The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1914-05-26

iico " -AASS -hois Lay. luSA MdI
rage was ideal. His affection to-
ward his wife is expressed in several
poems. What could be more beau
tiful than the love voiced in the
Evening Song" or in the poem
called My Springs" in which he
commemorate the beauty of her
eyes?
Dear eyes, dear eyes AMI rare COM
plete,
Being heavenly-sweet and earthly
sweet,
/ marvel that God made you mine,
For when he frowns it's then We
shine"
During the last ten years of his
life, although suffering from great
bodily weakness and in the clutches
of fatal malady, he claimed for
himself the privilege of devotion to
the twin arts, music and poetry.
In 1873, in a letter to his wife from
San Antonio, whittier he had gone
In search of health, he wrote:
Were it not for some circum-
stances which make such a propo-
sition absurd in the highest degree,
would think that l am shortly to
die, and that my spirit hath been
singing its swan-song before disso-
luton. All day my soul hath been
cutting swiftly into the great space
of the subtle unspeakable deep, driv-
en- by wind after wind of heavenly
melody. The inner spirit and es-
sence of all wind-songs, bird-songs,
and .body-songs hath blown upon me
in quick gusts like the breath of
passion, and sailed me into a sea Of
vast dreams, whereof each wave is
at once a vision and a melody
Again in the. fall of the same year
he wrote from Baltimore to his
father. who would have had him re-
turn to his home in Macon, prac-
tice law with him and share his in
come:
Il have given your last letter the
fullest and most careful considera-
ton. After doing so l feel sure that
Macon is not the place for me. If
you could taste the delicious crys-
talline air and the champagne breeze
that I've just been rushing about in,
l am equally sure that in point of
climate you would agree with me
that my chance for life is ten times
as great here as in Macon. Then,
as to business, why should l, nay.
how can / settle myself down to a
third rate struggling lawyer for the
balance of my little life, as long as
there is a certainty almost absolute
that l can do something so much
better? My dear father, think how
for twenty years through poverty,
through pain, through WEAKNESS,
through sickness, through all dis
couragement of being wholly unac-
quainted with literary people and lit
erary ways, l say, think how in
spite of all these depressing circum-
stances, and of thousand more
which l could enumerate, these two
figures of music and poetry have
steadily kept in my heart so that /
could not Danish them. Does it not
seem to you as to me, that l begin to
have the right to enroll myself
among the devotees Of these two
sublime arts, after having followed
them SO long and so humbly, and
through so much bitterness?"
One can Well Lelieve that with a
man like Lanier such choice had in
it the solemnity of a conservation.
His ideal of art in the broad sense,
whether literary or other, was so lof-
ty that dedication of himself to the
service was the most serious of acts.
Nor, through adversely, stress and
failure, did he for moment swerve
from that ideal; he held himself as
very priest Of beauty dignifying
at once himself and his calling.
Thought not what would be call
ed religious writer. Lanier's large
and deep thought took him to deep
est spiritual faiths and the vastness
of nature drew him TO trust in the
infinite above us. How naturally
his great faith in God finds express
sion in his Marshes OF Glynn.'
"Ye isperers, whisperers, singers in
storms,
Ye consciences murmuring faiths un-
der forms,
Ye ministers meet for each passion
that grieves.
Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves.
Oh rain me- down from yOur darkS