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Poets of the South

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For a general introduction to Lanier's poetry, see Chapter V.

[Footnote 1: This poem was first published in _Scott's Magazine_, Atlanta,
Georgia, from which it is here taken. It at once became popular,
and was copied in many newspapers throughout the South. It was
subsequently revised, and the changes, which are pointed out below, are
interesting as showing the development of the poet's artistic sense.

The singularly rapid and musical lilt of this poem may be readily traced
to its sources. It is due to the skillful use of short vowels, liquid
consonants, internal rhyme, and constant alliteration. These are matters
of technique which Lanier studiously employed throughout his poetry.

This poem abounds in seeming irregularities of meter. The fundamental
measure is iambic tetrameter, as in the line--

"The rushes cried, _Abide, abide_";

but trochees, dactyls, or anapests are introduced in almost every line,
yet without interfering with the time element of the verse. These
irregularities were no doubt introduced in order to increase the musical
effects.]

[Footnote 2: As may be seen by reference to a map, the Chattahoochee
rises in Habersham County, in northeastern Georgia, and in its south-
westerly course passes through the adjoining county of Hall. Its entire
length is about five hundred miles.]

[Footnote 3: Changed in the revision to "I hurry amain," with the present
tense of the following verbs. The pronoun "his" in line 6 becomes "my."]

[Footnote 4: This line was changed to--

"The laving laurel turned my tide."]

[Footnote 5: In this line the use of a needless antiquated form may be
fairly questioned. In the revised form "win" is changed to "work."]

[Footnote 6: "Barred" is changed to "did bar" in the revision--a doubtful
gain.]

[Footnote 7: The preceding four lines show a decided poetic gain in the
revised form:--

"And many a luminous jewel lone--
Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
Ruby, garnet, and amethyst--
Made lures with the lightnings of streaming stone."]

[Footnote 8: The revised form, with an awkward pause after the first
foot, and also a useless antiquated phrase, reads--

"Avail! I am fain for to water the plain."]

[Footnote 9: Changed to "myriad of flowers."]

[Footnote 10: "Final" was changed to "lordly" with fine effect. This poem
challenges comparison with other pieces of similar theme. It lacks the
exquisite workmanship of Tennyson's _The Brook_, with its incomparable
onomatopoeic effects:--

"I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles."

It should be compared with Hayne's _The River_ and also with his _The
Meadow Brook_:--

"Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
Hark! the tiny swell;
Of wavelets softly, silverly
Toned like a fairy bell,
Whose every note, dropped sweetly
In mellow glamour round,
Echo hath caught and harvested
In airy sheaves of sound!"

But _The Song of the Chattahoochee_ has what the other poems lack,
--a lofty moral purpose. The noble stream consciously resists the
allurements of pleasure to heed "the voices of duty," and this spirit
imparts to it a greater dignity and weight.]

[Footnote 11: This poem appeared in The Independent, July 15, 1880, from
which it is taken. It illustrates the intellectual rather than the
musical side of Lanier's genius. It is purely didactic, and thought
rather than melody guides the poet's pen. The meter is quite regular,--an
unusual thing in our author's most characteristic work.

It shows Lanier's use of pentameter blank verse,--a use that is somewhat
lacking in ease and clearness. The first sentence is longer than that of
Paradise Lost, without Milton's unity and force. Such ponderous sentences
are all too frequent in Lanier, and as a result he is sometimes obscure.
Repeated readings are necessary to take in the full meaning of his best
work.

This poem, though not bearing the distinctive marks of his genius, is
peculiarly interesting for two reasons,--it gives us an insight into his
wide range of reading and study, and it exhibits his penetration and
sanity as a critic. In the long list of great names he never fails to put
his finger on the vulnerable spot. Frequently he is exceedingly
felicitous, as when he speaks of "rapt Behmen, rapt too far," or of
"Emerson, Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost Thy Self
sometimes."]

[Footnote 12: It will be remembered that Lanier was a careful student of
Shakespeare, on whom he lectured to private classes in Baltimore.]

[Footnote 13: See second part of _King Henry IV_, iii. I. The
passage which the poet had in mind begins:--

"How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep!"]

[Footnote 14: See _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_.]

[Footnote 15: These characters are found as follows: Viola in _Twelfth
Night_; Julia in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_; Portia in _The
Merchant of Venice_; and Rosalind in _As You Like It_.]

[Footnote 16: Referring to the well-known catalogue of ships in the
Second Book of the Illiad:--

"My song to fame shall give
The chieftains, and enumerate their ships."

It is in this passage in particular that Homer is supposed to nod.]

[Footnote 17: It will be recalled that Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy,
persuaded Helen, the fairest of women and wife of King Menelaus of
Greece, to elope with him to Troy. This incident gave rise to the famous
Trojan War.]

[Footnote 18: Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was an Athenian philosopher, of
whom Cicero said that he "brought down philosophy from the heavens to the
earth." His teachings are preserved in Xenophon's _Memorabilia_ and
Plato's _Dialogues_.]

[Footnote 19: That is to say, his needless austerity was as much affected
as the dandy's excessive and ostentatious refinement.]

[Footnote 20: Buddha, meaning _the enlightened one_, was Prince
Siddhartha of Hindustan, who died about 477 B.C. He was the founder of
the Buddhist religion, which teaches that the supreme attainment of
mankind is Nirvana or extinction. This doctrine naturally follows from
the Buddhist assumption that life is hopelessly evil. Many of the moral
precepts of Buddhism are closely akin to those of Christianity.]

[Footnote 21: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a native of Florence, is the
greatest poet of Italy and one of the greatest poets of the world. His
immortal poem, _The Divine Comedy_, is divided into three parts
--"Hell," "Purgatory," and "Paradise."]

[Footnote 22: This is a reference to the wars among the angels, which
ended with the expulsion of Satan and his hosts from heaven, as related
in the sixth book of Paradise Lost. This criticism of Milton is as just
as it is felicitous.]

[Footnote 23: Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) was the father of Greek tragedy.
He presents _destiny_ in its sternest aspects. His _Prometheus
Bound_ has been translated by Mrs. Browning, and his _Agamemnon_
by Robert Browning--two dramas that exhibit his grandeur and power at
their best.]

[Footnote 24: Lucretius (about 95-51 B.C.) was the author of a didactic
poem in six books entitled _De Rerum Natura_. It is Epicurean in
morals and atheistic in philosophy. At the same time, as a work of art,
it is one of the most perfect poems that have descended to us from
antiquity.]

[Footnote 25: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 A.D.), one of the best
emperors of Rome, was a noble Stoic philosopher. His _Meditations_
is regarded by John Stuart Mill as almost equal to the Sermon on the
Mount in moral elevation.]

[Footnote 26: Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471) was the author of the famous
_Imitation of Christ_ in which, as Dean Milman says, "is gathered
and concentered all that is elevating, passionate, profoundly pious in
all the older mystics." No other book, except the Bible, has been so
often translated and printed.]

[Footnote 27: Epictetus (born about 50 A.D.) was a Stoic philosopher,
many of whose moral teachings resemble those of Christianity. But he
unduly emphasized renunciation, and wished to restrict human aspiration
to the narrow limits of the attainable.]

[Footnote 28: Jacob Behmen, or Böhme (1575-1624), was a devout mystic
philosopher, whose speculations, containing much that was beautiful and
profound, sometimes passed the bounds of intelligibility.]

[Footnote 29: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a Swedish philosopher
and theologian. His principal work, _Arcana Caelestia_, is made up
of profound speculations and spiritualistic extravagance. He often
oversteps the bounds of sanity.]

[Footnote 30: William Langland, or Langley (about 1332-1400), a disciple
of Wycliffe, was a poet, whose _Vision of Piers Plowman_, written in
strong, alliterative verse, describes, in a series of nine visions, the
manifold corruptions of society, church, and state in England.]

[Footnote 31: Caedmon (lived about 670) was a cowherd attached to the
monastery of Whitby in England. Later he became a poet, and wrote on
Scripture themes in his native Anglo-Saxon. His _Paraphrase_, is, next
to _Beowulf_, the oldest Anglo-Saxon poem in existence.]

[Footnote 32: Lanier was deeply religious, but his beliefs were broader
than any creed. In _Remonstrance_ he exclaims,--

"Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine.
Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear
To feature me my Lord by rule and line."

Yet, as shown in the conclusion of _The Crystal_ he had an exalted
sense of the unapproachable beauty of the life and teachings of Christ.
His tenderest poem is _A Ballad of Trees and the Master_:--

"Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
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."]

[Footnote 33: This poem was first published in _The Independent_, December
14, 1882, from which it is here taken. The editor said, "This poem, we do
not hesitate to say, is one of the few great poems that have been
written on this side of the ocean." With this judgment there will be
general agreement on the part of appreciative readers. On the emotional
side, it may be said to reach the high-water mark of poetic achievement
in this country. Its emotion at times reaches the summits of poetic
rapture; a little more, and it would have passed into the boundary of
hysterical ecstasy.

The circumstances of its composition possess a melancholy interest. It
was Lanier's last and greatest poem. He penciled it a few months before
his death when he was too feeble to raise his food to his mouth and when
a burning fever was consuming him. Had he not made this supreme effort,
American literature would be the poorer. This poem exhibits, in a high
degree, the poet's love for Nature. Indeed, most of his great pieces--
_The Marshes of Glynn, Clover, Corn_, and others--are inspired by the
sights and sounds of Nature. _Sunrise_, in general tone and style,
closely resembles _The Marshes of Glynn_.

The musical theories of Lanier in relation to poetry find their highest
exemplification in _Sunrise_. It is made up of all the poetic feet
--iambics, trochees, dactyls, anapests--so that it almost defies any
attempt at scansion. But the melody of the verse never fails; equality of
time is observed, along with a rich use of alliteration and assonance.

The poem may be easily analyzed; and a distinct notation of its
successive themes may be helpful to the young reader. Its divisions are
marked by its irregular stanzas. It consists of fifteen parts as follows:
1. The call of the marshes to the poet in his slumbers, and his awaking.
2. He comes as a lover to the live-oaks and marshes. 3. His address to
the "man-bodied tree," and the "cunning green leaves." 4. His petition
for wisdom and for a prayer of intercession. 5. The stirring of the owl.
6. Address to the "reverend marsh, distilling silence." 7. Description of
the full tide. 8. "The bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence." 9.
The motion of dawn. 10. The golden flush of the eastern sky. 11. The
sacramental marsh at worship. 12. The slow rising of the sun above the
sea horizon. 13. Apostrophe to heat. 14. The worker must pass from the
contemplation of this splendor to his toil. 15. The poet's
inextinguishable adoration of the sun.]

[Footnote 34: "Gospeling glooms" means glooms that convey to the
sensitive spirit sweet messages of good news.]

[Footnote 35: Lanier continually attributes personality to the objects of
Nature, and places them in tender relations to man. Here the little
leaves become--

"Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves,"

as a few lines before they were "little masters." In _Individuality_
we read,--

"Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud."

And in _Corn_ there is a passage of great tenderness:--

"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."]

[Footnote 36: This passage is Wordsworthian in spirit. Nature is regarded
as a teacher who suggests or reveals ineffable things. Lanier might have
said, as did Wordsworth,--

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."]

[Footnote 37: Lanier had a lively and vigorous imagination, which is seen
in his use of personification and metaphor. In this poem almost every
object--trees, leaves, marsh, streams, sun, heat--is personified. This
same fondness for personification may be observed in his other
characteristic poems.

In the use of metaphor it may be doubted whether the poet is always so
happy. There is sometimes inaptness or remoteness in his resemblances. To
liken the naming heavens to a beehive, and the rising sun to a bee
issuing from the "hive-hole," can hardly be said to add dignity to the
description.

In _Clover_ men are clover heads, which the Course-of-things, as an
ox, browses upon:--

"This cool, unasking Ox
Comes browsing o'er my hills and vales of Time,
And thrusts me out his tongue, and curls it, sharp,
And sicklewise, about my poets' heads,
And twists them in....
and champs and chews,
With slantly-churning jaws and swallows down."]

[Footnote 38: The deities of Olympus, being immortal, have no need of
strenuous haste. They may well move from pleasure to pleasure with
stately leisure.]


* * * * *

SELECTIONS FROM FATHER RYAN

SONG OF THE MYSTIC [1]

I walk down the Valley of Silence--[2]
Down the dim, voiceless valley--alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God's and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!

Long ago was I weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago was I weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago was I weary of places
Where I met but the human--and sin.[3]

I walked in the world with the worldly;
I craved what the world never gave;
And I said: "In the world each Ideal,
That shines like a star on life's wave,
Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,
And sleeps like a dream in a grave."

And still did I pine for the Perfect,
And still found the False with the True;
I sought 'mid the Human for Heaven,
But caught a mere glimpse of its Blue;
And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal
Veiled even that glimpse from my view.

And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human,
And I moaned 'mid the mazes of men,
Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar,
And I heard a voice call me. Since then
I walked down the Valley of Silence
That lies far beyond mortal ken.

Do you ask what I found in the Valley?
'Tis my Trysting Place with the Divine.
And I fell at the feet of the Holy,
And above me a voice said: "Be Mine."
And there arose from the depths of my spirit
An echo--"My heart shall be thine."

Do you ask how I live in the Valley?
I weep--and I dream--and I pray.
But my tears are as sweet as the dewdrops
That fall on the roses in May;
And my prayer like a perfume from censers,
Ascendeth to God night and day.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence
I dream all the songs that I sing;[4]
And the music floats down the dim Valley,
Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to hearts, like the dove of the deluge
A message of peace they may bring.

But far on the deep there are billows
That never shall break on the beach;
And I have heard songs in the Silence
That never shall float into speech;
And I have had dreams in the Valley
Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen thoughts in the Valley--
Ah me! how my spirit was stirred!
And they wear holy veils on their faces,
Their footsteps can scarcely be heard:
They pass through the Valley like virgins,
Too pure for the touch of a word![5]

Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care?
It lieth afar between mountains,
And God and His angels are there:
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow,
And one the bright mountain of Prayer.



THE CONQUERED BANNER [6]

Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary;
Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary;
Furl it, fold it, it is best;
For there's not a man to wave it,
And there's not a sword to save it,
And there's not one left to lave it
In the blood which heroes gave it;
And its foes now scorn and brave it;
Furl it, hide it--let it rest![7]

Take that Banner down! 'tis tattered;
Broken is its staff and shattered;
And the valiant hosts are scattered
Over whom it floated high.
Oh! 'tis hard for us to fold it;
Hard to think there's none to hold it;
Hard that those who once unrolled it
Now must furl it with a sigh.

Furl that Banner! furl it sadly!
Once ten thousands hailed it gladly,
And ten thousands wildly, madly,
Swore it should forever wave;
Swore that foeman's sword should never
Hearts like theirs entwined dissever,
Till that flag should float forever
O'er their freedom or their grave!

Furl it! for the hands that grasped it,
And the hearts that fondly clasped it,
Cold and dead are lying low;
And that Banner--it is trailing!
While around it sounds the wailing
Of its people in their woe.

For, though conquered, they adore it!
Love the cold, dead hands that bore it!
Weep for those who fell before it!
Pardon those who trailed and tore it![8]
But, oh! wildly they deplore it,
Now who furl and fold it so.

Furl that Banner! True, 'tis gory,
Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory,
And 'twill live in song and story,
Though its folds are in the dust:
For its fame on brightest pages,
Penned by poets and by sages,
Shall go sounding down the ages--

Furl its folds though now we must.
Furl that Banner, softly, slowly!
Treat it gently--it is holy--
For it droops above the dead.
Touch it not--unfold it never,
Let it droop there, furled forever,
For its people's hopes are dead![9]



THE SWORD OF ROBERT LEE [10]

Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright,
Flashed the sword of Lee!
Far in the front of the deadly fight,
High o'er the brave in the cause of Right,
Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light,
Led us to victory.

Out of its scabbard, where full long
It slumbered peacefully,
Roused from its rest by the battle's song,
Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong,
Guarding the right, avenging the wrong,
Gleamed the sword of Lee.

Forth from its scabbard, high in air
Beneath Virginia's sky--
And they who saw it gleaming there,
And knew who bore it, knelt to swear
That where that sword led they would dare
To follow--and to die.

Out of its scabbard! Never hand
Waved sword from stain as free;
Nor purer sword led braver band,
Nor braver bled for a brighter land,
Nor brighter land had a cause so grand,
Nor cause a chief like Lee![11]

Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed
That sword might victor be;
And when our triumph was delayed,
And many a heart grew sore afraid,
We still hoped on while gleamed the blade
Of noble Robert Lee.

Forth from its scabbard all in vain
Bright flashed the sword of Lee;
'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again,
It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain,
Defeated, yet without a stain,
Proudly and peacefully.



DEATH [12]

Out of the shadows of sadness,
Into the sunshine of gladness,
Into the light of the blest;
Out of a land very dreary,
Out of the world very weary,
Into the rapture of rest.

Out of to-day's sin and sorrow,
Into a blissful to-morrow,
Into a day without gloom;
Out of a land filled with sighing,
Land of the dead and the dying,
Into a land without tomb.

Out of a life of commotion,
Tempest-swept oft as the ocean,
Dark with the wrecks drifting o'er,
Into a land calm and quiet;
Never a storm cometh nigh it,
Never a wreck on its shore.

Out of a land in whose bowers
Perish and fade all the flowers;
Out of the land of decay,
Into the Eden where fairest
Of flowerets, and sweetest and rarest,
Never shall wither away.

Out of the world of the wailing
Thronged with the anguished and ailing;
Out of the world of the sad,
Into the world that rejoices--
World of bright visions and voices--
Into the world of the glad.

Out of a life ever mournful,
Out of a land very lornful,
Where in bleak exile we roam,[13]
Into a joy-land above us,
Where there's a Father to love us--
Into our home--"Sweet Home."



PRESENTIMENT [14]

Cometh a voice from a far-land,
Beautiful, sad, and low;
Shineth a light from the star-land
Down on the night of my woe;
And a white hand, with a garland,
Biddeth my spirit to go.

Away and afar from the night-land,
Where sorrow o'ershadows my way,
To the splendors and skies of the light-land,
Where reigneth eternity's day,--
To the cloudless and shadowless bright-land,
Whose sun never passeth away.

And I knew the voice; not a sweeter
On earth or in Heaven can be;
And never did shadow pass fleeter
Than it, and its strange melody;
And I know I must hasten to meet her,
"Yea, _Sister!_ Thou callest to me!"

And I saw the light; 'twas not seeming,
It flashed from the crown that she wore,
And the brow, that with jewels was gleaming,
My lips had kissed often of yore!
And the eyes, that with rapture were beaming,
Had smiled on me sweetly before.

And I saw the hand with the garland,
Ethel's hand--holy and fair;
Who went long ago to the far-land
To weave me the wreath I shall wear;
And to-night I look up to the star-land
And pray that I soon may be there.[15]



NIGHT THOUGHTS [16]

Some reckon their age by years,
Some measure their life by art,--
But some tell their days by the flow of their tears,
And their life, by the moans of their heart.

The dials of earth may show
The length--not the depth of years;
Few or many they come, few or many they go,
But our time is best measured by tears.

Ah! not by the silver gray
That creeps through the sunny hair,
And not by the scenes that we pass on our way,
And not by the furrows the fingers of care,

On forehead and face, have made:
Not so do we count our years;
Not by the sun of the earth, but the shade
Of our souls, and the fall of our tears.

For the young are oft-times old,
Though their brow be bright and fair;
While their blood beats warm, their heart lies cold--
O'er them the springtime, but winter is there.

And the old are oft-times young,
When their hair is thin and white;
And they sing in age, as in youth they sung,
And they laugh, for their cross was light.

But bead by bead I tell
The rosary of my years;
From a cross to a cross they lead,--'tis well!
And they're blest with a blessing of tears.

Better a day of strife
Than a century of sleep;
Give me instead of a long stream of life,
The tempests and tears of the deep.

A thousand joys may foam
On the billows of all the years;
But never the foam brings the brave [17] heart home--
It reaches the haven through tears.

For a general introduction to Father Ryan's poetry, see Chapter VI.

[Footnote 1: As stated in the sketch of Father Ryan, this poem strikes
the keynote to his verse. It therefore properly opens his volume of
poems. It became popular on its first publication, and was copied in
various papers. It is here taken from the _Religious Herald_, Richmond,
Virginia.]

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