Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-03-22
IN nIIsNIoRY OF SIDNEY I.AN,I,I,,
The Tablet to be Placed I'm Hopkins Hall
Meeting Of the Subscribers.

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The tablet to the memory of Sidney La
nier is finished, and will be placed in
Hopkins Hall in a few days. 1t is simple
in design and appropriately inscribed.
The subscribers TO the fund met Yesterday
afternoon in President Gilman's room, at
Johns Hopkins University, to inspect the
memorial before it is put in position.
Among those present were President Gill
man, Profs. Sylvester and Remsen; Mr..
George w, Gable. the author; Mr.. John
X. TAFT, the artist: DR.. VIM. III. Browne.
Professor Dawes, Chief Judge Brown
and Mr.. 5. Teackle Wallis. Several ladies
were also in attendance. President Gill
man made brief speech explanatory Of
the gathering. Mr.. Gable made few re-
marks. He was followed by Mr.. TAFT,
who said that brief as was Lanier's career,
uncOmpleted his work and premature the
summons which called him from it, he yet
has given proofs of its fitness that the
world will recognize. A poet par excel
lence, he abandoned without a muir
muir the breezy uplands Of literature to
delve in her common fields, and turned
away from the Outstretched arms of
the muse to guide the stumbling footsteps
Of a mortal. His life was a'silent song
full Of subtle harmonies, moral and intel
lectual, impossible to be expressed in. any
words save his own. His struggle for
~
and disease was heroic, and was borne at
times with gayety even. He rose so com
pfetely above the difficulties of his path
as actually TO ignore them. He planned
new work as if he were in unimpaired
health. and nursed dreams of musical and
dramatic and artistic enterprises that
were beyond the pale of realization.
II remember his describing, when very
i'll himself, the condition of brother poet
Of ba Txrsfh in oh
blended sympathy and tenderness, with n
certain sense Of the grOtesqueness Of the
situation. A poet who lived at a place
no, not place, but a pump in the pine
barrens. where thirsty locomotives stopped
to drink, and where, In a log cabin of
smaller dimensions, tapestried with pic
lures from the illustrated newspapers, the
poet, an invalid, dwelt and wrote and
cared for his family. The laugh ended in
something like sob, and there were tears
in his eyes of admiration for the pluck
and sympathy for the lot of one so much
worse OFF than himself. And yet Paul
Hayne has lived to write his elegy.''
Speaking of summer trip LanIer and
he had made to the mountains of the
Shenandoah, Mr.. TAFT said: "One night he
stood out 90 his balcony and with his flute
played wild, sweet melodies in perfect
consOnance with the place and the scene
the silent woods and the distant noun
tains. The sky was cloudless and the
landscape bathed in pearly light, and the
clear, tender tones of the instrument
seemed almost visible, sparkling like
silver cascade under the moon. OF the
Blue Ridge he once said, the gracious in
clines of ever-changing blue always slant
my thoughts easily up to the infinite"
Mr.. Lanier purchased two of the busts
of himself by Keyser, the Baltimore
sculptor, and presented one to his father
and the other to DIR. Thomas r. Shearer,
who had befriended him. On the latter
bust he himself engraved with Il stylus
the following;
''sinee yop, dear friend, have tied my living
tongue
With thanks more large than men nave said
or sung,
Then let the dumbness of this image be
My elOquence, and still interpret me-"