32. 2 Hayne's A Poet's Letters to a Friend. After settling in Bal- timore Lanier devoted more time to poetry than to music, as we may see from this sentence to Judge Bleckley, in his letter of March 20, 1876 : " As for me, life has resolved simply into a time during which I must get upon paper as many as possible of the poems with which my heart is stuffed like a schoolboy's pocket." ' The Symphony., I, 368. M i iiu iB jiyioiiiiiiiMM i Introduction XXX( " Yea, it forgives me all my sins, Fits life to love like rhyme to rhyme, And tunes the task each day begins By the last trumpet-note of Time." » It was this profound knowledge of music, of course, that enabled Lanier to write his work on The Sci- ence of English Verse, and gave him a technical skill in versification akin to that of Tennyson. Like most great poets of modern times, Lanier was a sincere lover of nature. And it seems to me that with him this love was as all-embracing as with Wordsworth. Lanier found beauty in the waving corn ' and the clover ; ^ in the mocking-bird,* the robin,'* and the dove ; " in the hickory,^ the dog- wood,'' and the live-oak ;* in the murmuring leaves ' and the chattering streams ; '" in the old red hills " and the sea ; '^ in the clouds," sunrise,'* and sunset ; *' and even in the marshes,'* which " burst into bloom " for this worshiper. Again, Lanier's love of nature was no less insistent than Wordsworth's. We all remember the latter's oft-quoted lines : " To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears : " " » To Beethoven, II. 61-68. 5 See The Waving of the Corn and Corn. • See Clover. « See The Mocking-Bird &ad. To Our Mocking-Bird. » See Tampa Robins. * See The Dove. ' See From the Flats, last stanza. 8 See Sunrise. • See Sunrise and Corn. >" See The Song of the Chattahoochee axiA Sunrise. " See Corn. '^ See Sunrise and At Sunset. 1' See Individuality. »* See Sunrise, etc. 1 » See /l/ Sunset. I* See The Marshes of Glynn, and read Barbe's tribute to Lanier, cited in the Bibliography. 1' Intimations of Immortality , 11. 202-203. li XXXll Introduction and beside them one may put this line of La- nier's, "The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep," » because, as the context shows, he was " Shaken with happiness : The gates of sleep stood wide." » And how «rt/wand tender was this nature-worship ! He speaks of the clover' and the clouds * as cousins, and of the leaves * as sisters, and in so doing re- minds us of the earliest Italian poetry, especially of The Canticle of the Sun, by St. Francis of Assisi, who brothers the wind, the fire, and the sun, and sisters the water, the stars, and the moon. Notice the tenderness in these lines of Corn : " The leaves that wave against my cheek caress Like women's hands ; the embracing boughs express A subtlety of mighty tenderness ; The copse-depths into little noises start, That sound anon like beatings of a heart, Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart ; "« to which we find a beautiful parallel in a poem by Paul Hamilton Hayne, himself a reverent nature- worshiper : "Ah J Nature seems Through something sweeter than all dreams To woo me ; yea, she seems to speak How closely, kindly, her fond cheek ' TAe Symphony, 1. 3. a The Symphony, II. 13-14. • Clover, 1. 57. ♦ Individuality, I. i. * Sunrise, 1. 42. • Corn, 11. 4-9. Compare The Symphony, 11. 183-190. Ji Introduction xxxiu La- Rested on mine, her mystic blood Pulsing in tender neighborhood, And soft as any mortal maid, Half veiled in the twilight shade. Who leans above her love to tell Secrets almost ineffable I " ' Moreover, this worship is restful : " Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea ? Somehow my soul seems suddenly free From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin, By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn. " By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God : Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn."" But to Lanier the ministration of nature was by no means passive ; and we find him calling upon the leaves actively to minister to his need and even to intercede for him to their Maker : " Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms. Ye consciences murmuring faiths under forms, Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves, Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves. Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain rne, — Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet That advise me of more than they bring, — repeat • Hayne's In the Gray of Evening: Autumn, 11. 37-46, in Poems (Boston, 1882), p. 250. 2 The Marshes 0/ Glynn, 11. 61-64, 75-78. XXXIV Introduction Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath From the heaven-side bank of the river of death, — Teach me the terms of silence, — preach me The passion of patience, — sift me, — impeach me,— And there, oh there As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air, Pray me a myriad prayer," » In this earnest ascription of spirituality to the leaves Lanier recalls Ruskin.^ To take up his next theme, Lanier, like every true Teuton, from Tacitus to the present, saw " something of the divine " in woman. It was this feeling that led him so severely to condemn a vice that is said to be growing, the marriage for con- venience. I quote from The Symphony, and the " melting Clarionet " is speaking : " So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime, Men love not women as in olden time. Ah, not in these cold merchantable days Deem men their life an opal pray, where plays The one red sweet of gracious ladies'-praise. Now, comes a suitor with sharp prying eye — Says, Here, you lady, if you'll sell, I'll buy : Come, heart for heart — a trade f What ! weeping f why f Shame on such wooer's dapper-mercery I " ^ And then follows a wooing that, to my mind, should be irresistible, and that, at any rate, is quite as high-souled as Browning's One Way of Love, which I have long considered the high -water - * Sunrise, 11. 39-53. 2 See his Modern Painters, vol. v., part vi., chapter iv., and Scudder's note to the same in her Introduction to Ruskin (Chi- cago, 1892), p. 249. • The Symphony, 11. 232-340. Introduction mark of the chivalrous in love, ionet is still speaking : XXXV The Lady Clar- " I would my lover kneeling at my feet In humble manliness should cry, O Sweet f I know not if thy heart my heart will greet : I ask not if thy love my love can meet: Whate'er thy worshipful soft tongue shall say, I'll kiss thine answer, be it yea or nay : I do but know I love thee, and I pray To be thy knight until my dying day. " ' I imagine, too, that any wife that ever lived would be satisfied with his glorious tribute to Mrs. Lanier in Afy Springs, which closes thus : " Dear eyes, dear eyes, and rare complete — Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet— I marvel that God made you mine, For when he frowns, 'tis then ye shine." ' Almost equally felicitous are these lines of Acknowl- edgment : " Somehow by thee, dear Love, I win content : Thy Perfect stops th' Imperfect's argument."' But the cleverest thing that Lanier has written of woman occurs in his Laus Marice : " But thou within thyself, dear manifold heart, Dost bind all epochs in one dainty fact.. Oh, Sweet, my pretty sum of history, I leapt the breadth of time in loving thee ! " * • The Symphony, 11. 241-248. • Acknowledgment, II. 41-42. 9 My springs, 11. 53-56. ♦ Laus Marice, II. 11-14. XXXVl Introduction — a scrap worthy to be placed beside Steele's •' To love her is a liberal education," Vv'hich has often been declared the happiest thing on the subject in the English language. To Lanier there was but one thing that made life worth living, and that was love. Even the super- ficial reader must be struck with the frequent use of the term in the poet's works, while all must be up- lifted by his conception of its purpose and power. The ills of agnosticism, mercantilism, and intolerance all find their solution here and here only, as is ad- mirably set forth in The Symphony, of which the opening strain is, " We are all for love," and the closing, " Love alone can do." The matter is no less happily put in Tiger-lilies : " For I am quite confident that love is the only rope thrown out by Heaven to us who have fallen overboard i.ito life. Love for man, love for woman, love for God, — these three chime like beils in a steeple and call us to worship, which is to work. . . . Inasmuch as we love, in so much do we conquer death and flesh ; by as much as we love, by so much are we gods. For God is love ; and could we love as He does, we could be as He is." ' To the same effect is his state- ment in The English Novel: " A republic is the government of the spirit." "^ The same thought re- curs later : " In love, and love only, can great work that not only pulls down, but builds, be done ; it is love, and love only, that is truly constructive in art." ' in the poem entitled How Love Looked for Hell, Mind and Sense at Love's request go to seek i Tiger-lilies, p. 26. a The English Novel, p. 55. ' The English Novel, p. 204. Introduction XXXVll Hell ; but ever as they point it out to Love, whether in the material or the immaterial world, it vanishes ; for where Love is there can be no Hell, since, in the words of Tolstoi's story, " Where Love is there is God." But in one of his poems Lanier sums up the whole matter in a line : " When life's all love, 'tis life : aught else, 'tis naught." » It is but a short way from love to its source, — God. And, as Lanier was continually in the at- mosphere of the one, so, I believe, he was ever in the presence of the other ; for the poet's '• Love means God " is but another phrasing of the evan- gelist's " God is love." ' Of Lanier's grief over church broils and of his longing for freedom to worship God according to one's own intuition, we have already learned from his Remonstrance. What he thought of the Christ we learn from The Crystal, which closes with this invocation : " But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time, But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue, But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, O perfect life in perfect labor writ, O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, — What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, What least defect or shadow of defect, What rumor, tattled by an enemy, Of inference loose, what lack of grace Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's — Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee. Jesus, good Paragon, Thou Crystal Christ ? " > » In Absence, 1. 42. » I.John IV. 16. • The Crystal^ 11. loo-rii. XXXVIU Introduction 11 illlil How tenderly Lanier was touched by the life of our Lord may be seen in his Ballad of Trees and the Master, a dramatic presentation of the scene in Gethsemane and on Calvary. How implicit was his trust in the Christ may be gathered from this paragraph in a letter to the elder Hayne : " I have a boy whose eyes are blue as your ' Aethra's.' Every day when my work is done I take him in my strong arms, and lift him up, and pore m his face. The intense repose, penetrated somehow with a thrilling mystery of potential activity, A'hich dwells in his large, open eye, leaches me nev/ things. I say to myself. Where are the strong arms in which I, too, might lay mc and repose, and yet be full of the fire of life ? And always through the twilight come answers from the other world, ' Master ! Master ! there is one — Christ — in His arms we rest ! '" ' Perhaps, however, Lanier's notion of God, whom he declared* all his roads reached, is most clearly expressed in a scrap quoted by Ward, apparently the outline for a poem : " I fled in tears from the men's ungodly quarrel about God. I fled in tears to the woods, and laid me down on the earth. Then somewhat like the beating of many hearts came up to me out of the ground ; and I looked and my cheek lay close to a violet. Then my heart took courage, and I said : ' I know that thou art the word of my God, dear Violet. And oh, the ladder is not long that to my heaven leads. Measure what space a violet stands above the ground. 'Tis no further climbing that my soul and '^'HdLyn&'s A Poefs Letters to a Friend. 5 In J Florida Sunday, 1. 85. Introduction XXXIX angels have to do than that. '" ' In this high spir- ituality Lanier is in line with the greatest poets of oar race, from " Caedmon, in the morn A-calling angels with the cow-herd's call That late brought up the cattle," > to him '• Who never turned his back, but marched breast for- ward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake." " Perhaps I may append here a paragraph upon Lanier's criticisms of other writers, for they seem to me acute in the extreme. Despite the elaborate essays in defence of Whitman's poetry by Dowden,* Symonds,* and Whitman himself, I believe Lanier is right in declaring that " Whitman is poetry's butcher. Huge raw coUops slashed from the rump of poetry and never mind gristle — is what Whit- man feeds our souls with. As near as I can make it out. Whitman's argument seems to be, that, be- cause a prairie is wide, therefore debauchery is ad- mirable, and because the Mississippi is long, there- 1 Ward's i1/tf^w/t>r/rt/, p. xxxix. a Lanier's The Crystal, 11. 90-93. 3 Browning's ^J^'/rtWrt'c' •• Epilogue, 11. 11-15. « See Dowden's Studies in Literature, pp. 468-523. • See Symonds's Walt IVhittnan : A Study. London, 1893. m J! I !f u xl Introduction fore every American is God." ' Notice, again, how well the defect of Paradise Lost is pointed out : " And I forgive Thee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful wars Where, armed with gross and inconclusive steel, Immortals smite immortals mortalwise And fill all heaven with folly." » Few better things have been said of Langland than this. — " That with but a touch Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now And most adorable ; " * or of Emerson than this, — " Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost Thy Self, sometimes ; " * or of Tennyson than this, — " Largest voice Since Milton, yet some register of wit Wanting." * The Crystal abounds in such happy characteriza- tions. IV. LANIER'S POETRY: ITS STYLE So much for the poet's thoughts ; what shall we say of their expression ? In other words, is Lanier the literary artist equal to Lanier the seer.? In • Ward's Memorial^ p. xxxviii. ' The Crystal, 11. 66-70. » Idid., il. 87-90. * Ibid., 11. 93-94. ^Ibid., 11. 95-97. Introduction xli order the better to answer this question, let us begin at the beginning, with the elements of style, some of which, however, I pass by as not calling for special comment. Of Lanier's felicitous choice of words we have already had incidental illustration ; but it is desir- able, perhaps, to group here a few of his happiest phrases, to show that, as Lowell ' said, he is " a man of genius with a rare gift for the happy word." Notice this speech about the brook : " And down the hollow from a ferny nook Lull sings a little brooK ! " ■-' and this of the well-bucket : " The rattling bucket plumps Souse down the well , " =• and this of the outburst of a bird : " Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird ? " ♦ and the description of a mocking-bird as " Yon trim Shakspere on the tree ; " * and of midnight as " Death's and truth's unlocking time." « Moreover, it should be observed that Lanier fre- quently uses significant compounds, — a habit ac- 1 See Lowell m Bibliography. 5 Frotn the Flats, 11. 23-24 ; cited by Gates. ' Clover, 11. 29-30. « Sunrise, 1. 57 ; cited by Gates. ' The Mocking-Bird, 1. 14. • The Crystal, 1. i. Other illustrations may be found in the paragraph on figures of speech. xlii Introduction quired, no doubt, from his study of Old English, in which, as in German, such compounds abound. While in the main Lanier's sentence-construction is good, occasionally his sentences are too long, as in My Springs, To Bayard Taylor, and Sunrise, in which we have sentences longer than the opening one in Paradise Lost, and, what is of more moment, not so well balanced, and hence affording fewer breathing spaces. That this detracts from clear- ness and euphony both, every reader will admit. To come to the figures of speech, one must be struck at once with the delicacy and the vigor of Lanier's imagination. The poet's fancy personifies what at first blush seems to us incapable of person- ification. Thus at one time ' he likens men to clover-leaves and the Course-of-things to the brows- ing ox, which makes way with the clover-heads ; while at another he addresses an old red hill of Georgia as " Thou gashed and hairy Lear Whom the divine Cordelia of the year, ' E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer. " « Like other Southern poets,' Lanier sometimes fails to check his imigination, and in consequence leaves his readers " bramble-tangled in a brilliant maze," as in his description of the stars m/une Dreams * and in the Psalm of the West.'' While I do not like a maze, brilliant though it be and sweet, I must say that I prefer the embarrassment of riches to the em- 1 In Clover. 2 Corn, 11. 185-1S7. » See on this point the remarks of Professor Trent in his admi- rable life of Sinnns (Boston, 1892), p. 149. *June Dreams, 1. 21 ff. » Fsaim of the West, 1. 183 fif. ^% J II' Introduction barrassment of poverty. On the whole, however, Lanier's figures strike me as singularly fresh and happy. In Sunrise, for example, the poet speaks of the marsh as follows : " The tide's at full : the marsh with flooded streams Glimmers a limpid labyrinth of dreams ; " ^ and of the heavens reflected in the marsh waters : " Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies Shine scant with one forked galaxy, — The marsh brags ten : looped on his breast they lie. " ' Later, as the ebb-tide flows from marsh to sea, we are parenthetically treated to these two lines : " Run home, little streams, With your lapfuls of stars and dreams." ^ Finally, the heaven itself is thus pictured : " Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew The summ'd morn shines complete as in the blue Big dew-drop of all heaven ; " * beside which must be hung this exquisite picture : •' The dew-drop morn may fall from off the petal of the sky." * As to versification, Lanier uses almost all the types of verse — iambic, trochaic, blank, the sonnet, etc. — and with about equal skill. Three features, however, specially characterize his verse : the care- » Sunrise, 11. 80-81. » Ibid., 11. 82-85. ' ^''^-^ U- ii4-"5- * Ibid., 11. 134-136. » The Ship 0/ Earth, 1. 5. xliv Introduction ful distribution of vowel-colors and the frequent use of alliteration and of phonetic syzyg^,' by which last is meant a combination or succession of identical or similar consonants, whether initially, medially, or finally, as for instance the succession of m's in Tennyson's " The moan of doves in immemorial elms And murmuring of innumerable bees." All of these phenomena are illustrated in Lanier's Song of the Chattahoochee, which has often been compared to Tennyson's The Brook, and which alone proves the author a master in versification. To be sure, Lanier occasionally gives us an im- proper rhyme, as thwart : hearty etc., but so does every poet. No doubt, too, his love of music some- times led him, not " to strain for form effects," but to indulge too much therein, or, in the words of Mr. Stedman, " to essay in language feats that only the gamut can render possible." ^ But, as Profes- sor Kent admirably puts it, " Lanier was a poet as well as an artist, and if at times his artistic tempera- ment seemed to eclipse his poetic thought, grant that to the poet mind the very manner of expression may indicate the thought that lies beneath, while to the duller ear the thought must come in completed form." •* Moreover, as we shall see later, this ex- traordinary musical endowment gave Lanier a unique position among English poets. After what has been said the qualities of style • See The Science o/ English Verse, p. 306 ff. • In the Foam, 11. 6, 8. See, too, Kent's Study 0/ Lanier's Po- ints, which gives an exhaustive treatment of Lanier's versification. • Stedman's Poets of A merica, p. 449. * Kent, p. 60. Introduction xlv may be briefly handled. As we have already seen, Lanier sometimes fails in clearness, or, more pre- cisely, in simplicity. This comes partly from infeli- citous sentence-construction, partly, perhaps, from Lanier's extraordinary musical endowment, but chiefly, I think, from over-luxuriance of imagination. But this occasional defect has been unduly exag- gerated. Thus Mr. Gosse ' declares that Lanier is " never simple, never easy, never in one single lyric natural and spontaneous for more than one stanza," — a statement so clearly hyperbolic as hardly to call for notice. As a matter of fact, Lanier has written numerous poems that offer little or no diffi- culty to the reader of average intelligence, as Life and Song, My Springs, The Symphony, The Mocking-bird, The Song of the Chattahoochee, The Waving of the Corn, The Revenge of Ham- is h. Remonstrance, A Ballad of Trees and the Master, etc. More than this, Lanier at times mani- fests the simplicity that is granted only to genius of the highest order : thus an English critic,'^ who by the way declares that Lanier's volume has more of genius than all the poems of Poe, or Longfellow, or Lowell (the humorous poems ex- cepted), and who considers Lanier the most original of ill American poets, and more original than any England has produced for the last thirty years, says that " nothing can be more perfect than — ' The whole sweet round Of littles that large life compound,' » 1 See Bibliography. ^ The Spectator {l^ouAon) ; s,tt Bibliography, • My Springs, 11. 49-50. xlvi Introduction ■!! lines in My Springs, and that " the touch of won- der in the last two lines, ' I marvel that God made you mine, For when he frowns, 'tis then ye shine,' * is as simple and exquisite as any touch of tender- ness in our literature." I frankly admit that several of Lanier's best poems, as Corn, The Marshes of Glynn, and Sunrise, are not simple ; but the same thing is true of Milton's Paradise Lost and of Browning's The Rmg and the Book, and yet this fact does not exclude these two works from the list of great poems. Mr. Gosse, however, declares that Corn, Sunrise, and The Marshes of Glynn " simu- late poetic expression with extraordinary skill. But of the real thing, of the genuine traditional article, not a trace " ! What do these poems show, then ? Mr. Gosse answers : " I find a painful effort, a strain and rage, the most prominent qualities in everything he wrote ; " which strikes me as the reverse of the facts. In one of his letters " to Judge Bleckley, La- nier wrote this sentence : " My head and my heart are both so full of poems which the dreadful strug- gle for bread does not give me time to put on pa- per, that I am often driven to headache and heart- ache, purely fo** want of an hour or two to hold a pen." If, then, he committed an error (and I am far from considering him faultless), it was not that he beat and spurred on Pegasus, but that he failed to rein him in. Still, I repeat that I prefer the em- 1 My springs, 11. 55-56. 9 It is to be hoped that these letters may yet be published. I quote from one dated November 15, 1874. Introduction xlvii Darrassment of riches to the embarrassment of poverty. Finally, just as Milton tells us that the music of the spheres is not to be heard by the gross, unpurged ear, so I believe that many intelli- gent ears and eyes are at first too gross to hear and see what Lanier puts before them, whereas a bit of patient listening and looking reveals delights hitherto undreamed of. If not always simple, Lanier is often forcible in the extreme, as in The Symphony, The Revenge of Hamt'sh, Remonstrance, and Sunrise. Of course, it is open to any one to see in these poems the •' rage " attributed to Lanier by Mr, Gosse, but I prefer to consider it divine wrath in all but the last, and in it wonder unutterable, which yet is so uttered that ears become eyes. I allude to the stanzas » describing the break of dawn and the rising of the sun. Of the poet's marvelous euphony. The Song of the Chattahoochee speaks clearly enough. As we have seen in our treatment of versification, it is here a question not of too little but of too much. But, despite an occasional too great yielding to his pas- sion for music, his extraordinary endowment in this direction gave La.xier a unique position among Eng- lish poets. I quote again from Professor Kent : "^ " But if his sense of beauty made him a peer of our great poets, it was the heavenly gift of music that distinguished him from them. Milton, it is true, whom he most resembles in this respect, had a knowledge of music, but not the same passion for it. Milton's music was more a recreation, an ac- 1 Sunrise, 11. 86-152. a P. 6a. xlviii Introduction 11 ir companiment of reverie ; Lanier's was a fiery zeal ; a yearning love, a chosen and adequate form of expression of his soul's deepest feeling. Combined with this passion for music was his technical knowl- edge of the art, and these combined formed at r- *• the foundation and the framework of his po He seems literally to have sung his poems ; they are essentially musical, tuneful, and melodious. Sur- charged with music, he overflows in mellifluous numbers. Here, then, Lanier stands out differen- tiated in the choir of poets, and here we find that distinctive quality which is the very flavor of his writing." While most of Lanier's poems are in a serious strain, several disclose no mean sense of humor. I refer to his dialect poems, such as Jonjs's P*'ivatc Argymcnt^ Uncle Jim's Baptist Revival Hymn, and The Po7uer of Prayer, especially the ' , written in conjunction with his brother, Mr. Cli Lanisr. There are passages in the poems no less pathetic than the poet's life. In discussing his love of nat- ure we have seen that he was a pantheist in the best sense of the term. So delicate was his sensi- bility that we do not wonder when we hear him de- claring, " And I am one with all the kinsmen things That e'er my Father fathered," * a saying as felicitous as the Roman's " I am a man, and, therefore, nothing human is stranger to me." The tenderness of the Ballad of Trees and the 1 A Florida Sunday, 11, 102-103. I' W Introduction Xlll Master must touch all readers. Few passages are more pathetic, I think, than that, '\\\June Dreams in January, telling of the poet's struggle for bread and fame, while *' his worshipful sweet wife sat still, afar, within the village whence she sent him forth, waiting all confident and proud and calm."' And, if there occurs therein a plaintive tone, let us re- member that it is the only time that he complained of his lot, and that here really he has more in mmd his dearer self, his wife, and that calm succeeded to unrest just as it does in this passage : " ' Why can we poets dream us beauty, so, But cannot dream us bread ? Why, now, can I Make, aye, create this fervid throbbing June Out of the chill, chill matter of my soul, Yet cannot make a poorest penny-loaf Out of this same chill matter, no, not one For Mary, though she starved upon my breast ? * And then he fell upon ' 's couch, and sobbed, And, late, just when hi heart leaned o'er The very edge of break g, fain to fall, God sent him sleep." ' V. LANIER'S THEORY OF POETRY It is now time to say a word about Lanier's the- ory of art, especially the art of poetry. His views upon the formal side of poetry have already been noticed in the consideration of his Science of Eng- lish Verse, and hence receive no further comment here. That Lanier keenly appreciated the responsibility ijune Dreams in January, 11. 68-78. 1 Introduction resting upon the artist, appears from Individuality, where he tells us, and, " Awful ia art because 'tis free," ' " Each artist— gift oi terror ! — owns his will." » But he accepts the responsibility reverently and confidently: "I worK in freedom wild, But work, as plays a little child, Sure of the Father, Self, and Love, alone."' t Again, the province of poetry is pointed out, as in Clover : " The artist's market is the heart of man ; The artist's price, some little good of man ; " * and in T/te Bee : "Wilt ask, What profit e'er a poet brings? He beareth starry stuff about his wings To pollen thee and sting thee fertile." » In Corti^ too, the " tall corn-captain " " types the poet-soul sublime." But it is in his prose works that Lanier has treated the matter most at length, and to these I turn. In the first place, he insists that to be an artist one must know a great deal, a statement that would ap- pear superfluous but for its frequent overlooking by 1 Individuality^ 1. 62. ^ Individuality, 11. 89-91. • The Bee, 11. 40-42. ' Individuality, 1. 76. * Clover, 11. 126-127. « Corn, I. 52 ff. l-JCq I \ Introduction U would-be artists. Hence he is right in warning young writers : " You need not dream of winning the attention of sober people with your poetry un- less that poetry and your soul behind it are informed and saturated with at least the largest final concep- tions of current science." ' That Lanier strove to follow this precept, we have abundant evidence in his life and in his works : and I think that, if we re- member his environments, we must wonder at the vastness, the accuracy, and the variety of his knowl- edge. As additionally illustrative of the last, I may add that Lanier invented some improvements for the flute, and made a discovery in the physics of music that the Professor of Physics in the Univer- sity of Virginia thought considerable." In the second place, Lanier thinks that a poet's knowledge of his art should be scientific. It was this cnat led him to write The Science of English Verse, the motto of which is, " But the best con- ceptions cannot be, save where science and genius are." In The English Novel ho. declares that " not a single verse was ever written by instinct alone since the world began," ^ and fortifies his statement by Ben Jonson's tribute to Shakespeare, — " For a good poet's made as well as born, And such wert thou. " But Lanier clearly saw that no formal laws and no amount of scientific knowledge could alone make a poet, as apoears from the motto above quot- ed, from the closing chapter of The Science of 1 Gates, p. 29. ' See West, p, 23. • The English Novel, p. 33. Hi Introduction English Verse, which tells us that the educated love of beauty is the artist's only law, and from this other motto, from Sir Philip Sidney : " A Poet, no Industrie can make, if his owne Genius bee not car- ried unto it." In the third place, Lanier holds that a moral in- tention on the part of an artist does not interfere with the naturalness or intrinsic beauty of his work ; that in art the controlling consideration is rather moral than artistic beauty ; but that moral beauty and artistic beauty, so far from being distinct or op- posed, are convergent and mutually helpful. This thesis he upholds in the following eloquent and co- gent passage : " Permit me to recall to you in the first place that the requirement has been from time immemorial that wherever there is contest as be- tween artistic and moral beauty, unless the moral side prevail, all is lost. Let any sculptor i.ew us out the most ravishing combination of tender curves and spheric softness that ever stood for wom- an ; yet if the lip have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be insincere, if in the minut- est particular the physical beauty suggest a moral ugliness, that sculptor — unless he be portraying a moral ugliness for a moral purpose — may as well give over his marble for paving-stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, will not accept his work. For indeed we may say that he who has not yet perceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent lines which run back into a common ideal origin, and who therefore is not afire with moral beauty just as with artistic beauty — that he, in short, who has not come to that stage of quiet Introduction nil and eternal frenzy in which the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean one thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light, within him ; he is not yet the great artist." ' By copious quotations Lanier then shows that " many fine and beautiful souls ap- pear after a while to lose all sense of distinction be- tween these terms. Beauty, Truth, Love, Wisdom, Goodness, and the like," and concludes thus : " And if this be true, cannot one say with authority to the young artist, — whether working in stone, in color, in tones, or in character-forms of the novel : so far from dreading that your moral purpose will interfere with your beautiful creation, go forward in the clear conviction that unless you are suffused — soul and body, one might say — with that moral purpose which finds its largest expression in love — that is, the love of all things in their proper relation — unless you are suffused with this love, do not dare to meddle with beauty; unless you are suffused with beauty, do not meddle with love ; unless you are suffused with truth, do not dare to meddle with goodness ;— in a word, unless you are suffused with beauty, truth,, wisdom, goodness, afid love, abandon the hope that the ages will accept" you as an artist."' 1 The English Novel, p. 272 f. 2 The English Novel, p. 280. Of the numerous discussions of this thesis, the student should consult at least those by Matthew Arnold (Pre/ace to his edition of IVordsworth' s Poems), John Raskin {Stones of Venice, vol. iii., chap, iv.), and Victor Hugo (William Shakespeare, Book VI.). liv Introduction VI. CONCLUSION Milton has somewhere said that in order to be a great poet one must himself be a true poem, a dictum none the less trustworthy because of its in- applicability to its author along with several other great poets. Now of all English poets, I know of none that came nearer being a true poem than did Lanier. He was as spotless as " the Lady of Christ's," and infinitely more lovable. Indeed, he seems to me to have realized the ideal of his own knightly Horn, who hopes that some day men will be " maids in purity." ' I will not recall his gentle yet heroic life amid drawbacks almost unparalleled ; for it is even sadder than it is beautiful. It is my deliberate judgment that, while, as the poet says in his Lt/e and Song, no singer has ever wholly lived his minstrelsy, Lanier came so near it that we may fairly say, in the closing 'ines of the poem, " His song was only living aloud. His work, a singing with his liand." And, for my part, I am as grateful for his noble private life as for his distinguished public work. And yet I will not close with this picture of the man ; for my purpose is rather to present the poet. Hampered though he was by fewness of years, by feebleness of body, by shortness of bread, and, most of all perhaps, by over-luxuriance of imagina- tion, Lanier was yet, to my mind, indisputably a 1 The Symphony, \. 302. Introduction Iv great poet. For in technique he was akin to Ten- nyson ; • in the love of beauty and in lyric sweetness, to Keats and Shelley ; in the love of nature, to Wordsworth ; and in spirituality, to Ruskin, the gist of whose teaching is that we are souls tempor- arily having bodies ; to Milton, " God-gifted organ- voice of England ; " and to Browning, '* subtlest assertor of the soul in song." To be sure, Lanier's genius is not equal to that of any one of the poets mentioned, but I venture to believe that it is of the same order, and, therefore, deserving of lasting re- membrance. • Mr. Thayer puts it stronger : " As a master of melodious me- tre only Tennyson, and he not often, has equalled Lanier." Mr. F. F. Browne, Editor of The Dial (Chicago), compares the two ^oets in another aspect : " The Symphony of Lanier may recall some parts of Maud : but the younger poet's treatment is as much his own as the elder's is his own. The comparison of Lanier with Tennyson will, indeed, only deepen the impression of his originality, which is his most striking quality. It may be doubted if any English oet of our time, except Tennyson, has cast his work in an ampler mould, or wrought with more of freedom, or stamped his product with the impress of a stronger personality. His thought, his stand-point, his expression, his form, his treat- ment, are his alone ; and through them all he justifies his right to the title of poet." I' ilffi i"l i I POEMS iiii POEMS 1868. LIFE AND SONG If life were caught by a clarionet, And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed. Should thrill its joy and trill its fret. And utter its heart in every deed, Then would this breathine clarionet Type what the poet fain would be ; For none o' the singers ever yet Has wholly lived his minstrelsy. Or clearly sung his true, true thought, Or utterly bodied forth his life. Or out of life and song has wrought The perfect one of man and wife ; Or lived and sung, that Life and Song Might each express the other's all, Careless if life or art were long Since both were one, to stand or fall : So that the wonder struck the crowd, Who shouted it about the land : His song was only living aloud. His work, a singing with his hand ! %1 Jones's Private Argyment I zi 21 JONES'S PRIVATE ARGYMENT That air same Jones, which lived in Jones, He had this pint about him : He 'd swear with a hundred sighs and groans, That farmers must stop gittin' loans. And git along without 'em : That bankers, warehousemen, and sich Was fatt'nin' on the planter, And Tennessy was rotten-rich A-raisin' meat and corn, all which Draw'd money to Atlanta : And the only thing (says Jones) to do Is, eat no meat that 's boughten : But tear up every /, O, U, And plant all corn and swear for true To quit a-raisin' cotton / Thus spouted Jones (whar folks could hear, —At Court and other gatherin's), And thus kep' spoutin' many a year, Proclaimin' loudly far and near Sich fiddlesticks and blatherin's. But, one all-fired sweatin' day. It happened I was hoein' My lower corn-field, which it lay 'Longside the road that runs my way Whar I can see what 's goin'. 1 i'l' ' if! 1 i 1 ||l 1 II i 1 ' Jones's Private Argymcnt | And a'ter twelve o'clock had come I felt a kinder faggin', And laid myself un'neath a plum To let my dinner settle sum, When 'long come Jones's waggin, And Jones was settin' in it, so : 31 A-readin' of a paper. His mules was goin' powerful slow, Fur he had tied the lines onto The staple of the scraper. The mules they stopped -^out a rod From me, and went to feedin' 'Longside the road, upon the sod. But Jones (which he had tuck a tod) Not knowin', kept a-readin'. And presently says he : " Hit 's true ; 41 That Clisby's head is level. Thar 's one thing farmers all must do, To keep themselves from goin' tew Bankruptcy and the devil ! " More corn ! more corn ! must plant less ground, And musttit eat what 's bough ten ! Next year they '11 do it : reasonin 's sound : (And, cotton will fetch 'bout a dollar a pound), Tharfore, I 'II plant all cotton ! " Macon, Ga., 1870. '% » r i I Corn ( L;; CORN. I To-day the woods are trembling through and through With shimmering forms, th-t flash before my view, Then melt in green as dawa-stars melt in blue. The leaves that wave against my cheek caress Like women's hands ; the embracing boughs ex- press A subtlety of mighty tenderness ; The copse-depths into little noises start, That sound anon like beatings of a heart, Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart. The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song; XI Through that vague wafture, expirations strong Throb from young hickories breathing deep and long With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring And ecstasy of burgeoning. Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry, Forth venture odors of more quality And heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry, Long muscadines Rich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines, And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines. 21 I pray with mosses, ferns, and flowers shy That hide like gentle nuns from human eye To lift adoring perfumes to the sky. I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown a. * Dying to silent hints of kisses keen As far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen. Corn 7 I start at fragmentary whispers, blown From undertalks of leafy souls unknown, Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone. Dreaming of gods, men, nuns, and brides, between Old companies of oaks that inward lean aj To join their radiant amplitudes of green I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass Up from the matted miracles of grass Into yon veined complex of space Where sky and leafage interlace So close, the heaven of blue is seen Inwoven with a heaven of green. I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense. Contests with stolid vehemence The march of culture, setting limb and thorn As pikes against the army of the corn. i| 41 There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyes Take harvests, where the stately corn- ranks rise, Of inward dignities And large benignities and insights wise, Graces and modest majesties. Thus, without theft, I reap another's field ; Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield. And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed. 51 Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands, And waves his blades upon the very edge And hottest thicket of the battling hedge. Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk, ■H 8 Corn Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime That leads the vanward of his timid time And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme — Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow 6i By double increment, above, below ; Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee, Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry That moves in gentle curves of courtesy ; Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense, By every Todlike sense Transmuted froip the four wild elements. Drawn to high plans. Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's, Yet ever piercest downward in the mould 71 And keepest hold Upon the reverend and steadfast earth That gave thee birth ; Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave, Serene and brave. With unremitting breath Inhaling life from death. Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent. Thyself thy monument. I ! As poets should, 81 Thou hast built up thy hardihood With universal food, Drawn in select proportion fair From honest mould and vagabond air ; From darkness of the dreadful night. And joyful light ; From antique ashes, whose departed flame In thee has finer life and longer fame ; i Corn From wounds and balms, From storms and calms, From potsherds and dry bones And ruin-stones. Into thy vigorous substance thou hast v^rought Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought ; Yea, into cool solacing green hast spun White radiance hot from out the sun. So thou dost mutuclly leaven Strength of earth with grace of heaven ; So thou dost marry new and old Into a one of higher mould ; So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold, The dark and bright, And many a heart-perplexing opposite, And so. Akin by blood to high and low, Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part. Richly expending thy much-bruised heart In equal care to nor.rish lord in hajl Or beast in staii : Thou took'"^ from all that thou mightst give to all. steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot Where thou wast born, that still repinest not- Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot !— Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand Of trade, for ever rise and fall With alternation whimsical, Enduring scarce a day. Then swept av.ay By swift engulf ments of incalculable tides 91 lOI III lO Corn 121 Whereon capricious Commerce rides. Look, thou substantial spirit of content ! Across this little vale, thy continent, To wnere, beyond the mouldering mill, Yon old deserted Georgian hill Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest And seamy breast, By restless-hearted children left to lie Untended there beneath the heedless sky, As barbarous folk expose their old to die. 131 Upon that generous-rounding side, With gullies scarified Where keen Neglect his lash hath plied, * Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil, And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil. Scorning the slow reward of patient grain, He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain. Then sat him down and waited for the rain. He sailed in borrowed ships of usury — A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea, 141 Seeking the Fleece and finding misery Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance Should plough for him the stony field of Chance. Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell. He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell, And turned each field into a gambler's hell. Aye, as each year began, My farmer to the neighboring city ran ; Passed with a mournful anxious face 151 Into the banker's inner place ; Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace ; Pi I \\ Corn II Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass ; Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass ; With many an oh and if and but alas Parried or swallowed searching questions rude. And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood. At last, small loans by pledges great renewed, He issues smiling from the fatal door, And buys with lavish hand his yearly store Till his small borrowings will yield no more. i6i Aye, as each year declined. With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind He mourned his fate unkind. In dust, in rain, with might and main. He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain. Fretted for news that made him fret again, Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail— In hope or fear alike for ever pale. And thus from year to year, through hope and 171 fear. With many a curse and many a secret tear, Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, And all his best-of-life the easy prey Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way With vile array, From rascal statesman down to petty knave ; Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave, A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. 181 Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest 1 H 1 1;' 12 My Springs He fled away into the oblivious West, Unmourned, unblest. Old hill ! old hill ! thou gashed and hairy Lear Whom the divine Cordelia of the year, E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer — King, that no subject man nor beast may own, Discrowned, undaughtered and alone— Yet shall the great God turn thy fate, 191 And bring thee back into thy monarch state And majesty immaculate. Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn, Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn ; Visions of golden treasuries of corn — Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart Tl.\at manfully shall take thy part, And tend thee, And defend thee, With antique sinew and with modern art. SUNNYSIDB, Ga., August, 1S74. I (i ill IP MY SPRINGS In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know Two springs that with unbroken flow Forever pour their lucent streams Into my soul's ' ar Lake of Dreams. Not larger than two eyes, they lie Beneath the many-changing sky And mirn all of hfe and time, — Serene a:-d dainty pantomime. ! Mi Hi! My Springs 13 Shot through with lights of stars and dawns, And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns, —Thus heaven and earth together vie n Their shining depths to sanctify. Always when the large Form of Love Is hid by storms that rage above, I gaze in my two springs and see Love in his very verity. Always when Faith with stifling stress Of grief hath died in bitterness, I gaze in my two springs and see A Faith that smiles immortally. Always when Charity and Hope, 21 In darkness bounden, feebly grope, I gaze in my two springs and see A Light that sets my captives free. Always, when Art on perverse wing Flies v/here I cannot hear him sing, I gaze in my two springs and see A charm that brings him back to me. When Labor faints, and Glory fails, And coy Reward in sighs exhales, I gaze in my two springs and see 31 Attainment full and heavenly. O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they, — My springs from out whose shining gray Issue the sweet celestial streams That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams. ««».. j^=*fe.. If • c up 14 The Symphony Oval and large and passion-pure And gray and wise and iionor-sure ; Soft as a dying violet-breath Yet calmly unafraid of death ; 41 Thronged, like two dove-cotes of gray doves, With wife's and mother's and poor-folk's loves, And home-loves and high glory-loves And science-loves and story-loves, And loves for all that God and man In art and nature make or plan, And lady-loves for spidery lace And broideries and supple grace And diamonds and the whole sweet round Of littles that large life compound, 51 And loves for God and God's bare truth, And loves for Magdalen and Ruth, Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete — Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet, — I marvel that God made you mine, For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine ! Baltimore, 1874. THE SYMPHONY " O Trade ! O Trade ! would thou wert dead ! The Time needs heart— 'tis tired of head : We're all for love," the violins said. " Of what avail the rigorous tale Of bill for coin and box for bale ? The Symphony IS Grant thee, O Trade ! thine uttermost hope . Level red gold with blue sky-slope, And base it deep as devils grope : When all 's done, what hast thou won Of the only sweet that 's under the sun ? Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh n Of true love's least, least ecstasy ? " Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling, All the mightier strings assembling Ranged them on the violins' side As when the bridegroom leads the bride, And, heart in voice, together cried : " Yea, what avail the endless tale Of gain by cunning and plus by sale ? Look up the land, look down the land. The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand at Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand Against an inward-opening door That pressure tightens evermore : They sigh a monstrous foul-air sigh For the outside leagues of liberty. Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky Into a heavenly melody. ' Each day, all day ' (these poor folks say), ' In the same old year-long, drear-long way. We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, 31 We sieve mine-meshes under the hills. And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills, To relieve, O God, what manner of ills ? — The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die ; And so do we, and the world 's a sty ; Hush, fellow-swine : why nuzzle and cry ? Szuinehood hath no remedy I .A*H,4iit.iL,.j,. «.':»:&&; i6 The Symphony :!, Say many men, and hasten by, Clamping the nose and bhnking the eye. 41 But who said once, in the lordly tone, Matt shall not live by bread alone But all that comet h from the Throne ? Hath God said so ? But Trade saith No : And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say Go : There s plenty that can, if you can't : ive know. Move out, if you think you 're underpaid . The poor are prolific ; we 're not afraid ; Trade is trade.' " 51 Thereat this passionate protesting Meekly changed, and softened till ' It sank to sad requesting And suggesting sadder still : " And oh, if men might some time see How piteous-false the poor decree That trade no more than trade must be ! Does business mean, Z>/^,/(7// — live, If Then ' Trade is trade ' but sings a lie : 'Tis only war grown miserly. 5i If business is battle, name it so : | War-crimes less will shame it so, \\ And widows less will blame it so. Alas, for the poor to have some part In yon sweet living lands of Art, Makes problem not for head, but heart. Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it : / Plainly the heart of a child could solve it." And then, as when from words that seem but rude We pass to silent pain that sits abrood / The SympJiony 17 Back in our heart's great dark and solitude, 71 So sank the strings to gentle throbbing Of long chords change-marked with sobbing— Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird, Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred. Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo ! Every least ripple cf the strings' song-How Died to a level with each level bow And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so, As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go 81 To linger in the sacred dark and green Where many boughs the still pool overlean And many leaves make shadow with their sheen. But presently A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly Upon the bosom of that harmony. And sailed and sailed incessantly, As if a petal from a wild-rose blown Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone And hoatwise dropped o' the convex side And fl 3ated down the glassy tide And clarified and glorified The solemn spaces where the shadows bide. From the warm concave of that fluted note Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float. As if a rose might somehow be a throat : " When Nature from her far-off glen Flutes her soft messages to men, The flute can say them o'er again ; Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone, loi Breathes through life's strident polyphone The flute-voice in the world of tone. ey 's mightily in de grass, grass, Dey's mightily in de grass. De workmen 's few an' mons'rous slow, De cotton 's sheddin' fas' ; Whoop, look, jes' look at de Baptis' row, Hit 's mightily in de grass, grass. Hit 's mightily in de grass. The Mockiiig'Bird 33 De jay-bird squeal to de mockin'-bird : " Stop ! 21 Don' gimme none o' yo' sass ; Better sing one song for de Haptis" crop, Dey 's mightily in de grass, grass, Dty 's mightily in dc grass." And de ole crow croak : " Don' work, no, no ; " But de fiel'-lark say, " Yaas, yaas, An* I spec' you mighty glad, you dcbblish crow, Dat de Baptissis 's in de grass, grass, Dat de Baptissis 's in de grass I " 1876 Lord, thunder us up to de plowin'-match. Lord, peerten de hoein' fas'. Yea, Lord, hab mussy on de Baptis' patch, Dey 's mightily in de grass, grass, Dey 's mightily in de grass. 31 ! ! Ill THE MOCKING-BIRD Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray That o'er the general leafage boldly grew. He summ'd the woods in song ; or typic drew The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay Of languid doves when long their lovers stray. And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew At morn in brake or bosky avenue. What e'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say. Then down he shot, bounced airily along The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song ^ % ■^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) WJ., ^ P., Qr / fA / 1.0 I.I 1.25 WlillM 12.5 IM mil 2.2 t 1^ 1.4 1.6 ^„ p^. o el <$> >y m M Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 '^^ iV ^^ €,% % \ 6^ ^ '-b^^ Ci^ &", w. .^ i 1 J^v ^^ \ . ^ > 1 t, ■ 34 Song of the Chattahoochee II Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his ait again^ Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain : How may the death of that dull insect be The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree ? 1877. II 91 SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE Out of the hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall. Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide. And flee from folly on every side With a lover's pain to attain the plain Far from the hills of Habersham, Far from the valleys of Hall. All down the hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried Abide, abide. The willful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide^ Here in the hills of Habersham^ Here in the valleys of Hall. High o'er the hills of Habersham, Veiling the valleys of Hall, Song of the Chattahoochee 35 The hickory told me manifold Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, These glades in the valleys of Hall. And oft in the hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook- stone Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl. And many a luminous jewel lone — Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, and amethyst — Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of the valleys of Hall. :il 31 But oh, not the hills of Habersham, And oh, not the valleys of Hall Avail : I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices of Duty call — Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn. And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, Calls through the valleys of Hall. 1877. 41 fi!-l ^6 The Revenge of Hamish THE REVENGE OF HAMISH I It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay; And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man, Avvaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way. Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril ; she was the daintiest doe ; In the priiit of her velvet flank on the velvet fern She reared, and rounded her ears in turn. Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown did go Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer ; And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose, 1 r For their day-dream slowlier came to a close, Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear. Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by. The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvel- ous bound. The hounds swept after with never a sound. But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry was nigh. The Revenge of Hamish 37 For at dawn of that day proud Maclean of Lochbuy to the hunt had waxed wild, And he cursed at old Alan till Alan fared off with the hounds For to drive him the deer to the lower glen- grounds : " I will kill a red deer," quoth Maclean, " in the sight of the wife and the child." So gayly he paced with the wife and the child to 21 his chosen stand ; But he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead : •• Go turn,"— Cried Maclean — " if the deer seek to cross to the burn. Do thou turn them to me : nor fail, lest thy back be red as thy hand." Now hard-fortuned Hamish, half blown of his broath with the height of the hill. Was white m the face when the ten-tined buck and the does Drew leaping to-burn-ward ; huskily rose His shouts, and his nether lip twitched, and his legs were o'er-weak for his will. So the deer darted lightly by Hamish and bounded away to the burn. But Maclean never bating his watch tarried waiting below. Still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go 31 All the space of an hour ; then he went, and his face was greenish and stern, 38 The Revenge of Hamish And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken the eyeballs shone, As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were shame to see. " Now, now, grim henchman, what is 't with thee ? " Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon the wind hath upblown. *' Three does and a ten-tined buck made out," spoke Hamish, full mild, " And I ran for to turn, but my breath it was blown, and they passed ; 1 was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast." Cried Maclean : " Now a ten-tined buck in the sight of the wife and the child 41 I had killed if the gluttonous kern had not wrought me a snail's own wrong ! " Then he sounded, and down came kinsmen and clansmen all : •' Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let faU, And reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of thong ! " So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes ; at the last he smiled. "Now I'll to the burn," quoth Maclean, "for it still may be, If a slinimer-paunched henchman will hurry with me, I shall kill me the ten-tined buck for a gift to the wife and the child ! " The Revenge of Hamish 39 Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that ; and over the hill Sped Maclean with an outward wrath for an in- ward shame ; And that place of the lashing full quiet became ; 51 And the wife and the child stood sad ; and bloody- backed Hamish sat still But look ! red Hamish has risen ; quick about and about turns he. " There is none betwixt m.e and the crag-top ! " he scieams under breath. Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death, He snatches the child from the mother, and clam- bers the crag toward the sea. Now the mother drops breath ; she is dumb, and her heart goes dead for a space. Till the motherhood, mistress of death, shrieks, shri«iks through the glen, And that place of the lashing is live with men. And Maclean, and the gillie that told him, dash up in a desperate race. Not a breath's time for asking ; an eye-glance 61 reveals all the tale untold. They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the sea. And the lady cries : " Clansmen, run for a fee !— Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook him and hold it! I 40 The Revenge of Hamish IP fast Hamish back from the brink ! " — and ever she Hies up the steep, And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they jostle and strain. But, mother, 'tis vain ; but, father, 'tis vain ; Stern Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles the child o'er the deep. Now a faintness falls on the men that run, and they all stand still. And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God, on her knees, 71 Crying : " Hamish ! O Hamish ! but please, but please For to spare him ! " and Hamish still dangles the child, with a wavering will. On a sudden he turns ; with a sea-kawk scream, and a gibe, and a song. Cries : " So ; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye all, Ten blows on Maclean's bare back shall fall. And ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of the thong ! " Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip that his tooth was red. Breathed short for a space, said : " Nay, but it never shall be ! Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea ! " But the wife : " Can Hamish go fish us the child from the sea, if dead ? The Revenge of Hamish 41 " Say yea !— Let them lash vie, Hamish ? "— " Nay ! " 81 — *' Husband, the lashing will heal ; But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn in his grave ? Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave ? Quick! Love! I will bare thee— so — kneel ! " Then Maclean 'gan slowly to kneel With never a word, till presently downward he jerked to the earth. Then the henchman— he that smote I-famish— would tremble and lag ; " Strike, hard ! " quoth Hamish, full stern, from the crag ; Then he struck him, and " One ! " sang Hamish, and danced with the child in his mirth. And no man spake beside Hamish ; he counted each stroke with a song. When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace down the height. And he held forth the child in the heartaching 91 sight Of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as re- penting a wrong. And there as the motherly arms stretched out with the thanksgiving prayer — And there as the mother crept up with a fearful swift pace. Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie's face- In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the child in the air, 1 ( I «B 42 Remonstrance m And sprang with the child in his arms from the hor- rible height in the sea, Shrill screeching, " Revenge ! " in the wind-rush ; and pallid Maclean, Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain. Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead roots of a tree — loi And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his back drip-dripped in the brine, And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew. And the mother stared white on the waste of blue, And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun began to shine. Baltimore, 1878. REMONSTRANCE I Opinion, let me alone : I am not thine. Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear To feature me my Lord by rule and line. Thou canst not measure Mistress Nature's hair, Not one sweet inch : nay, if thy sight is sharp, Would'st count the strings upon an angel's harp ? Forbear, forbear. Oh let me love my Lord more fathom deep Than there is line to sound with : let me love My fellow not as men that mandates keep ; II Yea, all that 's lovable, below, above, Remonstrance That let me love by heart, by heart, because (Free from the penal pressure of the laws) I find it fair. The tears I weep by day and bitter night, Opinion ! for thy sole salt vintage fall. —As morn by morn I rise with fresh delight, Time through my casement cheerily doth call, " Nature is new, 'tis birthday every day, Come feast with me, let no man say me nay, Whate'er befall." 43 St So fare I forth to feajt : I sit beside Some brother bright : but, ere good-morrow 's passed. Burly Opinion wedging in hath cried, " Thou Shalt not sit by us, to break thy fast. Save to our Rubric thou subscribe and swear— Religion hath blue eyes and yellow hair : She 's Saxon, all." Then, hard a-hungered for my brother's grace Till well-nigh fain to swear his folly 's true. In sad dissent I turn my longing face 31 To him that sits on the left : " Brother,— with you } " — •• Nay, not with me, save thou subscribe and swear Religion hath black eyes and raven hair : Nought else is true." Debarred of banquets that my heart could make With every man on every day of life, I homeward turn, my fires of pain to slake 44 Remonstrance In deep endearments of a worshiped wife. •' I love thee well, dear Love," quoth she, " and yet 4X Would that thy creed with mine completely met. As one, not two." Assassin ! Thief ! Opinion, 'tis thy work. By Church, by throne, by hearth, by every good That 's in the Town of Time, I see thee lurk. And e'er some shadow stays where thou hast stood. Thou hand'st sweet Socrates his hemlock sour ; Thou sav' jt Barabbas in that hideous hour, And stabb'st the good Deliverer Christ ; thou rack'st the souls of men ; 51 Thou tossest girls to lions and boys to flames ; Thou hew'st Crusader down by Saracen ; Thou buildest closets full of secret shames ; Indifferent cruel, thou dost blow the blaze Round Ridley or Servetus ; all thy days Smell scorched ; I would — Thou base-born Accident of time and place- Bigot Pretender unto Judgment's throne— Bastard, that claimest with a cunning face Those rights the true, true Son of Man doth own 61 By Love's authority — thou Rebel cold At head of civil wars and quarrels old — Thou Knife on a throne — I would thou left'st me free, to live with love. And faith, that through the love of love doth find My Lord's dear presence in the stars above, opposition 45 The clods below, the flesh without, the mind Within, the bread, the tear, the smile. Opinion, damned Intriguer, gray with guile, Let me alone. Baltimore, 1878-9. OPPOSITION Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill. Complain no more ; for these, O heart, Direct the random of the will As rhymes direct the rage of art. The lute's fixt fret, that runs athwart The strain and purpose of the string, For governance and nice consort Doth bar his willful wavering. The dark hath many dear avails ; The dark distils divinest dews ; The dark is rich with nightingales, With dreams, and with the heavenly Muse. Bleeding with thorns of petty strife, I '11 ease (as lovers do) my smart With sonnets to my lady Life Writ red in issues from the heart. What grace may lie within the chill Of favor frozen fast in scorn ! When Good 's a-freeze, we call it III \ This rosy Time is glacier-born. 12 H': 46 Mars/t Song— At Sunset 21 Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill. Complain thou not, O heart ; for these Bank-in the current of the will To uses, arts, and charities. Baltimore, 1879-80. MARSH SONG— AT SUNSET I Over the monstrous shambling sea. Over the Caliban sea, Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest : Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West,— Thy Prospero I '11 be. Over the humped and fishy sea, Over the Caliban sea, O cloud in the West, like a thought in the heart Of pardon, loose thy wing, and start, And do a grace for me. II Over the huge and huddling sea. Over the Caliban sea, Bring hither my brother Antonio,— Man,— My injurer : night breaks the ban : Brother, I pardon thee. Baltimore, 1879-80. A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER X Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. Sunrise 47 But the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to Him : The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods He came. Out of the woods my Master went, And He was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, Content with death and shame. When Death and Shame would woo Him last,*^ From under the trees they drew Him last : ' Twas on a tree they slew Him — last When out of the woods He came. Baltimore, November, 1880. :i| II heart .STER SUNRISE In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship*, fain Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main. The litde green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep ; Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep. Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drift- ing, Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting, Came to the gates of sleep. Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon- keep Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling : The gates of sleep fell a-trembling II yi El«: .1 fir illfl . »'g^ 1 1-. . ij r- liii ii'i I 48 Sunrise Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter j¥;sp1rto?fhea'f ''^ ^^^^^ = ^'^^ ^"^^' ^^^ --^^- an^^'m^/e^-ila^bTfu^^se'^t^^re^^^^ A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER In the Introduction (p. xxxi ff.) I have tried to show the intensity and the breadth of Lanier's love of nat- lire m general. President Gates gives a separate section to Lanier s love of trees and plant-life ; and, after quoting some lines on the soothing and inspiring companionship of rees.thus speaks of our Ballad: "This ministration of trees to a mind and heart ■ forspent with shame and grief finds Its culmination in the pathetic lines upon that olive- garden near Jerusalem, which to those of us who have sat 82 Notes — Sunrise within its shade must always seem the most sacred spot on earth. The ahnost mystic exaltation of the power of poetic sympathy which inspired these intense lines, Into the Wood my Muster went, may impair their religious effect for many devout souls. But to many others this short poem will express most wonderfully that essential human-heartedness in the Son of Man. our Divine Saviour, which made Him one with us in His need of the quiet, sympathetic ministrations of nature — perhaps the heart of the reason why this olive-grove was ' the place where He was wont to go ' for prayer." See St. Luke xxii. 39. For Lanier's other poems on Christ see Introduction, p. xxxvii f. SUNRISE In the words of Mrs. Lanier, " Sunrise, Mr. Lanier's latest completed poem, was written while his sun of life seemed fairly at the setting, and the hand which first pen- cilled its lines had not strength to carry nourishment to the lips." See Introduction, p. xviii. Lanier has two other poems on the same theme, both short : A Sunrise Song and Between Dawn and Sunrise (entered under Marsh Hymns). As already pointed out {Introduction,, pp. xxxi, xlvii), Sunrise shows in a powerful way the delicacy and the comprehensiveness of Lanier's love for nature. True, as I have elsewhere stated {Introduction, p. xlvi), the poem has some serious limitations, more I think than has The Marshes of Glynn; but, despite its shortcomings. Sunrise is from an absolute stand-point a great poem ; while, if we consider the circumstances under which it was produced, it is, in the words of Professor Kent, " a world-marvel." Aside from the numerous unapproachable snatches in Shakespeare,' I know of nothing on the subject in English 1 Among others I may cite the following passages : " Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings," in Cymbeline, 2, 3 ; " But look the morn in russet mantle clad Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill," in Hamlet., i» i ; " Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops," in Romeo and Juliet., 3, 5 ; and " Full many a glorious morning have I seen " etc.. Sonnet xxxiii. Notes — Sun rise 83 literature comparable to Sunrise Mr. W. W. Story's i^unrisc is perhaps the closest parallel, and yet it is far in- ferior to Lanier's, as every reader of the two will admit. If one wishes to mal OF LANIER'S LIFE AND WORKS American Youth (Chicago): 3. 102. Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia (New York): 1881, p. 685 : Obituary. ' Unless the title of the criticism is given, the article treats La- nier's life and works in general. Except in special cases no account is made of articles in the daily papers. — For brevity's sake I cite under this head the music composed for several of Lanier's poems. 1 1 ! Bibliography 9J Black, G. D. : The Antiochian (Yellow Springs, O.) 2: 4. 4-6, February, 1886. Black, G. D. : Belford's Magazine (Chicago) 6. 187- 190, January, 1891. Blackman, O. : see Lawrence under V. BoYKiN, Laurettb N. : Home Life of Sidney Lanier, Atlanta, Ga. , 1889, 12 pp. Browne, F. F. : The Dial (Chicago) 5. 244-246, January, 1885. Browne, Wm. H. : Memorial Address before the Johns Hopkins University, October 22, 1881, 8 pp. Private- ly printed. Brownb, Wm. H. : Letter at the Unveiling of a Dust of the Poet at Macon , Ga., October 17, 1890, in 'The At- lanta (^Ga.) Constitution of October 19, 1890. Browne. Wm. H. : I