Accordingly he hoped that he would accomplish something different from the popular poetry of the period. Time and again he spoke of "the feeble magazine lyrics" of his time. "This is the kind of poetry that is technically called culture poetry, yet it is in reality the product of a WANT of culture. If these gentlemen and ladies would read the old English poetry . . . they could never be content to put forth these little diffuse prettinesses and dandy kickshaws of verse." And again: "In looking around at the publications of the younger American poets, I am struck with the circumstance that none of them even ATTEMPT anything great. . . . Hence the endless multiplications of those little feeble magazine lyrics which we all know: consisting of one minute idea each, which is put in the last line of the fourth verse, the other three verses and three lines being mere surplusage." His characterizations of contemporary poetry are strikingly like those of Walt Whitman. Different as they were in nearly every respect, the two poets were yet alike in their idea that there should be a reaction against the conventional and artificial poetry of their time, — the difference being, that Whitman's reaction took the direction of formlessness, while Lanier's was concerned about the extension and revival of poetic forms. In both poets there is a range and sweep, both of conception and of utterance, that sharply differentiates them from all other poets since the Civil War.

The question then is, whether Lanier, with his lofty conception of the poet's work, and with his faith in himself, succeeded in writing poetry that will stand the test of time. He undoubtedly had some of the necessary qualities of a poet. He had, first of all, a sense of melody that found vent primarily in music and then in words which moved with a certain rhythmic cadence. "A holy tune was in my soul when I fell asleep; it was going when I awoke. This melody is always moving along in the background of my spirit. If I wish to compose, I abstract my attention from the things which occupy the front of the stage, the 'dramatis personae' of the moment, and fix myself upon the deeper scene in the rear." "All day my soul hath been cutting swiftly into the great space of the subtle, unspeakable deep, driven by wind after wind of heavenly melody," he writes at another time. His best poems move to the cadence of a tune. He probably heard them as did Milton the lines of "Paradise Lost". Sometimes there was a lilt like the singing of a bird, and sometimes the lyric cry, and yet again the music of the orchestra. "He has an ear for the distribution of instruments, and this gives him a desire for the antiphonal, for introducing an answer, or an echo, or a compensating note," says Mr. Higginson. Sometimes, as in the "Marshes of Glynn" and in the best parts of "Sunrise", there is a cosmic rhythm that is like unto the rhythmic beating of the heart of God, of which Poe and Lanier have written eloquently.

Besides this melody that was temperamental, Lanier had ideas. He was alive to the problems of his age and to the beauties of nature. One has only to think of the names of his poems to realize how many themes occupied his attention. He wrote of religion, social questions, science, philosophy, nature, love. "My head and my heart are both [so] full of poems," he says. "So many great ideas for art are born to me each day, I am swept into the land of All-delight by their strenuous sweet whirlwind." "Every leaf that I brush against breeds a poem." "A thousand vital elements rill through my soul." So he is in no sense a "jingle man". There is a note of healthy mysticism in his poetry that makes him akin to Wordsworth and Emerson. A series of poems might be selected that would entitle him to the praise of being "the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit."

With the spiritual endowment of a poet and an unusual sense of melody, where was he lacking in what makes a great poet? In power of expression. He never attained, except in a few poems, that union of sound and sense which is characteristic of the best poetry. The touch of finality is not in his words; the subtle charm of verse outside of the melody and the meaning is not his — he failed to get the last "touches of vitalizing force." He did not, as Lowell said of Keats, "rediscover the delight and wonder that lay enchanted in the dictionary." He did not attain to "the perfection and the precision of the instantaneous line." Take his poem "Remonstrance", for instance. It is a strong utterance against tyranny and intolerance and bigotry, hot from his soul; but the expression is not worthy of his feeling. A few lines of Lowell's "Fable for Critics" about freedom are better. The same may be said of his attack on agnosticism in "Acknowledgment". "Corn", while representing an extremely poetical situation, leaves one with the feeling of incompleteness: the ideas are not adequately or felicitously expressed. There is melody in the "Marsh Song at Sunset", but the poem is not clear. Or take what many consider his masterpiece, "Sunrise". There is one of the most imaginative situations a poet could have, — the ecstasy of the poet's soul as he rises from his bed to go to the forest, the silence of the night, the mystery of the deep green woods, the coming of "my lord, the Sun." There is nothing in American poetry that goes beyond the sweep and range of this conception. But look at the words; with the exception of the first stanza and those that describe the dawn, there is a nervousness of style, a strain of expression. If one compare even the best parts with the "Evening of Extraordinary Splendor and Beauty" by Wordsworth, he sees the difference in the art of expression. There is in Wordsworth's poem the romantic mood, — the same uplift of soul in the presence of the greater phenomena of nature, — but there is a classic restraint of form; it is "emotion recollected in tranquillity."

What, then, is the explanation of this defect in Lanier? Undoubtedly lack of time to revise his work is one cause. Speaking of one of his poems, he said, "Being cool next day, I find some flaws in my poem." And again, "On seeing the poem in print, I find it faulty; there's too much matter in it." Sickness, poverty, and hard work prevented him from having that repose which is the proper mood of the artist. He had to write as long a poem as "The Symphony" in four days, the "Psalm of the West" in a few weeks. "Sunrise" was dictated on his death-bed. The revision of "Corn" and of all other poems which I have been able to compare with the first drafts shows conclusively that he had the power of improving his work. With more time he might have achieved with all of his poems some of the results attained by such careful workmen as Tennyson and Poe.

But lack of time for revision will not explain all. There were certain temperamental defects in Lanier as poet. There was a lack of spontaneous utterance. Writing once of Swinburne, he used words that characterize well one phase of his own work: "It is always the Fourth of July with Mr. Swinburne. It is impossible in reading this strained laborious matter not to remember that the case of poetry is precisely that where he who conquers, conquers without strain. There was a certain damsel who once came to King Arthur's court, 'gert' (as sweet Sir Thomas Malory hath it) 'with a sword for to find a man of such virtue to draw it out of the scabbard.' King Arthur, to set example to his knights, first essayed, and pulled at it eagerly, but the sword would not out. 'Sir,' said the damsel, 'ye need not to pull half so hard, for he that shall pull it out shall do it with little might.'" This is not to say that Lanier simulated poetic expression, but his words are not inevitable enough. He often lacked simplicity.

Furthermore, he suffered from a tendency to indulge in fancies, "sucking sweet similes out of the most diverse objects." He was inoculated with the "conceit virus" of the seventeenth century. In a letter already quoted, he pointed out this defect to his father, and he never overcame it. He did not restrain his luxuriant imagination. The poem "Clover" is almost spoiled by the conceit of the ox representing the "Course-of-things" and trampling upon the souls (the clover-blossoms) of the poets. "Sunrise" is marred by the figure of the bee-hive from which the "star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee, . . . the great Sun-Bee," emerges in the morning. Such examples might be easily multiplied.

Lanier was undoubtedly hampered, too, by his theory of verse. The very poem "Special Pleading", in which he said that he began to work out his theory, is a failure. Alliteration, assonance, compound words, personifications, are greatly overused. Some of the rhymes are as grotesque as Browning's. Instead of the perfect union of sound and sense, there is often a mere chanting of words.

It is futile to deny these tendencies in Lanier. They vitiate more than half his poems, and are defects even in some of the best. Sometimes, in his very highest flight, he seems to have been winged by one of these arrows. But it is equally futile to deny that he frequently rises above all these limitations and does work that is absolutely unique, and original, and enduring. Distinction must be made, as in the case of every other man who has marked qualities of style, between his good work and his bad work. He has done enough good work to entitle him to a place among the genuine poets of America. No American anthology would be complete that did not contain some dozen or more of his poems, and no study of American poetry would be complete that did not take into consideration twice this number. It is too soon yet to fix upon such poems, but surely they may be found among the following: such lyrics as "An Evening Song", "My Springs", "A Ballad of Trees and the Master", "Betrayal", "Night and Day", "The Stirrup-Cup", and "Nirvana"; such sonnets as "The Mocking-Bird" and "The Harlequin of Dreams"; such nature poems as "The Song of the Chattahoochee", "The Waving of the Corn", and "From the Flats"; such poems of high seriousness as "Individuality", "Opposition", "How Love looked for Hell", and "A Florida Sunday"; such a stirring ballad as "The Revenge of Hamish"; the opening lines and the Columbus sonnets of the "Psalm of the West"; and the longer poems, "The Symphony", "Sunrise", and "The Marshes of Glynn".

The first may be quoted as an illustration of Lanier's lyric quality. Those who have heard it sung to the music of Mr. Dudley Buck can realize to some extent Lanier's idea of the union of music and poetry: — Look off, dear Love, across the shallow sands, And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea, How long they kiss in sight of all the lands. Ah! longer, longer, we. Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun, As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine, And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'T is done, Love, lay thine hand in mine. Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart; Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands. O night! divorce our sun and sky apart, Never our lips, our hands.

Throughout his poems — some of them imperfect enough as wholes — there are lines that come from the innermost soul of poetry: — But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill. The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep. Happy-valley hopes Beyond the bend of roads. I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine, Holding the hills and heavens in my heart For contemplation. Sweet visages of all the souls of time Whose loving service to the world has been In the artist's way expressed. A perfect life in perfect labor wrought. The artist's market is the heart of man; The artist's price, some little good of man. He summ'd the words in song. The whole sweet round Of littles that large life compound! My brain is beating like the heart of Haste. Where an artist plays, the sky is low. Thou 'rt only a gray and sober dove, But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love. Oh, sweet, my pretty sum of history, I leapt the breadth of Time in loving thee! Music is love in search of a word. His song was only living aloud, His work, a singing with his hand! And Science be known as the sense making love to the All, And Art be known as the soul making love to the All, And Love be known as the marriage of man with the All.

Indeed, if one had to rely upon one poem to keep alive the fame of Lanier, he could single out "The Marshes of Glynn" with assurance that there is something so individual and original about it, and that, at the same time, there is such a roll and range of verse in it, that it will surely live not only in American poetry but in English. Here the imagination has taken the place of fancy, the effort to do great things ends in victory, and the melody of the poem corresponds to the exalted thought. It has all the strong points of "Sunrise", with but few of its limitations. There is something of Whitman's virile imagination and Emerson's high spirituality combined with the haunting melody of Poe's best work. Written in 1878, when Lanier was in the full exercise of all his powers, it is the best expression of his genius and one of the few great American poems.

The background of the poem — as of "Sunrise" — is the forest, the coast and the marshes near Brunswick, Georgia. Early in life Lanier had been thrilled by this wonderful natural scenery, and later visits had the more powerfully impressed his imagination. He is the poet of the marshes as surely as Bryant is of the forests, or Wordsworth of the mountains.

The poet represents himself as having spent the day in the forest and coming at sunset into full view of the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes. The glooms of the live-oaks and the emerald twilights of the "dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods," have been as a refuge from the riotous noon-day sun. More than that, in the wildwood privacies and closets of lone desire he has known the passionate pleasure of prayer and the joy of elevated thought. His spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within, — he is ready for what Wordsworth calls a "god-like hour": — But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, — Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know, And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within, That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore, And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, — Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face The vast sweet visage of space. To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn, For a mete and a mark To the forest-dark: — So: Affable live-oak, leaning low, — Thus — with your favor — soft, with a reverent hand (Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!) Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand On the firm-packed sand, Free By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea. . . . . . And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky! A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade, Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade, Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain, To the terminal blue of the main. 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. . . . . . As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God: I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies: 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. And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty the sea Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be: Look how the grace of the sea doth go About and about through the intricate channels that flow Here and there, Everywhere, Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low-lying lanes, And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow In the rose-and-silver evening glow. Farewell, my lord Sun! The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass stir; Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr; Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; And the sea and the marsh are one. How still the plains of the waters be! The tide is in his ecstasy. The tide is at his highest height: And it is night. And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep Roll in on the souls of men, But who will reveal to our waking ken The forms that swim and the shapes that creep Under the waters of sleep? And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the tide comes in On the length and the breadth of the marvelous marshes of Glynn.

In the light of such a poem Lanier's poetry and his life take on a new significance. The struggles through which he passed and the victory he achieved are summed up in a passage which may well be the last word of this biography. For Sidney Lanier was The catholic man who hath mightily won God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.



[End of original text.]



Notes to the text:



The illustrations cannot be included in this ASCII edition. This list of illustrations originally followed the table of contents:

List of Illustrations

Sidney Lanier in 1870. (Photogravure.) Frontispiece Sidney Lanier at the age of fifteen, in 1857 Sidney Lanier in 1866, from a "carte de visite" photograph in possession of Mr. Milton H. Northrup, of Syracuse, N.Y. Mary Day Lanier in 1873 Facsimile of one of Lanier's earliest existing musical scores, written at the age of 19 Facsimile of letter to Charlotte Cushman Bronze bust of Sidney Lanier by Ephraim Keyser

The index, being unnecessary, has been omitted.

The following changes were made to the text:

Throughout the text, contractions including "n't", as in "isn't", "wasn't", "wouldn't", etc., were in the original text given in an older form, e.g. "is n't", "was n't", "would n't", etc. These occurrences have been modernised.

Chapter III:

"his thin hands tightly clinched," changed to: "his thin hands tightly clenched,"

Chapter IV:

"In another letter (June 29, 1866) he encloses a photograph* and comments on" (accompanied by the footnote: "* See p. 54.", referring to a "carte de visite" photograph facing that page, which cannot be included in this ASCII text) changed to: "In another letter (June 29, 1866) he encloses a photograph and comments on"

Chapter V:

"English annalists and poets, — Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Mallory," changed to: "English annalists and poets, — Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Malory," (the latter spelling is given in every other instance in the book).

Chapter VII:

"This is the sixth letter I've written since nine o'clock to night," changed to: "This is the sixth letter I've written since nine o'clock to-night,"

"The Song of the Chattahooche" changed to: ". . . Chattahoochee".

Chapter XI:

The poem by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull had only the ending quotation mark in the original text. An opening quotation mark was added.

Chapter XIII:

"Where men his Self must see," changed to: "Where men his Self must see."

'"Corn" while representing' changed to: '"Corn", while representing'

'"An Evening Song", "My Springs", "A Ballad of the Trees and the Master",' changed to: '"An Evening Song", "My Springs", "A Ballad of Trees and the Master",'

The numerous references to "Shakspere" were NOT standardized to "Shakespeare", although both spellings occur in the text. This is primarily due to the references to Lanier's book, "Shakspere and His Forerunners".

Please note that other titles relating to Lanier are also now online.

Accents cannot be displayed correctly in ASCII. The following lines are given to show where accents occurred in the original:

notably the Moncures, the Maurys, the Latane/s, and the Flournoys, characteristic of the old re/gime. (and other occurrences of "regime") They fe^ted me to death, nearly. . . . Indeed, they were all "His dialogue reads too often like a catalogue 'raisonne/' of his library." A party of hunters — including Philip Sterling and Paul Ru"betsahl, (and other occurrences of "Ruebetsahl") "A terrible me^le/e of winged opposites is forever filling the world into contemporary life, and occasionally an exquisite lyric like "Nirva^na". (and other occurrences of "Nirvana") play his overture to 'Tannha"user'. The 'Music of the Future' is surely found a seat, and the ba^ton tapped and waved, and I plunged into the sea, (and other occurrences of "baton") of the San Fernando Cathedral and of the Mission San Jose/ de Aquayo into 'La Me/lancolie', which melted itself forth with such eloquent lamenting The director of the Peabody Orchestra, who had been a pupil of Von Bu"low, (and other occurrences of "Buelow") the Germania Ma"nnerchor Orchestra, — one of the many companies of Germans with appealing to the (ae)sthetic emotions of an audience, (and other occurrences of "aesthetic" and "aesthetical") with stringing notes together — mere trouve es of a day — She was the daughter of the Marquis de la Figanie e, when this now-hatching brood of my Ephemer(ae) shall take flight without enjoying the poet's nai"ve enthusiasm and his clear insight by followers of Arnold and Brunetie e, after many class-room that the English poetry written between the time of Aldhelm and C(ae)dmon (and other occurrences of "Caedmon") with deeds of manhood before Zu"tphen and touch their hearts and had coo"perated with him in the series of lectures how to coo"perate with other men in the prosecution of inquiry." These lectures, suggested by those given at the Colle/ge de France, Gayarre/'s histories, the "War between the States", by Alexander H. Stephens, (and other occurrences of "Gayarre") open-minded not prejudiced, modern and not medi(ae)val. His characteristics of the e/lite of all ages encircles a mountain which is dominated before it displays its magic, like the modern spiritualistic se/ance-givers how blank, world-bound, and wearying is the stone fac,ade of hopelessness thoroughly musical; Sophocles and (Ae)schylus were both teachers of the chorus. to King Arthur's court, 'ge/rt' (as sweet Sir Thomas Malory hath it)



End of this Etext of "Sidney Lanier", by Edwin Mims