Chapter 8
"Indeed, if one had to rely upon one poem to keep alive the fame of Lanier, he could single out `The Marshes of Glynn' with assurance that there is something so individual and original about it, and that, at the same time, there is such a roll and range of verse in it, that it will surely live not only in American poetry but in English. Here the imagination has taken the place of fancy, the effort to do great things ends in victory, and the melody of the poem corresponds to the exalted thought. It has all the strong points of `Sunrise', with but few of its limitations. There is something of Whitman's virile imagination and Emerson's high spirituality combined with the haunting melody of Poe's best work. Written in 1878, when Lanier was in the full exercise of all his powers, it is the best expression of his genius and one of the few great American poems.
"The background of the poem -- as of `Sunrise' -- is the forest, the coast and the marshes near Brunswick, Georgia. Early in life Lanier had been thrilled by this wonderful natural scenery, and later visits had the more powerfully impressed his imagination. He is the poet of the marshes as surely as Bryant is of the forests, or Wordsworth of the mountains.
"The poet represents himself as having spent the day in the forest and coming at sunset into full view of the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes. The glooms of the live-oaks and the emerald twilights of the `dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,' have been as a refuge from the riotous noon-day sun. More than that, in the wildwood privacies and closets of lone desire he has known the passionate pleasure of prayer and the joy of elevated thought. His spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within, -- he is ready for what Wordsworth calls a `god-like hour'."
Mr. Callaway also treats the poem in Part III of the `Introduction'.
Remonstrance
Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine. [1] Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear To feature me my Lord by rule and line. Thou canst not measure Mistress Nature's hair, Not one sweet inch: nay, if thy sight is sharp, Would'st count the strings upon an angel's harp? Forbear, forbear.
Oh let me love my Lord more fathom deep Than there is line to sound with: let me love My fellow not as men that mandates keep: Yea, all that's lovable, below, above, [11] That let me love by heart, by heart, because (Free from the penal pressure of the laws) I find it fair.
The tears I weep by day and bitter night, Opinion! for thy sole salt vintage fall. -- As morn by morn I rise with fresh delight, Time through my casement cheerily doth call, "Nature is new, 'tis birthday every day, Come feast with me, let no man say me nay, Whate'er befall." [21]
So fare I forth to feast: I sit beside Some brother bright: but, ere good-morrow's passed, Burly Opinion wedging in hath cried, "Thou shalt not sit by us, to break thy fast, Save to our Rubric thou subscribe and swear -- `Religion hath blue eyes and yellow hair': She's Saxon, all."
Then, hard a-hungered for my brother's grace Till well-nigh fain to swear his folly's true, In sad dissent I turn my longing face [31] To him that sits on the left: "Brother, -- with you?" -- "Nay, not with me, save thou subscribe and swear `Religion hath black eyes and raven hair': Nought else is true."
Debarred of banquets that my heart could make With every man on every day of life, I homeward turn, my fires of pain to slake In deep endearments of a worshiped wife. "I love thee well, dear Love," quoth she, "and yet Would that thy creed with mine completely met, [41] As one, not two."
Assassin! Thief! Opinion, 'tis thy work. By Church, by throne, by hearth, by every good That's in the Town of Time, I see thee lurk, And e'er some shadow stays where thou hast stood. Thou hand'st sweet Socrates his hemlock sour; Thou sav'st Barabbas in that hideous hour, And stabb'st the good
Deliverer Christ; thou rack'st the souls of men; Thou tossest girls to lions and boys to flames; [51] Thou hew'st Crusader down by Saracen; Thou buildest closets full of secret shames; Indifferent cruel, thou dost blow the blaze Round Ridley or Servetus; all thy days Smell scorched; I would
-- Thou base-born Accident of time and place -- Bigot Pretender unto Judgment's throne -- Bastard, that claimest with a cunning face Those rights the true, true Son of Man doth own By Love's authority -- thou Rebel cold [61] At head of civil wars and quarrels old -- Thou Knife on a throne --
I would thou left'st me free, to live with love, And faith, that through the love of love doth find My Lord's dear presence in the stars above, The clods below, the flesh without, the mind Within, the bread, the tear, the smile. Opinion, damned Intriguer, gray with guile, Let me alone.
____ Baltimore, 1878-9.
Notes: Remonstrance
This is the first and the greatest of the `Street-cries': see the introductory note to `Life and Song'.
For an interpretation of the poem see `Introduction', pp. xxix [Part III], xlv, xlvii [Part IV].
26, 33. Amusing illustrations of such intolerance may be found in `Jack-knife and Brambles' (Nashville, 1893), by Bishop Atticus G. Haygood, of the Methodist Church, South. One brother, we are told (p. 278), objected to hearing Bishop Haygood in 1859 because of his wearing a beard; while another (p. 281), along in the thirties, voted against licensing Bishop George F. Pierce because his hair was "combed back from his forehead"!
46. For an account of Socrates, the Greek philosopher, poisoned in 399 B.C., see Xenophon's `Memorabilia' and Plato's dialogues.
47. See St. Matthew 27:20.
54. For the burning of Nicholas Ridley, an English Bishop, on October 16, 1555, see Green's `Shorter History of England'. Michael Servetus, a Spanish scientific and theological writer, was burned as a heretic at Geneva, October 27, 1553.
Opposition
Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, [1] Complain no more; for these, O heart, Direct the random of the will As rhymes direct the rage of art.
The lute's fixt fret, that runs athwart The strain and purpose of the string, For governance and nice consort Doth bar his willful wavering.
The dark hath many dear avails; The dark distils divinest dews; The dark is rich with nightingales, [11] With dreams, and with the heavenly Muse.
Bleeding with thorns of petty strife, I'll ease (as lovers do) my smart With sonnets to my lady Life Writ red in issues from the heart.
What grace may lie within the chill Of favor frozen fast in scorn! When Good's a-freeze, we call it Ill! This rosy Time is glacier-born.
Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, [21] Complain thou not, O heart; for these Bank-in the current of the will To uses, arts, and charities.
____ Baltimore, 1879-80.
Notes: Opposition
As an introduction to this poem I quote a sentence from Dr. Gates's excellent essay: "As we look at the circumstances of his life, let us carry with us the strains of this poem, which interprets the use of crosses, interferences, and attempted thwartings of one's purpose; for the ethical value of Lanier's life and writings can be fully understood only by remembering how much he overcame and how heroically he persisted in manly work in his chosen art through years of such broken health as would have driven most men to the inert, self-indulgent life of an invalid. The superb power of will which he displayed is a lesson as valuable as the noble poems which it illustrates and enforces."
Marsh Song -- At Sunset
Over the monstrous shambling sea, [1] Over the Caliban sea, Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest: Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West, -- Thy Prospero I'll be.
Over the humped and fishy sea, Over the Caliban sea, O cloud in the West, like a thought in the heart Of pardon, loose thy wing, and start, And do a grace for me.
Over the huge and huddling sea, [11] Over the Caliban sea, Bring hither my brother Antonio, -- Man, -- My injurer: night breaks the ban; Brother, I pardon thee.
____ Baltimore, 1879-80.
Notes: Marsh Song -- At Sunset
At the first reading, no doubt, this song appears indistinct, though poetical. On a second reading, however, with Shakespeare's `Tempest' fresh in mind, it seems, as it is, highly artistic; and we wonder at the happy use made of the Shakespearean characters: the gracious, forgiving Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan; Antonio, his usurping brother, forgiven notwithstanding; Caliban, the savage, deformed, fish-like slave; and Ariel, the ministering spirit of the air.
With `At Sunset' compare Lanier's `Evening Song', another and a more agreeable sunset picture.
A Ballad of Trees and the Master
Into the woods my Master went, [1] 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, [11] 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.
____ Baltimore, November, 1880.
Notes: A Ballad of Trees and the Master
In the `Introduction' (p. xxxi ff. [Part III]) I have tried to show the intensity and the breadth of Lanier's love of nature in general. President Gates gives a separate section to Lanier's love of trees and plant-life; and, after quoting some lines on the soothing and inspiring companionship of trees, thus speaks of our Ballad: "This ministration of trees to a mind and heart `forspent with shame and grief' finds its culmination in the pathetic lines upon that olive-garden near Jerusalem, which to those of us who have sat within its shade must always seem the most sacred spot on earth. The almost mystic exaltation of the power of poetic sympathy which inspired these intense lines, `Into the Woods my Master went', may impair their religious effect for many devout souls. But to many others this short poem will express most wonderfully that essential human-heartedness in the Son of Man, our Divine Saviour, which made Him one with us in His need of the quiet, sympathetic ministrations of nature -- perhaps the heart of the reason why this olive-grove was `the place where He was wont to go' for prayer." See St. Luke 22:39.
For Lanier's other poems on Christ see `Introduction', p. xxxvii f. [Part III].
Sunrise
In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain [1] 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 [11] 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 gospelling glooms, -- to be As a lover in heaven, the marsh my marsh and the sea my sea.
Tell me, sweet burly-bark'd, man-bodied Tree That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow? [21] 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, -- [31] 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, [41] Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves, 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 [51] As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air, Pray me a myriad prayer.
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 -- [61] 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. [71] Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for space, With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race Just to be fellow'd, 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. [81] 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'er-blown in a dream, -- [91] Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night, Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light, Over-sated 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 flicker of shade on shade. [101] 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 [111] 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 [121] Was aware of it: nay, 'tis abiding, 'tis unwithdrawn: 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 bee-hive, 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.
Yet now the dew-drop, now the morning gray, [131] 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 dew-drop 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. [141]
Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measure Of motion, -- not faster than dateless Olympian leisure 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, [151] 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, [161] 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 [171] 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. [181]
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, [191] The day being done.
____ Baltimore, December, 1880.
Notes: Sunrise
In the words of Mrs. Lanier, "`Sunrise', Mr. Lanier's latest completed poem, was written while his sun of life seemed fairly at the setting, and the hand which first pencilled its lines had not strength to carry nourishment to the lips." See `Introduction', p. xviii [Part I]. Lanier has two other poems on the same theme, both short: `A Sunrise Song' and `Between Dawn and Sunrise' (entered under `Marsh Hymns').
As already pointed out (`Introduction', pp. xxxi [Part III], xlvii [Part IV]), `Sunrise' shows in a powerful way the delicacy and the comprehensiveness of Lanier's love for nature. True, as I have elsewhere stated (`Introduction', p. xlvi [Part IV]), the poem has some serious limitations, more I think than has `The Marshes of Glynn'; but, despite its shortcomings, `Sunrise' is from an absolute stand-point a great poem; while, if we consider the circumstances under which it was produced, it is, in the words of Professor Kent, "a world-marvel".
Aside from the numerous unapproachable snatches in Shakespeare,* I know of nothing on the subject in English literature comparable to `Sunrise'. Mr. W. W. Story's `Sunrise' is perhaps the closest parallel, and yet it is far inferior to Lanier's, as every reader of the two will admit. If one wishes to make further comparisons, he may find sunrise poems in the following authors: Blake, Cowper, Emerson, Hood, Keats, Longfellow, Southey, Thompson, Willis, etc. I may add that an interesting, though superficial article on `The Poetry of Sunrise and Sunset' may be found in `Chambers's Edinburgh Journal', 22, 234, October 7, 1854.
-- * Among others I may cite the following passages:
"Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,"
in `Cymbeline', 2, 3;
"But look the morn in russet mantle clad Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill,"
in `Hamlet', 1, 1;
"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops,"
in `Romeo and Juliet', 3, 5; and
"Full many a glorious morning have I seen" etc.,
`Sonnet xxxiii'. --
3, 13-14. See `Introduction', p. xxxii [Part III], and compare l. 26.
39-53. See `Introduction', p. xxxiii [Part III].
42. I had made the comparison between Lanier and St. Francis before reading Dr. Gates's essay on Lanier, and was delighted to find my judgment confirmed by so competent a critic. Dr. Gates is quite emphatic: "Since St. Francis, no soul has seemed so heavily overcharged with this feeling of brotherhood for all created things." `The Canticle of the Sun', otherwise known as `The Song of the Creatures', may be found in metrical form in Mrs. Oliphant's life of St. Francis (New York, 1870) and in prose in Sabatier's (Scribners, New York, 1894).
54. Lanier has an `Owl against Robin'.
57. See `Introduction', p. xli [Part IV].
80-85. See `Introduction', p. xliii [Part IV].
86-152. See `Introduction', p. xlvii [Part IV]. Mr. F. F. Browne says that in lyric sweetness ll. 86-97 recall the best of Keats and Shelley.
114-115. See `Introduction', p. xliv [Part IV].
127. Lanier has a poem entitled `The Bee'.
134-136. See `Introduction', p. xliii [Part IV].
181. Compare Mrs. Easter's tribute, `Lit with the Sun'.
189-192. See `Introduction', p. xxi [Part I], and compare Cowdin's tribute, `Hopeset and Sunrise', and the closing stanza of Hamlin Garland's: