Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-01-01
BEyIEW OF BOOKS.

THE Poems OF SIDNEY LANIER Edited by his
wife. With a memorial, by William HAYES
Ward. New York Charles Scribner's Sons.
San Francisco y. l.. Bancroft Il Co.
Lanier was one Of the sweetest singers of
our nation. Wemay scarcely concur with
Mr.. Ward that he was one of the princes
of American song" but we may very well
speculate that had he not been cut down
in the very flower of manhood, his genius
would have received the broadest recogni-
ton in the world of letters. While as a
poet he struck chords that few others have
touched and that will continue to vibrate
in the realm of poetry and music, he will
live in the memory of children warmly for
his Boys Froissart,n Boys King Ar
thur" Boys Mabinogion " and Bows
Percy" Lanier was the author of the
novel Tiger Lilies, Florida and its
Climate and History7aand " The English
Novel and the Prifre lies of its Develop
ment."
Lanier was born in Georgia in 1872 He
early manifested passionate love for
music, and at tender age was accom-
plished upon number of musical instru-
graduated from Oglethorpe College at the
age Of Is. He has left a record showing
that he was fully aware that he was gifted
with marvellous musical powers, but that
he felt the highest attachments in music
would afford too small field of action for
him. Literature, he resolved, alone of
fered him room for his ambition He
fought calamity in the Confederate army
as private, and was in service throughout
the war, and even in camp found time to
study German, French, Spanish and music
Five months confinement as prisoner of
war are sketched in thenovel Tiger Lilies"
his first published work; one composed
hastily, but giving promise of the
poetic soul. The war left him broken and
with the seeds OF consumption in his sys-
tenn. He married in 1867. By 1870 he
knew that he had but a few years to live,
and these he devoted to literature and to
music. He lived until September, 1881.
an invalid, purified and spiritualzed by
great sufferings He was not only a poet
and q novelist, but a critic, and in his
. Science of English Verse; proved how
careful and thorough an analysist he was.
1t is perhaps the most original cOnSidera-
tons of rhythm and tone color in verse
of which lite. AZURE affords an example, and
has commanded from its first appearance
the highest respect III literary circles. Mr..
Stedman, the poet and critic, has paid Il
high tribute to Lanier, declaring that no
man more clearly displayed the extreme
conjunction of the artistic with the poetic
temperament. Hamerk, his musical di-
rector for several years, and who knew
every emotion of his soul, declared that
in the cradle it was given to
Lanier to feel and to express him
-..lt -,
nature was like an enchanted instrument.
magic flute, or the Tyre Of Apollo, need
ing but breath or a touch to send its
beauty out into the world" Laniers fancy
was of the brightest hues and the most
daring flights, and his imagination not in
frequently ran away upon its wings and led
him into eXtravaganceS. He was a hard
student, and while a profound believer in
the inspiration of genius, was also a be-
lever in the doctrine that true excel
lencc is attained only through labor. OF
Poe he said he needed to know more" he
did not know enough. Of Whitman he
said He is poetry's butcher. Huge raw
coilops slashed from the rump of poetry,
and never mind gristle-is what Whitman
feeds our souls with OF Swinburne he
was silver and gold, but no food therein
he wrote " He caught crystal, cupful of
the yellow light of the sunset, and persuad-
ing himself to dream it wine, he drank it
with a sort OF smile Whoever reads this
sweet singer, bold thinker, ana devout
poet must be impressed with the thought
that inst Us he died he was bursting forth
into the flower of rarest promise, and
would in few years more have been known
of all English-speaking peoples. OF his
longer poems the Psalm of the West "
stands forward most prominently:
Land Of the willful gospel, thou worst and thou
best
Tall Adam of lands, new-made of the dust of
the West;
Thou wrought alone in the Garden of God, I'M
best,
| Till He fashioned 1.-THE Freedom to lie for thine
Eve on thy breast
Till out of thy heart dear neighborhood, out of
thy side,
He fashioned an intimate Sweet one and brought
thee Bride.
Cry hail, nor bewai that the wound of her COM
ing was wide.
Lo, Freedom reached forth where the world as
an apple hung red:
Let us taste the whole radiant sound of it, gaily
If we die. at the worst we shall lie as the first OF
the dead.
Full of bright color and song, and CLINT
fling sunbeamS, warm and rich is the poem
. Tampa Robins.
The robin laughed in the orange tree;
| "IIo, winter North, a fig for thee;
| While breasts are red and wings are bold,
And green trees wave us globes OF gold,
| Times scythe shall but bless for me
Sunlight song and the orange tree
| "a Song of Love " is brief but rich in
melody and warm as Southern skies
Hey, rose, just born
Twin to Il thorn;
Vast so with you, Love and Scorn?
Sweet eyes that smiled,
No wet and wild
O Eve and Tear-mother and child.
Well; Love and Pain
Be kinsfolk twain
Yet would Oh would could love again.
From the MARSHES of Glynn y we take
single stanza:
Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful braided and
woven
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad
cloven
Chamber the forks of the multiform boughs,-
Emerald twiightS,-
Virginia. shylights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper
of VOWS,
When lovers pace humidity down through the
green colonnades
Ofthe dim sweet woods of the dear dark woods
OF the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach
within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn.
The very last lines Lanier wrote are en-
titled "Srnrise," and were penned while
his own sun of life was setting. 1t is one
of the parts of q Hymns to the Marshes y
In my sleep was fam of their fellowship. fain
Of the live oaks. of the marsh, and the main.
The little green leaves would not let me alone
in my sleep,