Chapter VI: Abram J. Ryan (3)

"To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware."]

* * * * *

SELECTIONS FROM SIDNEY LANIER

SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE [1]

Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,[2]
The hurrying rain,[3] to reach the plain,
Has run the rapid and leapt the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accepted his bed, or narrow or wide,
And fled from folly on every side,
With a lover's pain to attain the plain,
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the hills of Habersham,
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried, _Abide, abide_;
The wilful water weeds held me thrall,
The laurel, slow-laving,[4] turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said _stay_,
The dewberry dipped for to win delay,[5]
And the little reeds sighed _Abide, abide_,
_Here in the hills of Habersham,_
_Here in the valleys of Hall._

High over the hills of Habersham,
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, _Pass not so cold these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall._

And oft in the hills of Habersham,
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Barred[6] me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a metal lay sad, alone,
And the diamond, the garnet, the amethyst,
And the crystal that prisons a purple mist,
Showed lights like my own from each cordial stone[7]
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall,
Shall hinder the rain from attaining the plain,[8]
For downward the voices of duty call--
Downward to toil and be mixed with the main.
The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn,
And a thousand meadows [9] mortally yearn,
And the final [10] main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
And calls through the valleys of Hall.

THE CRYSTAL [11]

At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls
The great soft rumble of the course of things--
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound--
When darkness clears our vision that by day
Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl
For truth, and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft
Is minded for to sit upon a bough,
Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree
And muse in that gaunt place,--'twas then my heart,
Deep in the meditative dark, cried out:

Ye companies of governor-spirits grave,
Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news
From steep-walled heavens, holy malcontents,
Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all
That brood about the skies of poesy,
Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars;
Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none
With total luster blazeth, no, not one
But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh
Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks
His ray, opaqued with intermittent mist
Of defect; yea, you masters all must ask
Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give,
We lovers of you, heavenly-glad to meet
Your largess so with love, and interplight
Your geniuses with our mortalities.

Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakspere sole,[12]
A hundred hurts a day I do forgive
('Tis little, but, enchantment! 'tis for thee):
Small curious quibble; ... Henry's fustian roar
Which frights away that sleep he invocates;[13]
Wronged Valentine's [14] unnatural haste to yield;
Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as men
In faint disguises that could ne'er disguise--
Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind;[15]
Fatigues most drear, and needless overtax
Of speech obscure that had as lief be plain.

... Father Homer, thee,
Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastes
Of prose and catalogue,[16] thy drear harangues
That tease the patience of the centuries,
Thy sleazy scrap of story,--but a rogue's
Rape of a light-o'-love,[17]--too soiled a patch
To broider with the gods.

Thee, Socrates,[18]
Thou dear and very strong one, I forgive
Thy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringencies
That were but dandy upside-down,[19] thy words
Of truth that, mildlier spoke, had manlier wrought.

So, Buddha,[20] beautiful! I pardon thee
That all the All thou hadst for needy man
Was Nothing, and thy Best of being was
But not to be.

Worn Dante,[21] I forgive
The implacable hates that in thy horrid hells
Or burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosed
By death, nor time, nor love.

And I forgive
Thee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful wars [22]
Where, armed with gross and inconclusive steel,
Immortals smite immortals mortalwise,
And fill all heaven with folly.

Also thee,
Brave Aeschylus,[23] thee I forgive, for that
Thine eye, by bare bright justice basilisked,
Turned not, nor ever learned to look where Love
Stands shining.

So, unto thee, Lucretius [24] mine,
(For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to this
That's now complaining?) freely I forgive
Thy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earth
Whose graves eat souls and all.

Yea, all you hearts
Of beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large:
Aurelius [25] fine, oft superfine; mild Saint
A Kempis,[26] overmild; Epictetus,[27]
Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct;
Rapt Behmen,[28] rapt too far; high Swedenborg,[29]
O'ertoppling; Langley,[30] that with but a touch
Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top
Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now,
And most adorable; Caedmon,[31] in the morn
A-calling angels with the cowherd's call
That late brought up the cattle; Emerson,
Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost
Thy Self, sometimes; tense Keats, with angels' nerves
Where men's were better; Tennyson, largest voice
Since Milton, yet some register of wit
Wanting,--all, all, I pardon, ere 'tis asked,
Your more or less, your little mole that marks
Your brother and your kinship seals to man.
But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time,
But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,
But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,
O perfect life in perfect labor writ,
O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,--
What _if_ or _yet_, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumor, tattled by an enemy,
Of inference loose, what lack of grace
Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,--
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?[32]

SUNRISE [33]

In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain
Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main.
The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep;
Up breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep,
Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting,
Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting,
Came to the gates of sleep.

Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep
Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep,
Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling:
The gates of sleep fell a-trembling
Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter _yes_,
Shaken with happiness:
The gates of sleep stood wide.

I have waked, I have come, my beloved! I might not abide:
I have come ere the dawn, O beloved, my live-oaks, to hide
In your gospeling glooms,[34]--to be
As a lover in heaven, the marsh my marsh and the sea my sea.
Tell me, sweet burly-barked, man-bodied Tree
That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know
From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow?
They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps.
Reason's not one that weeps.
What logic of greeting lies
Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes?

O cunning green leaves, little masters! like as ye gloss
All the dull-tissued dark with your luminous darks that emboss.
The vague blackness of night into pattern and plan,
So,
(But would I could know, but would I could know,)
With your question embroid'ring the dark of the
question of man,--
So, with your silences purfling this silence of man
While his cry to the dead for some knowledge is
under the ban,
Under the ban,--
So, ye have wrought me
Designs on the night of our knowledge,--yea, ye
have taught me,
So,
That haply we know somewhat more than we know.

Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms,
Ye consciences murmuring faiths under forms,
Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves,
Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves,[35]
Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me
Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me,--
Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet
That advise me of more than they bring,--repeat
Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath
From the heaven-side bank of the river of death,--
Teach me the terms of silence,--preach me
The passion of patience,--sift me,--impeach me,--
And there, oh there
As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air,
Pray me a myriad prayer.[36]

My gossip, the owl,--is it thou
That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough,
As I pass to the beach, art stirred?
Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird?

Reverend Marsh, low-couched along the sea,
Old chemist, rapt in alchemy,
Distilling silence,--lo,
That which our father-age had died to know--
The menstruum that dissolves all matter--thou
Hast found it: for this silence, filling now
The globed clarity of receiving space,
This solves us all: man, matter, doubt, disgrace,
Death, love, sin, sanity,
Must in yon silence' clear solution lie.
Too clear! That crystal nothing who'll peruse?
The blackest night could bring us brighter news.
Yet precious qualities of silence haunt
Round these vast margins, ministrant.
Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for space,
With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race
Just to be fellowed, when that thou hast found
No man with room, or grace enough of bound
To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art,--
'Tis here, 'tis here, thou canst unhand thy heart
And breathe it free, and breathe it free,
By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty.

The tide's at full: the marsh with flooded streams
Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams.
Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies
A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies
Shine scant with one forked galaxy,--
The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast they lie.

Oh, what if a sound should be made!
Oh, what if a bound should be laid
To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-spring,--
To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the string!
I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam
Will break as a bubble o'erblown in a dream,--
Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night,
Overweighted with stars, overfreighted with light,
Oversated with beauty and silence, will seem
But a bubble that broke in a dream,
If a bound of degree to this grace be laid,
Or a sound or a motion made.

But no: it is made: list! somewhere,--mystery,
where?
In the leaves? in the air?
In my heart? is a motion made:
'Tis a motion of dawn, like a nicker of shade on shade.
In the leaves 'tis palpable: low multitudinous stirring
Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly conferring,
Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so; they are still;
But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill,--
And look where the wild duck sails round the bend of the river,--
And look where a passionate shiver
Expectant is bending the blades
Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades,--
And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting,
Are beating
The dark overhead as my heart beats,--and steady and free
Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea--
(Run home, little streams,
With your lapfuls of stars and dreams),--
And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak,
For list, down the inshore curve of the creek
How merrily flutters the sail,--
And lo, in the East! Will the East unveil?
The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed
A flush: 'tis dead; 'tis alive; 'tis dead, ere the West
Was aware of it: nay, 'tis abiding, 'tis withdrawn:
Have a care, sweet Heaven! 'Tis Dawn.

Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled:
To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling gold
Is builded, in shape as a beehive, from out of the sea:
The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee,
The star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee,
Of dazzling gold is the great Sun-Bee
That shall flash from the hive-hole over the sea.[37]
Yet now the dewdrop, now the morning gray,
Shall live their little lucid sober day
Ere with the sun their souls exhale away.
Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew
The summ'd morn shines complete as in the blue
Big dewdrop of all heaven: with these lit shrines
O'er-silvered to the farthest sea-confines,
The sacramental marsh one pious plain
Of worship lies. Peace to the ante-reign
Of Mary Morning, blissful mother mild,
Minded of nought but peace, and of a child.

Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measure
Of motion,--not faster than dateless Olympian leisure [38]
Might pace with unblown ample garments from pleasure to pleasure,--
The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring, unreeling,
Forever revealing, revealing, revealing,
Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise,--'tis done!
Good-morrow, lord Sun!
With several voice, with ascription one,
The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul
Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth roll,
Cry good and past-good and most heavenly morrow, lord Sun.

O Artisan born in the purple,--Workman Heat,--
Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet
And be mixed in the death-cold oneness,--innermost Guest
At the marriage of elements,--fellow of publicans,--blest
King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er
The idle skies, yet laborest fast evermore,--
Thou in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat
Of the heart of a man, thou Motive,--Laborer Heat:
Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news,
With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea blues,
Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest perfectest hues,
Ever shaming the maidens,--lily and rose
Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows
In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that shine,
It is thine, it is thine:

Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl
Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl
In the magnet earth,--yea, thou with a storm for a heart,
Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part
From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light,
Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright
Than the eye of a man may avail of:--manifold One,
I must pass from thy face, I must pass from the face of the Sun:

Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown;
The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town:
But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done;
I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun:
How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run,
I am lit with the Sun.

Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas
Of traffic shall hide thee,
Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories
Hide thee,
Never the reek of the time's fen-politics
Hide thee,
And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge abide thee,
And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried thee,
Labor, at leisure, in art,--till yonder beside thee
My soul shall float, friend Sun,
The day being done.

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.]

[Footnote 2: The location of _The Valley of Silence_ is given in the last stanza.]

[Footnote 3: This poem may be taken, in a measure, as autobiographic. In this stanza, and the two following ones, the poet refers to that period of his life before he resolved to consecrate himself to the priesthood.]

[Footnote 4: This indicates the general character of his poetry. Inspired in _The Valley of Silence_, it is sad, meditative, mystical, religious.]

[Footnote 5: Perhaps every poet has this experience. There come to him elusive glimpses of truth and beauty which are beyond the grasp of speech. As some one has sung:--

"Sometimes there rise, from deeps unknown,
Before my inmost gaze,
Far brighter scenes than earth has shown
In morning's orient blaze;
I try to paint the visions bright,
But, oh, their glories turn to night!"]

[Footnote 6: This poem was first published in Father Ryan's paper, the _Banner of the South_, March 21, 1868, from which it is here taken. Coming so soon after the close of the Civil War, it touched the Southern heart.]

[Footnote 7: For a criticism of the versification of this stanza, see the chapter on Father Ryan.]

[Footnote 8: This note of pardon, in keeping with the poet's priestly character, is found in several of his lyrics referring to the war. In spite of his strong Southern feeling, there is no unrelenting bitterness. Thus, in _The Prayer of the South_, which appeared a week later, we read:--

"Father, I kneel 'mid ruin, wreck, and grave,--
A desert waste, where all was erst so fair,--
And for my children and my foes I crave
Pity and pardon. Father, hear my prayer!"]

[Footnote 9: This was the poet's feeling in 1868. In a similar strain we read in _The Prayer of the South_:--

"My heart is filled with anguish deep and vast!
My hopes are buried with my children's dust!
My joys have fled, my tears are flowing fast!
In whom, save Thee, our Father, shall I trust?"

Happily the poet lived to see a new order of things--an era in which vain regrets gave place to energetic courage, hope, and endeavor.]

[Footnote 10: This poem first appeared in the _Banner of the South_, April 4, 1868, and, like the preceding one, has been very popular in the South.]

[Footnote 11: Father Ryan felt great admiration for General Lee, who has remained in the South the popular hero of the war. In the last of his _Sentinel Songs_, the poet-priest pays a beautiful tribute to the stainless character of the Confederate leader:--

"Go, Glory, and forever guard
Our chieftain's hallowed dust;
And Honor, keep eternal ward,
And Fame, be this thy trust!
Go, with your bright emblazoned scroll
And tell the years to be,
The first of names to flash your roll
Is ours--great Robert Lee."]

[Footnote 12: This poem was first published in the _Banner of the South_, April 25, 1868. It illustrates the profounder themes on which the poet loved to dwell, and likewise the Christian faith by which they were illumined.]

[Footnote 13: This mournful view of life appears frequently in Father Ryan's poems. In _De Profundis_, for example, we read:--

"All the hours are full of tears--
O my God! woe are we!
Grief keeps watch in brightest eyes--
Every heart is strung with fears,
Woe are we! woe are we!
All the light hath left the skies,
And the living, awe-struck crowds
See above them only clouds,
And around them only shrouds."]

[Footnote 14: This poem, as the two preceding ones, is taken from the _Banner of the South_, where it appeared June 13, 1868. It affords a glimpse of the tragical romance of the poet's life. The voice that he hears is that of "Ethel," the lost love of his youth. Her memory never left him. In the poem entitled _What?_ it is again her spirit voice that conveys to his soul an ineffable word.]

[Footnote 15: This desire for death occurs in several poems, as _When?_ and _Rest_. In the latter poem it is said:--

"'Twas always so; when but a child I laid
On mother's breast
My wearied little head--e'en then I prayed
As now--for rest."]

[Footnote 16: This poem is taken from the _Banner of the South_, where it appeared June 29, 1870. In the volume of collected poems the title is changed to _The Rosary of my Tears_.]

[Footnote 17: "Brave" is changed to "lone" in the poet's revision.]