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 inapplicability 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 `Life and Song', no singer has ever wholly lived his minstrelsy, Lanier came so near it that we may fairly say, in the closing lines of the poem,"His song was only living aloud, His work, a singing with his hand."And, for my part, I am as grateful for his noble private life as for his distinguished public work.
`The Symphony', l.302.
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 imagination, Lanier was yet, to my mind, indisputably a great poet.For in technique he was akin to Tennyson;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 temporarily 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 remembrance.
Mr.Thayer puts it stronger: "As a master of melodious metre only Tennyson, and he not often, has equalled Lanier." Mr.F.F.Browne, Editor of `The Dial' (Chicago), compares the two poets 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 poet 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 treatment, are his alone; and through them all he justifies his right to the title of poet."PoemsLife and SongIf life were caught by a clarionet,[1]
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 breathing 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 [11]
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!'
____
1868.
Notes: Life and Song `Life and Song' is the fifth of a series of seven poems published under the general heading of `Street-cries', with the two stanzas following as an introduction:
"Oft seems the Time a market-town Where many merchant-spirits meet Who up and down and up and down Cry out along the street"Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO:
Till all the ways are full of sound:
-- But still come rain, and sun, and snow, And still the world goes round."The remaining numbers of the series are: 1.`Remonstrance', given in this volume; 2.`The Ship of Earth'; 3.`How Love Looked for Hell';4.`Tyranny'; 6.`To Richard Wagner'; 7.`A Song of Love'.
I can think of no more helpful comment on the subject of our poem than this sentence from Milton's `Apology for Smectymnuus', already alluded to in the `Introduction' (p.liv [Part VI]):
"And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things;not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy."Lines 19-20.I have been pleased to discover that the application I have made of this poem, especially of these lines (see `Introduction', p.liv [Part VI]), is likewise made by most students of Lanier's life, and that Mrs.Lanier has chosen these two lines for inscription on the monument to be erected to his memory.
On the reverse side of the stone, I may add, are to be put these words:
"He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God" (I John iv.16).
Jones's Private ArgymentThat air same Jones, which lived in Jones, [1]
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 [11]
Is, eat no meat that's boughten:
BUT TEAR UP EVERY I, O, U, AND PLANT ALL CORN AND SWEAR FOR TRUETO 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, [21]
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'.
