The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1915-08-22


els to the memory of Sidney Lanier and
Walt Whitman is not much more than a
burlesque. for Americas two great poets
would not be honored in it.-Birmlngham
Age Herald.
| 1t does seem the irony of Fate tina,
a man of such transeendant genius as
was Sidney Lanier's should go unknown
and unsung." not only by the HAL of
! Fame" but by even his own beloved
southland; and it seems incredible that
there are so many educated men and
women In the south who arc entirely UNI
! familiar with his writings and poetry.
| A few years ago the Chautauqua asso-
citation, Chautauqua, n. Y, chose Sidney
| Lanier as class poet. and on this occa-
sion Bishop Vincent. one of the found
ers of the association, after delivering
the beccalaureate address to the gradu-
ating class, read letter written by
Thomas Carlisle. the English essayist,
in which Carlisle declared that he con-
sdered Sidney Lanier not only the great
| est American poet. but the greatest poet
the English speaking races nave pro-
duced. After reading this letter, Bishop
Vincent said 1.anier was better known
and more appreciated in the north than
in the south, the home of his birth, but
that his poems had been translated into
many foreign languagesl Carlisle died
in February, 1881, and Sidney Lanier IN
| August of the same year, at the age OF
IS years. In 1903 Mr.. Morgan Galloway,
Jr.. Phi. D., associate professor OF Eng
fish phllology In the University or Texas,
formerly fellow of the Johns Hopkins
university. and author of the Absolute
Participe in Anglo-Saxon," compiled a
little volume of Select Poems of Sidney
Lanier." edited with nores ana bibliog-
raphy in which he says:
"Iampered though Lanier was by few
ness OF years, by feebleness of body, by
shortness OF bread, and, most of all, per-
haps, by oyer-luxuriance of Imagination
Lanier was yet to my mind indisputably
a great poet For intechnique, he was
akin to Tennyson In the love of beauty,
and in lyric sweetness to keats and
Shelley; In the love of Nature. to Words
worth, and in Ruskin, the gist of whose
teaching is that we are souls, temper
arily, having bodies; to Milton, God
gifted organ voice of England; and to
Browning, subtlest asserter of the sou
In song"
Mr.. Thayer. critic ana writer said
of Lanier:
Tennyson, and he not often, has equalee
Lanier"
Mr.. F. f. Browne. editor of The Dial
Chicago, said:
1.-THE comparison of Lanier with Ten
nyson will, indeed. only deepen the i'm
preston of his originality which is his
most striking quality. 1t may be doubted
il any English poet of our time, excep
Tennyson, has cast his work in amplel
mould or wrought with more freedom
or stamped his product with the impress
of stronger personality. His thought
his standpoint his expression, his form
of treatment are his alone, and through
them all he justifles his right TO the titls
of great poet
So much for what the critics have sale
of I.anier and now something of hi:
poetry and, reader, IL you are not IA
miliar with his great poems, Sunrise,
Corn" "A Symphony 1.-THE Marshes
of Glynn" and 1.-The Song of the Chat
tahoochie," | envy you the thrills of de
light that will be yours when you reao
them, especially THE Marshes of Glynn'
and 1.-THE Song of the Chattahoochie,
OF which poem Mr. Ward, a very careful
critic, says: ut strikes a higher key and
is scarcely less musical than Tennyson''
, The Brook"
Lanler, like all true poets, was grea
lover of Nature, and in these lines from
|
restful:
"Oh, what is abroad in the marsh. ant
the terminal sea?
Somehow my soul seems suddenly FREE
From the weighing of fate, and the SAL
| discussion of sin.
BY the length and the breadth. and thu
sweep of the Marshes of Glynn."
Notice the tenderness in these lines o
Corn:
"The leaVes that wave against my cheel
caress
| Like women's hands; the embracing
boughs express
subtlety of mighty tenderness
Tho copse-depths into little noises
start
That sound anon like beatings of thu
heart!
Anon like talk twixt lips not far apart!
And methinks a wooing like this SHOULD
be irreslstlble:
81 would my lover kneelng at my fee
In humble Madness should cry. Q
sweet!
know not II thy heart my heart will
greet
| II ask not II thy love my love can meet
say.
I'll kiss thine answer, be 1t yea or nay
| do but know I love thee and l pra.
| To be thy knight until my dying Day.
| This is from "rhe Symphony" and Dr.
Galloway said he considered the abov
lines quite as hgh-souled as Brown
ings One Way of Love which he hal
long considered the highwater mark o
the Chivalrous in love"
Many poets have written of the beaut.
OF womans eyes. notably, Shakespeare
Byron. Lodge, Johnson, Herrlck, Thoma
Stanley. Coleridge and Wordsworth; but
to my mind, the following three stanza
from Lanier's MY Springs, poem OF
his wifes eyes, are incomparably beau
tiful:
Shot through with lights of stars ant
III dawns,
And Swallowed sweet by ferns ant
fawns,
Thus heaven and earth together vie
Their shining depths to sanctify.
oval and large and passion-pure,
And gray and wise and honor-sure;
Soft as dying violet breath
Set calmly unafraid of death;
Dear eyes. dear eyes, and rare com
plete-
Being heavenly sweet and earthly sweet
marvel that God made you mine.
For when He frowns tbs then we shine!