—* `The English Novel', p. 272 f.** `The English Novel', p. 280. Of the numerous discussions of this thesis,the student should consult at least those by Matthew Arnold(`Preface' to his edition of `Wordsworth's Poems'),John Ruskin (`Stones of Venice', vol. iii., chap. iv.),and Victor Hugo (`William Shakespeare', Book VI.).—
VI. Conclusion
Milton has somewhere said that in order to be a great poet one must himself be a true poem, a dictum none the less trustworthy because of its inapplicability to its author along with several other great poets. Now of all English poets, I know of none that came nearer being a true poem than did Lanier. He was as spotless as "the Lady of Christ's", and infinitely more lovable. Indeed, he seems to me to have realized the ideal of his own knightly Horn, who hopes that some day men will be "maids in purity".* I will not recall his gentle yet heroic life amid drawbacks almost unparalleled; for it is even sadder than it is beautiful. It is my deliberate judgment that, while, as the poet says in his `Life and Song', no singer has ever wholly lived his minstrelsy, Lanier came so near it that we may fairly say, in the closing lines of the poem,
"His song was only living aloud,His work, a singing with his hand."
And, for my part, I am as grateful for his noble private life as for his distinguished public work.
— * `The Symphony', l. 302. —
And yet I will not close with this picture of the man; for my purpose is rather to present the poet. Hampered though he was by fewness of years, by feebleness of body, by shortness of bread, and, most of all perhaps, by over-luxuriance of imagination, Lanier was yet, to my mind, indisputably a great poet. For in technique he was akin to Tennyson;* in the love of beauty and in lyric sweetness, to Keats and Shelley; in the love of nature, to Wordsworth; and in spirituality, to Ruskin, the gist of whose teaching is that we are souls temporarily having bodies; to Milton, "God-gifted organ-voice of England"; and to Browning, "subtlest assertor of the soul in song". To be sure, Lanier's genius is not equal to that of any one of the poets mentioned, but I venture to believe that it is of the same order, and, therefore, deserving of lasting remembrance.
—* Mr. Thayer puts it stronger: "As a master of melodious metreonly Tennyson, and he not often, has equalled Lanier." Mr. F. F. Browne,Editor of `The Dial' (Chicago), compares the two poets in another aspect:"`The Symphony' of Lanier may recall some parts of `Maud';but the younger poet's treatment is as much his ownas the elder's is his own. The comparison of Lanier with Tennyson will,indeed, only deepen the impression of his originality,which is his most striking quality. It may be doubtedif any English poet of our time, except Tennyson, has cast his workin an ampler mould, or wrought with more of freedom, or stamped his productwith the impress of a stronger personality. His thought, his stand-point,his expression, his form, his treatment, are his alone; and through them allhe justifies his right to the title of poet."—
Poems
Life and Song
If life were caught by a clarionet, [1]And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed,Should thrill its joy and trill its fret,And utter its heart in every deed,
Then would this breathing clarionetType what the poet fain would be;For none o' the singers ever yetHas wholly lived his minstrelsy,
Or clearly sung his true, true thought,Or utterly bodied forth his life,Or out of life and song has wrought [11]The perfect one of man and wife;
Or lived and sung, that Life and SongMight each express the other's all,Careless if life or art were longSince both were one, to stand or fall:
So that the wonder struck the crowd,Who shouted it about the land:`His song was only living aloud,His work, a singing with his hand!'
____ 1868.
Notes: Life and Song
`Life and Song' is the fifth of a series of seven poems published under the general heading of `Street-cries', with the two stanzas following as an introduction:
"Oft seems the Time a market-townWhere many merchant-spirits meetWho up and down and up and downCry out along the street
"Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO:Till all the ways are full of sound:— But still come rain, and sun, and snow,And still the world goes round."
The remaining numbers of the series are: 1. `Remonstrance', given in this volume; 2. `The Ship of Earth'; 3. `How Love Looked for Hell'; 4. `Tyranny'; 6. `To Richard Wagner'; 7. `A Song of Love'.
I can think of no more helpful comment on the subject of our poem than this sentence from Milton's `Apology for Smectymnuus', already alluded to in the `Introduction' (p. liv [Part VI]): "And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy."
Lines 19-20. I have been pleased to discover that the application I have made of this poem, especially of these lines (see `Introduction', p. liv [Part VI]), is likewise made by most students of Lanier's life, and that Mrs. Lanier has chosen these two lines for inscription on the monument to be erected to his memory. On the reverse side of the stone, I may add, are to be put these words: "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God" (I John iv. 16).
Jones's Private Argyment
That air same Jones, which lived in Jones, [1]He had this pint about him:He'd swear with a hundred sighs and groans,That farmers MUST stop gittin' loans,And git along without 'em:
That bankers, warehousemen, and sichWas fatt'nin' on the planter,And Tennessy was rotten-richA-raisin' meat and corn, all whichDraw'd money to Atlanta:
And the only thing (says Jones) to do [11]Is, eat no meat that's boughten:BUT TEAR UP EVERY I, O, U,AND PLANT ALL CORN AND SWEAR FOR TRUETO QUIT A-RAISIN' COTTON!
Thus spouted Jones (whar folks could hear,— At Court and other gatherin's),And thus kep' spoutin' many a year,Proclaimin' loudly far and nearSich fiddlesticks and blatherin's.
But, one all-fired sweatin' day, [21]It happened I was hoein'My lower corn-field, which it lay'Longside the road that runs my wayWhar I can see what's goin'.
And a'ter twelve o'clock had comeI felt a kinder faggin',And laid myself un'neath a plumTo let my dinner settle sum,When 'long come Jones's waggin,
And Jones was settin' in it, SO: [31]A-readin' of a paper.His mules was goin' powerful slow,Fur he had tied the lines ontoThe staple of the scraper.
The mules they stopped about a rodFrom me, and went to feedin''Longside the road, upon the sod,But Jones (which he had tuck a tod)Not knowin', kept a-readin'.
And presently says he: "Hit's true; [41]That Clisby's head is level.Thar's one thing farmers all must do,To keep themselves from goin' tewBankruptcy and the devil!
"More corn! more corn! MUST plant less ground,And MUSTN'T eat what's boughten!Next year they'll do it: reasonin's sound:(And, cotton will fetch 'bout a dollar a pound),THARFORE, I'LL plant ALL cotton!"
____ Macon, Ga., 1870.
Notes: Jones's Private Argyment
The themes of this poem, the relative claims of corn and cotton upon the attention of the farmer and the disastrous results of speculation, are treated indirectly in `Thar's More in the Man Than Thar Is in the Land', and directly and with consummate art in `Corn'.
1. "That air same Jones" appears in `Thar's More', etc., written in 1869, in which we are told:
"And he lived pretty much by gittin' of loans,And his mules was nuthin' but skin and bones,And his hogs was flat as his corn-bread pones,And he had 'bout a thousand acres o' land."
He sells his farm to Brown at a dollar and fifty cents an acre and goes to Texas. Brown improves the farm, and, after five years, is sitting down to a big dinner when Jones is discovered standing out by the fence, without wagon or mules, "fur he had left Texas afoot and cum to Georgy to see if he couldn't git some employment." Brown invites Jones in to dinner, but cannot refrain from the inference-drawing that names the poem. — "Which lived in Jones," "which Jones is a county of red hills and stones" (`Thar's More', etc.) in central Georgia.
13. Readers of `David Copperfield' will recall Micawber's frequent use of `I-O-U-'s'.
47. "Clisby's head" refers to Mr. Joseph Clisby, then editor of the Macon (Ga.) `Telegraph and Messenger', who had written editorials favoring the planting of more corn.
Corn
To-day the woods are trembling through and through [1]With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.The leaves that wave against my cheek caressLike women's hands; the embracing boughs expressA 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.The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song;Through that vague wafture, expirations strong [11]Throb from young hickories breathing deep and longWith stress and urgence bold of prisoned springAnd ecstasy of burgeoning.Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry,Forth venture odors of more qualityAnd heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry,Long muscadinesRich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines,And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines.I pray with mosses, ferns, and flowers shy [21]That hide like gentle nuns from human eyeTo lift adoring perfumes to the sky.I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and greenDying to silent hints of kisses keenAs far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen.I start at fragmentary whispers, blownFrom undertalks of leafy souls unknown,Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone.Dreaming of gods, men, nuns, and brides, betweenOld companies of oaks that inward lean [31]To join their radiant amplitudes of greenI slowly move, with ranging looks that passUp from the matted miracles of grassInto yon veined complex of spaceWhere sky and leafage interlaceSo close, the heaven of blue is seenInwoven with a heaven of green.
I wander to the zigzag-cornered fenceWhere sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense,Contests with stolid vehemence [41]The march of culture, setting limb and thornAs pikes against the army of the corn.
There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyesTake harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise,Of inward dignitiesAnd large benignities and insights wise,Graces and modest majesties.Thus, without theft, I reap another's field;Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield,And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed. [51]
Look, out of line one tall corn-captain standsAdvanced beyond the foremost of his bands,And waves his blades upon the very edgeAnd hottest thicket of the battling hedge.Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk,Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublimeThat leads the vanward of his timid timeAnd sings up cowards with commanding rhyme —Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to growBy double increment, above, below; [61]Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalryThat moves in gentle curves of courtesy;Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,By every godlike senseTransmuted from the four wild elements.Drawn to high plans,Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's,Yet ever piercest downward in the mouldAnd keepest hold [71]Upon the reverend and steadfast earthThat gave thee birth;Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave,Serene and brave,With unremitting breathInhaling life from death,Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,Thyself thy monument.
As poets should,Thou hast built up thy hardihood [81]With universal food,Drawn in select proportion fairFrom honest mould and vagabond air;From darkness of the dreadful night,And joyful light;From antique ashes, whose departed flameIn thee has finer life and longer fame;From wounds and balms,From storms and calms,From potsherds and dry bones [91]And ruin-stones.Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wroughtWhate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought;Yea, into cool solacing green hast spunWhite radiance hot from out the sun.So thou dost mutually leavenStrength of earth with grace of heaven;So thou dost marry new and oldInto a one of higher mould;So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold, [101]The dark and bright,And many a heart-perplexing opposite,And so,Akin by blood to high and low,Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part,Richly expending thy much-bruised heartIn equal care to nourish lord in hallOr beast in stall:Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all.
O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot [111]Where thou wast born, that still repinest not —Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot! —Deeply thy mild content rebukes the landWhose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sandOf trade, for ever rise and fallWith alternation whimsical,Enduring scarce a day,Then swept awayBy swift engulfments of incalculable tidesWhereon capricious Commerce rides. [121]Look, thou substantial spirit of content!Across this little vale, thy continent,To where, beyond the mouldering mill,Yon old deserted Georgian hillBares to the sun his piteous aged crestAnd seamy breast,By restless-hearted children left to lieUntended there beneath the heedless sky,As barbarous folk expose their old to die.Upon that generous-rounding side, [131]With gullies scarifiedWhere keen Neglect his lash hath plied,Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil,And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil.Scorning the slow reward of patient grain,He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain,Then sat him down and waited for the rain.He sailed in borrowed ships of usury —A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea,Seeking the Fleece and finding misery. [141]Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle tranceHe lay, content that unthrift CircumstanceShould plough for him the stony field of Chance.Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell,He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell,And turned each field into a gambler's hell.Aye, as each year began,My farmer to the neighboring city ran;Passed with a mournful anxious faceInto the banker's inner place; [151]Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace;Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass;Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass;With many an `oh' and `if' and `but alas'Parried or swallowed searching questions rude,And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood.At last, small loans by pledges great renewed,He issues smiling from the fatal door,And buys with lavish hand his yearly storeTill his small borrowings will yield no more. [161]Aye, as each year declined,With bitter heart and ever-brooding mindHe mourned his fate unkind.In dust, in rain, with might and main,He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain,Fretted for news that made him fret again,Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail —In hope or fear alike for ever pale.And thus from year to year, through hope and fear, [171]With many a curse and many a secret tear,Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,At lastHe woke to find his foolish dreaming past,And all his best-of-life the easy preyOf squandering scamps and quacks that lined his wayWith vile array,From rascal statesman down to petty knave;Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave,A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. [181]Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest,He fled away into the oblivious West,Unmourned, unblest.
Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy LearWhom the divine Cordelia of the year,E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer —King, that no subject man nor beast may own,Discrowned, undaughtered and alone —Yet shall the great God turn thy fate,And bring thee back into thy monarch state [191]And majesty immaculate.Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlornVisions of golden treasuries of corn —Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heartThat manfully shall take thy part,And tend thee,And defend thee,With antique sinew and with modern art.
____ Sunnyside, Ga., August, 1874.
Notes: Corn
As stated elsewhere (`Introduction', p. xvii [Part I]), `Corn' was the first of Lanier's poems to attract general attention; for this reason as well as for its absolute merit the poem deserves careful study.
In the first of his letters to the Hon. Logan E. Bleckley, Chief-justice of Georgia, dated October 9, 1874, Lanier tells us how he came to write `Corn': "I enclose MS. of a poem in which I have endeavored to carry some very prosaic matters up to a loftier plane. I have been struck with alarm in seeing the numbers of deserted old homesteads and gullied hills in the older counties of Georgia: and, though they are dreadfully commonplace, I have thought they are surely mournful enough to be poetic."
In the introductory note to `Jones's Private Argyment' I have incidentally stated the theme of `Corn'. Instead of adding a more detailed statement of my own here, I give Judge Bleckley's analysis of the poem, which occurs in his reply to the above-mentioned letter. After giving various minute criticism (for Lanier had requested his unreserved judgment), Judge Bleckley continues: "Now, for the general impression which your Ode has made upon me. It presents four pictures; three of them landscapes and one a portrait. You paint the woods, a corn-field, and a worn-out hill. These are your landscapes. And your portrait is the likeness of an anxious, unthrifty cotton-planter who always spends his crop before he has made it, borrows on heavy interest to carry himself over from year to year, wears out his land, meets at last with utter ruin, and migrates to the West. Your second landscape is turned into a vegetable person, and you give its portrait with many touches of marvel and mystery in vegetable life. Your third landscape takes for an instant the form and tragic state of King Lear; you thus make it seize on our sympathies as if it were a real person, and you then restore it to the inanimate, and contemplate its possible beneficence in the distant future."
A comparison of the first draft of `Corn', as sent Judge Bleckley, with the final form shows that Lanier made many minute changes in the poem, especially in the earlier part. Still this earlier draft agrees substantially with the later, and was so fine in conception and execution as to call forth this commendation of Judge Bleckley, which, despite the shortcomings of `Corn', may with greater justice be applied to the poem in its present form: "As an artist you seem to be Italian in the first two pictures, and Dutch or Flemish in the latter two. In your Italian vein you paint with the utmost delicacy and finish. The drawing is scrupulously correct and the color soft and harmonious. When you paint in Dutch or Flemish you are clear and strong, but sometimes hard. There is less idealization and more of the realistic element — your SOLIDS predominate over your fluids."
As already stated, Lanier has two other poems that indirectly treat the theme of `Corn', namely, `Thar's More in the Man' and `Jones's Private Argyment'. Moreover, he has `The Waving of the Corn', which, though charming, is neither so elaborate nor artistic as `Corn'.
Among poems on corn by other writers may be mentioned the following:
1. Whittier's `The Corn-song' (before 1872), a poem of praise and thanksgiving at the end of `The Huskers', which tells of the gathering of the corn and of the "corn-husking", known in the South as the "corn-shucking".
2. Woolson's (Constance F.) `Corn Fields', a description of Ohio fields, in `Harper's Monthly', 45, 444, Aug., 1872.
3. Thompson's (Maurice) `Dropping Corn' (1877), a dainty love lyric, in `Poems' (Boston, 1892), p. 78.
4. Cromwell's (S. C.) `Corn-shucking Song', a dialect poem, in `Harper', 69, 807, Oct., 1884.
5. Coleman's (C. W.) `Corn', in `The Atlantic Monthly', 70, 228, Aug., 1892, which, since it consists of but four lines and is more like Lanier's poem than are the others, may be quoted:
"Drawn up in serried ranks across the fieldsThat, as we gaze, seem ever to increase,With tasseled flags and sun-emblazoned shields,The glorious army of earth's perfect peace."
6. Hayne's (W. H.) `Amid the Corn', a charming account of the denizens of the corn-fields, in his `Sylvan Lyrics' (New York, 1893), p. 12.
7. Dumas's (W. T.) `Corn-shucking' and `The Last Ear of Corn', both life-like pictures of plantation life, in his `The Golden Day and Miscellaneous Poems' (Phila., 1893).
Other interesting articles are: `Mondamin, or the Origin of Indian Corn', in `The Southern Literary Messenger' (Richmond, Va.), 29, 12-13, July, 1859; `A Georgia Corn-shucking', by D. C. Barrow, Jr., in `The Century Magazine' (New York), 2, 873-878, Oct., 1882; and `Old American Customs: A Corn-party', an account of a corn-husking in New York, in `The Saturday Review' (London), 66, 237-238, Aug. 25, 1888.
4-9. See `Introduction', p. xxxii [Part III], and compare `The Symphony', ll. 183-190.
18. Paul Hamilton Hayne, whose love of nature rivals Lanier's, has an interesting poem entitled `Muscadines' (`Poems', Boston, 1882, pp. 222-224).
21. Compare `The Symphony', l. 117 ff.
57. See `Introduction', p. l [Part V].
125. In her introductory note to `Corn' Mrs. Lanier thus localizes the poem: "His `fieldward-faring eyes took harvest' `among the stately corn-ranks,' in a portion of middle Georgia sixty miles to the north of Macon. It is a high tract of country from which one looks across the lower reaches to the distant Blue Ridge Mountains, whose wholesome breath, all unobstructed, here blends with the woods-odors of the beech, the hickory, and the muscadine: a part of a range recalled elsewhere by Mr. Lanier as `that ample stretch of generous soil, where the Appalachian ruggednesses calm themselves into pleasant hills before dying quite away into the sea-board levels' — where `a man can find such temperances of heaven and earth — enough of struggle with nature to draw out manhood, with enough of bounty to sanction the struggle — that a more exquisite co-adaptation of all blessed circumstances for man's life need not be sought.'"
140. See `Jason' in any Dictionary of Mythology.*
— * Gayley's `The Classic Myths in English Literature' (Boston, Ginn & Co.) is an excellent book. —
157. `Dives': See Appendix to Webster's `International Dictionary'.
168. `Future Sale' — sale for future delivery.
185-6. See Shakespeare's `King Lear'.
My Springs
In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know [1]Two springs that with unbroken flowForever pour their lucent streamsInto my soul's far Lake of Dreams.
Not larger than two eyes, they lieBeneath the many-changing skyAnd mirror all of life and time,— Serene and dainty pantomime.
Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns,— Thus heaven and earth together vie [11]Their shining depths to sanctify.
Always when the large Form of LoveIs hid by storms that rage above,I gaze in my two springs and seeLove in his very verity.
Always when Faith with stifling stressOf grief hath died in bitterness,I gaze in my two springs and seeA Faith that smiles immortally.
Always when Charity and Hope, [21]In darkness bounden, feebly grope,I gaze in my two springs and seeA Light that sets my captives free.
Always, when Art on perverse wingFlies where I cannot hear him sing,I gaze in my two springs and seeA charm that brings him back to me.
When Labor faints, and Glory fails,And coy Reward in sighs exhales,I gaze in my two springs and see [31]Attainment full and heavenly.
O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,— My springs from out whose shining grayIssue the sweet celestial streamsThat feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.
Oval and large and passion-pureAnd gray and wise and honor-sure;Soft as a dying violet-breathYet calmly unafraid of death;
Thronged, like two dove-cotes of gray doves, [41]With wife's and mother's and poor-folk's loves,And home-loves and high glory-lovesAnd science-loves and story-loves,
And loves for all that God and manIn art and nature make or plan,And lady-loves for spidery laceAnd broideries and supple grace
And diamonds and the whole sweet roundOf littles that large life compound,And loves for God and God's bare truth, [51]And loves for Magdalen and Ruth,
Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete —Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet,— I marvel that God made you mine,For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine!
____ Baltimore, 1874.
Notes: My Springs
For my appreciation of this tribute to the poet's wife see `Introduction', p. xxxv [Part III]. Mr. Lanier's estimate is given in a letter of March, 1874, quoted in Mrs. Lanier's introductory note: "Of course, since I have written it to print I cannot make it such asIdesire in artistic design: for the forms of to-day require a certain trim smugness and clean-shaven propriety in the face and dress of a poem, and I must win a hearing by conforming in some degree to these tyrannies, with a view to overturning them in the future. Written so, it is not nearly so beautiful as I would have it; and I therefore have another still in my heart, which I will some day write for myself."
Other tributes to his wife are: `In Absence', `Acknowledgment',`Laus Mariae', `Special Pleading', `Evening Song', `Thou and I',`One in Two', and `Two in One'; while she is referred toin `The Hard Times in Elfland' and `June Dreams in January'.
It will be interesting to compare `My Springs' with other poems on the eyes.Among the most noteworthy* may be cited Shakespeare's
"And those eyes, the break of day,Lights that do mislead the morn;"
Lodge's
"Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,Resembling heaven by every wink;The Gods do fear whenas they glow,And I do tremble when I think,Heigh ho, would she were mine!"
Jonson's
"Drink to me only with thine eyesAnd I will pledge with mine," etc.;
Herrick's
"Sweet, be not proud of those two eyesWhich starlike sparkle in their skies;"
Thomas Stanley's
"Oh turn away those cruel eyes,The stars of my undoing;Or death in such a bright disguiseMay tempt a second wooing;"
Byron's
"She walks in beauty, like the night,Of cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes;Thus mellowed to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies;"
H. Coleridge's
"She is not fair to outward view,As many maidens be;Her loveliness I never knewUntil she smiled on me.O then I saw her eye was bright,A well of love, a spring of light.
"But now her looks are coy and cold,To mine they ne'er reply,And yet I cease not to beholdThe love-light in her eye:Her very frowns are fairer farThan smiles of other maidens are;"
and Wordsworth's
"Her eyes are stars of twilight fair."
—* These may be found either in Gosse's `English Lyrics' (D. Appleton & Co.,New York) or in Palgrave's `Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics'(Macmillan & Co., New York).—
49-50. See `Introduction', p. xlv [Part IV].
52. There is in early English literature a most interesting play entitled `Mary Magdalene': see Pollard's `English Miracle Plays' (New York), where extracts are given.
55-56. See `Introduction', p. xlvi [Part IV].
The Symphony
"O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead! [1]The Time needs heart — 'tis tired of head:We're all for love," the violins said."Of what avail the rigorous taleOf bill for coin and box for bale?Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope:Level red gold with blue sky-slope,And base it deep as devils grope:When all's done, what hast thou wonOf the only sweet that's under the sun?Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh [11]Of true love's least, least ecstasy?"Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling,All the mightier strings assemblingRanged them on the violins' sideAs when the bridegroom leads the bride,And, heart in voice, together cried:"Yea, what avail the endless taleOf gain by cunning and plus by sale?Look up the land, look down the land,The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand [21]Wedged by the pressing of Trade's handAgainst an inward-opening doorThat pressure tightens evermore:They sigh a monstrous foul-air sighFor the outside leagues of liberty,Where Art, sweet lark, translates the skyInto a heavenly melody.`Each day, all day' (these poor folks say),`In the same old year-long, drear-long way,We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, [31]We sieve mine-meshes under the hills,And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills,To relieve, O God, what manner of ills? —The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die;And so do we, and the world's a sty;Hush, fellow-swine: why nuzzle and cry?"Swinehood hath no remedy"Say many men, and hasten by,Clamping the nose and blinking the eye.But who said once, in the lordly tone, [41]"Man shall not live by bread aloneBut all that cometh from the Throne?"Hath God said so?But Trade saith "No":And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say "Go:There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know.Move out, if you think you're underpaid.The poor are prolific; we're not afraid;Trade is trade."'"Thereat this passionate protesting [51]Meekly changed, and softened tillIt sank to sad requestingAnd suggesting sadder still:"And oh, if men might some time seeHow piteous-false the poor decreeThat trade no more than trade must be!Does business mean, "Die, you — live, I"?Then `Trade is trade' but sings a lie:'Tis only war grown miserly.If business is battle, name it so: [61]War-crimes less will shame it so,And widows less will blame it so.Alas, for the poor to have some partIn yon sweet living lands of Art,Makes problem not for head, but heart.Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it:Plainly the heart of a child could solve it."
And then, as when from words that seem but rudeWe pass to silent pain that sits abroodBack in our heart's great dark and solitude, [71]So sank the strings to gentle throbbingOf long chords change-marked with sobbing —Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heardThan half wing-openings of the sleeping bird,Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred.Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo!Every least ripple of the strings' song-flowDied to a level with each level bowAnd made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so,As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go [81]To linger in the sacred dark and greenWhere many boughs the still pool overleanAnd many leaves make shadow with their sheen.But presentlyA velvet flute-note fell down pleasantlyUpon the bosom of that harmony,And sailed and sailed incessantly,As if a petal from a wild-rose blownHad fluttered down upon that pool of toneAnd boatwise dropped o' the convex side [91]And floated down the glassy tideAnd clarified and glorifiedThe solemn spaces where the shadows bide.From the warm concave of that fluted noteSomewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float,As if a rose might somehow be a throat:"When Nature from her far-off glenFlutes her soft messages to men,The flute can say them o'er again;Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone, [101]Breathes through life's strident polyphoneThe flute-voice in the world of tone.Sweet friends,Man's love ascendsTo finer and diviner endsThan man's mere thought e'er comprehendsFor I, e'en I,As here I lie,A petal on a harmony,Demand of Science whence and why [111]Man's tender pain, man's inward cry,When he doth gaze on earth and sky?I am not overbold:I holdFull powers from Nature manifold.I speak for each no-tongued treeThat, spring by spring, doth nobler be,And dumbly and most wistfullyHis mighty prayerful arms outspreadsAbove men's oft-unheeding heads, [121]And his big blessing downward sheds.I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves,Lichens on stones and moss on eaves,Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves;Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes,And briery mazes bounding lanes,And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains,And milky stems and sugary veins;For every long-armed woman-vineThat round a piteous tree doth twine; [131]For passionate odors, and divinePistils, and petals crystalline;All purities of shady springs,All shynesses of film-winged thingsThat fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings;All modesties of mountain-fawnsThat leap to covert from wild lawns,And tremble if the day but dawns;All sparklings of small beady eyesOf birds, and sidelong glances wise [141]Wherewith the jay hints tragedies;All piquancies of prickly burs,And smoothnesses of downs and fursOf eiders and of minevers;All limpid honeys that do lieAt stamen-bases, nor denyThe humming-birds' fine roguery,Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly;All gracious curves of slender wings,Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings, [151]Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings;Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bellWherewith in every lonesome dellTime to himself his hours doth tell;All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones,Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans,And night's unearthly under-tones;All placid lakes and waveless deeps,All cool reposing mountain-steeps,Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps; — [161]Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights,And warmths, and mysteries, and mights,Of Nature's utmost depths and heights,— These doth my timid tongue present,Their mouthpiece and leal instrumentAnd servant, all love-eloquent.I heard, when `ALL FOR LOVE' the violins cried:So, Nature calls through all her system wide,`Give me thy love, O man, so long denied.'Much time is run, and man hath changed his ways, [171]Since Nature, in the antique fable-days,Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays,False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise.The nymphs, cold creatures of man's colder brain,Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was fainNever to lave its love in them again.Later, a sweet Voice `Love thy neighbor' said;Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspreadBeyond all confines of old ethnic dread.Vainly the Jew might wag his covenant head: [181]`ALL MEN ARE NEIGHBORS,' so the sweet Voice said.So, when man's arms had circled all man's race,The liberal compass of his warm embraceStretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space;With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace,Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face:Yea man found neighbors in great hills and treesAnd streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees,And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these.But oh, the poor! the poor! the poor! [191]That stand by the inward-opening doorTrade's hand doth tighten ever more,And sigh their monstrous foul-air sighFor the outside hills of liberty,Where Nature spreads her wild blue skyFor Art to make into melody!Thou Trade! thou king of the modern days!Change thy ways,Change thy ways;Let the sweaty laborers file [201]A little while,A little while,Where Art and Nature sing and smile.Trade! is thy heart all dead, all dead?And hast thou nothing but a head?I'm all for heart," the flute-voice said,And into sudden silence fled,Like as a blush that while 'tis redDies to a still, still white instead.
Thereto a thrilling calm succeeds, [211]Till presently the silence breedsA little breeze among the reedsThat seems to blow by sea-marsh weeds:Then from the gentle stir and fretSings out the melting clarionet,Like as a lady sings while yetHer eyes with salty tears are wet."O Trade! O Trade!" the Lady said,"I too will wish thee utterly deadIf all thy heart is in thy head. [221]For O my God! and O my God!What shameful ways have women trodAt beckoning of Trade's golden rod!Alas when sighs are traders' lies,And heart's-ease eyes and violet eyesAre merchandise!O purchased lips that kiss with pain!O cheeks coin-spotted with smirch and stain!O trafficked hearts that break in twain!— And yet what wonder at my sisters' crime? [231]So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime,Men love not women as in olden time.Ah, not in these cold merchantable daysDeem men their life an opal gray, where playsThe one red Sweet of gracious ladies'-praise.Now, comes a suitor with sharp prying eye —Says, `Here, you Lady, if you'll sell I'll buy:Come, heart for heart — a trade? What! weeping? why?'Shame on such wooers' dapper mercery!I would my lover kneeling at my feet [241]In humble manliness should cry, `O sweet!I know not if thy heart my heart will greet:I ask not if thy love my love can meet:Whate'er thy worshipful soft tongue shall say,I'll kiss thine answer, be it yea or nay:I do but know I love thee, and I prayTo be thy knight until my dying day.'Woe him that cunning trades in hearts contrives!Base love good women to base loving drives.If men loved larger, larger were our lives; [251]And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives."
There thrust the bold straightforward hornTo battle for that lady lorn,With heartsome voice of mellow scorn,Like any knight in knighthood's morn."Now comfort thee," said he,"Fair Lady.For God shall right thy grievous wrong,And man shall sing thee a true-love song,Voiced in act his whole life long, [261]Yea, all thy sweet life long,Fair Lady.Where's he that craftily hath said,The day of chivalry is dead?I'll prove that lie upon his head,Or I will die instead,Fair Lady.Is Honor gone into his grave?Hath Faith become a caitiff knave,And Selfhood turned into a slave [271]To work in Mammon's cave,Fair Lady?Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again?Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slainAll great contempts of mean-got gainAnd hates of inward stain,Fair Lady?For aye shall name and fame be sold,And place be hugged for the sake of gold,And smirch-robed Justice feebly scold [281]At Crime all money-bold,Fair Lady?Shall self-wrapt husbands aye forgetKiss-pardons for the daily fretWherewith sweet wifely eyes are wet —Blind to lips kiss-wise set —Fair Lady?Shall lovers higgle, heart for heart,Till wooing grows a trading martWhere much for little, and all for part, [291]Make love a cheapening art,Fair Lady?Shall woman scorch for a single sinThat her betrayer may revel in,And she be burnt, and he but grinWhen that the flames begin,Fair Lady?Shall ne'er prevail the woman's plea,`We maids would far, far whiter beIf that our eyes might sometimes see [301]Men maids in purity,'Fair Lady?Shall Trade aye salve his conscience-achesWith jibes at Chivalry's old mistakes —The wars that o'erhot knighthood makesFor Christ's and ladies' sakes,Fair Lady?Now by each knight that e'er hath prayedTo fight like a man and love like a maid,Since Pembroke's life, as Pembroke's blade, [311]I' the scabbard, death, was laid,Fair Lady,I dare avouch my faith is brightThat God doth right and God hath might.Nor time hath changed His hair to white,Nor His dear love to spite,Fair Lady.I doubt no doubts: I strive, and shrive my clay,And fight my fight in the patient modern wayFor true love and for thee — ah me! and pray [321]To be thy knight until my dying day,Fair Lady."Made end that knightly horn, and spurred awayInto the thick of the melodious fray.
And then the hautboy played and smiled,And sang like any large-eyed child,Cool-hearted and all undefiled."Huge Trade!" he said,"Would thou wouldst lift me on thy headAnd run where'er my finger led! [331]Once said a Man — and wise was He —`Never shalt thou the heavens see,Save as a little child thou be.'"Then o'er sea-lashings of commingling tunesThe ancient wise bassoons,Like weirdGray-beardOld harpers sitting on the high sea-dunes,Chanted runes:"Bright-waved gain, gray-waved loss, [341]The sea of all doth lash and toss,One wave forward and one across:But now 'twas trough, now 'tis crest,And worst doth foam and flash to best,And curst to blest.
"Life! Life! thou sea-fugue, writ from east to west,Love, Love alone can poreOn thy dissolving scoreOf harsh half-phrasings,Blotted ere writ, [351]And double erasingsOf chords most fit.Yea, Love, sole music-master blest,May read thy weltering palimpsest.To follow Time's dying melodies through,And never to lose the old in the new,And ever to solve the discords true —Love alone can do.And ever Love hears the poor-folks' crying,And ever Love hears the women's sighing, [361]And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying,And ever wise childhood's deep implying,But never a trader's glozing and lying.
"And yet shall Love himself be heard,Though long deferred, though long deferred:O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred:Music is Love in search of a word."
____ Baltimore, 1875.
Notes: The Symphony
The `Introduction' (pp. xxviii f., xxxiii ff. [Part III], xlvii [Part IV]) gives, besides the plan of `The Symphony', a detailed statement of its two themes, — the evils of the trade-spirit in the commercial and social world and the need in each of the love-spirit. These questions preyed on the poet's mind and were to be treated at length in `The Jacquerie' also, which he expected to make his great work, but which he was unable to complete. This he tells us in a noble passage to Judge Bleckley, in his letter of November 15, 1874. After deploring the lack of time for literary labor (see quotation in `Introduction', p. xlvi [Part IV]), he continues: "I manage to get a little time tho' to work on what is to be my first `magnum opus', a long poem, founded on that strange uprising in the middle of the fourteenth century in France, called `The Jacquerie'. It was the first time that the big hungers of `the People' appear in our modern civilization; and it is full of significance. The peasants learned from the merchant potentates of Flanders that a man who could not be a lord by birth, might be one by wealth; and so Trade arose, and overthrew Chivalry. Trade has now had possession of the civilized world for four hundred years: it controls all things, it interprets the Bible, it guides our national and almost all our individual life with its maxims; and its oppressions upon the moral existence of man have come to be ten thousand times more grievous than the worst tyrannies of the Feudal System ever were. Thus in the reversals of time, it is NOW the GENTLEMAN who must rise and overthrow Trade. That chivalry which every man has, in some degree, in his heart; which does not depend upon birth, but which is a revelation from God of justice, of fair dealing, of scorn of mean advantages; which contemns the selling of stock which one KNOWS is going to fall, to a man who BELIEVES it is going to rise, as much as it would contemn any other form of rascality or of injustice or of meanness; — it is this which must in these latter days organize its insurrections and burn up every one of the cunning moral castles from which Trade sends out its forays upon the conscience of modern society. — This is about the plan which is to run through my book: though I conceal it under the form of a pure novel."
Mr. F. F. Browne is doubtless right in saying that `The Symphony' recalls parts of Tennyson's `Maud', but the closest congeners of `The Symphony' in English are, I think, Langland's `Piers The Plowman' in poetry and Ruskin's `Unto This Last' in prose. Widely as these two works differ from `The Symphony' in form, they are one with it in purpose and in spirit. All three voice the outcry of the poor against the hardness of their lot and their longing for a larger life; all three show that the only hope of relief lies in a broader and deeper love for humanity. Analogues to individual verses of `The Symphony' are cited below.
1-2. See `Introduction', p. xxviii [Part III].
31-61. See `Introduction', p. xxix [Part III].
42-43. See St. Matthew 4:4.
55-60. It is precisely this evil that Ruskin has in mind, I take it, when he condemns the commercial text, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest," and when he declares that "Competition is the law of death" (`Unto This Last', pp. 40, 59).
117. Compare `Corn', l. 21 ff.
161. For `lotos-sleeps' see Tennyson's `The Lotos-eaters', which almost lulls one to sleep, and `The Odyssey' ix. 80-104.
178. See St. Matthew 19:19.
182. See St. Luke 10:29, ff.
183-190. Compare `Corn', ll. 4-9, and see `Introduction', p. xxxii [Part III].
232-248. See `Introduction', p. xxxiv f., and Peacock's `Lady Clarinda's Song' (Gosse's `English Lyrics').
294-298. See `Tiger-lilies', p. 49, and `Betrayal' in Lanier's complete `Poems', p. 213. These lines of `The Symphony' show clearly that Lanier did not believe that God made one law for man and another for woman, or that one very grievous sin should forever blight a woman's life. What Christ himself thought is clear from St. Luke 7:36-50, and St. John 8:1-11.
302. See `Introduction', p. liv [Part VI].
326. For a full account of the `hautboy' and other musical instruments mentioned in the poem see Lanier's `The Orchestra of To-day', cited in the `Bibliography'.
359. See `Introduction', p. xxxvi [Part III]. Compare 1 Corinthians 13; Drummond's `The Greatest Thing in the World'; William Morris's `Love Is Enough'; `Aurora Leigh', Book ix.:
"Art is much, but Love is more!O Art, my Art, thou'rt much, but Love is more!Art symbolizes Heaven, but Love is GodAnd makes Heaven;"
and Langland's `Piers the Plowman' (ed. by Skeat, i. 202-3):
"Love is leche of lyf and nexte oure Lorde selve,And also the graith gate that goth into hevene."*
— * The two lines may be translated: "Love is the physician of life and next to our Lord himself; moreover, it is the way that goes straight to Heaven." —
368. See `Introduction', p. xxxii [Part III].
The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama
By Sidney and Clifford Lanier
You, Dinah! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet. [1]De Lord, HE made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat.Umph dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' old nigger's feet.
It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' June.I 'clar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de fiddle soon!Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ringin' in de moon.
Well, ef dis nigger IS been blind for fo'ty year or mo',Dese ears, DEY sees de world, like, th'u' de cracks dat's in de do'.For de Lord has built dis body wid de windows 'hind and 'fo'.
I know my front ones IS stopped up, and things is sort o' dim,But den, th'u' DEM, temptation's rain won't leak in on ole Jim! [11]De back ones show me earth enough, aldo' dey's mons'ous slim.
And as for Hebben, — bless de Lord, and praise His holy name —DAT shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de sameAs ef dat cabin hadn't nar' a plank upon de frame!
Who CALL me? Listen down de ribber, Dinah! Don't you hyarSomebody holl'in' "HOO, JIM, HOO?" My Sarah died las' y'ar;IS dat black angel done come back to call ole Jim f'om hyar?
My stars, dat cain't be Sarah, shuh! Jes' listen, Dinah, NOW!What KIN be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a row?Fus' bellerin' like a pawin' bull, den squealin' like a sow? [21]
De Lord 'a' mussy sakes alive, jes' hear, — ker-woof, ker-woof —De Debble's comin' round dat bend, he's comin' shuh enuff,A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his hoof!
I'se pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run away:I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day.YOU screech, and swish de water, Satan! I'se a gwine to pray.
O hebbenly Marster, what thou willest, dat mus' be jes' so,And ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some nigger's bound to go.Den, Lord, please take ole Jim, and lef young Dinah hyar below!
'Scuse Dinah, 'scuse her, Marster; for she's sich a little chile, [31]She hardly jes' begin to scramble up de homeyard stile,But dis ole traveller's feet been tired dis many a many a mile.
I'se wufless as de rotten pole of las' year's fodder-stack.De rheumatiz done bit my bones; you hear 'em crack and crack?I cain'st sit down 'dout gruntin' like 'twas breakin' o' my back.
What use de wheel, when hub and spokes is warped and split, and rotten?What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life done picked my cotton?I'se like a word dat somebody said, and den done been forgotten.
But, Dinah! Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry tree,De sap's jes' risin' in her; she do grow owdaciouslee — [41]Lord, ef you's clarin' de underbrush, don't cut her down, cut me!
I would not proud persume — but I'll boldly make reques';Sence Jacob had dat wrastlin'-match, I, too, gwine do my bes';When Jacob got all underholt, de Lord he answered Yes!
And what for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow away de bread,Jes' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis ole bald head?T'ink of de 'conomy, Marster, ef dis ole Jim was dead!
Stop; — ef I don't believe de Debble's gone on up de stream!Jes' now he squealed down dar; — hush; dat's a mighty weakly scream!Yas, sir, he's gone, he's gone; — he snort way off, like in a dream! [51]
O glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on high!De Debble's fai'ly skeered to def, he done gone flyin' by;I know'd he couldn't stand dat pra'r, I felt my Marster nigh!
You, Dinah; ain't you 'shamed, now, dat you didn' trust to grace?I heerd you thrashin' th'u' de bushes when he showed his face!You fool, you think de Debble couldn't beat YOU in a race?
I tell you, Dinah, jes' as shuh as you is standin' dar,When folks starts prayin', answer-angels drops down th'u' de a'r.YAS, DINAH, WHAR 'OULD YOU BE NOW, JES' 'CEPTIN' FUR DAT PRA'R?
____ Baltimore, 1875.
Notes: The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama
As the title-page shows, `The Power of Prayer' is the joint production of Sidney and Clifford Lanier. The latter gentleman informs me that once he read a newspaper scrap of about ten lines stating that a Negro on first seeing a steamboat coming down the river was greatly frightened. Mr. Lanier then wrote out in metrical form the plot of `The Power of Prayer', substantially as we now have it, and sent it to his brother Sidney, who polished it up and published it under their joint names. Mr. Clifford Lanier had not seen the piece mentioned in the next paragraph, nor had his brother; but on being shown the piece, the former was of the opinion that his newspaper clipping must have been based on the work to which I turn, as it had already appeared and the incidents were so much alike.
In the third chapter of `The Gilded Age' (Hartford, Conn., 1873) by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, there is a piece, `Uncle Daniel's Apparition and Prayer', so similar to `The Power of Prayer' that I quote it almost entire. Uncle Dan'l (a Negro), his wife, his young mistress, and his two young masters were sitting on a log by the Mississippi River one moonlight night a-talking. "Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed: `Chil'en, dah's sumfin a comin'!'
"All crowded close together and every heart beat faster.Uncle Dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger.
"A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape that jutted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant a fierce eye of fire shot out from behind the cape and sent a long brilliant pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and still wilder. A huge shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke, starred and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with spots of light which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster like a torch-light procession.
"`What is it? Oh! what is it, Uncle Dan'l?'
"With deep solemnity the answer came:
"`It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!'
"It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling in a moment. And then while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and stronger and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's voice lifted up its supplications.
"`O Lord, we's ben mighty wicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go to de bad place, but, good Lord, deah Lord, we ain't ready yit, we ain't ready — let dese po' chil'en hab one mo' chance, jes' one mo' chance. Take de ole niggah if you's got to hab somebody. — Good Lord, good deah Lord, we don't know whah you's a gwine to, we don't know who you's got yo' eye on, but we knows by de way you's a comin', we know by de way you's a tiltin' along in yo' charyot o' fiah dat some po' sinner's a gwine to ketch it. But, good Lord, dese chil'en don't 'blong heah, dey's f'm Obedstown whah dey don't know nuffin, an' you knows, yo' own sef, dat dey ain't 'sponsible. An' deah Lord, good Lord, it ain't like yo' mercy, it ain't like yo' pity, it ain't like yo' long-sufferin' lovin'-kindness for to take dis kind o' 'vantage o' sich little chil'en as dese is when dey's so many ornery grown folks chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down dah. O Lord, spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away f'm dey frens, jes' let 'em off jes' dis once, and take it out'n de ole niggah. HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, de ole ——'
"The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party, and not twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud-valve suddenly burst forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly Uncle Dan'l snatched a child under each arm and scoured into the woods with the rest of the pack at his heels. And then, ashamed of himself, he halted in the deep darkness and shouted (but rather feebly):
"`Heah I is, Lord, heah I is!'
"There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then, to the surprise and comfort of the party, it was plain that the august presence had gone by, for its dreadful noises were receding. Uncle Dan'l headed a cautious reconnoissance in the direction of the log. Sure enough `The Lord' was just turning a point a short distance up the river, and while they looked, the lights winked out and the coughing diminished by degrees and presently ceased altogether.
"`H'wsh! Well now dey's some folks says dey ain't no 'ficiency in prah.Dis chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo' dat prah?Dat's it. Dat's it!'"
There follows a discussion as to whether or not the prayer caused the apparition to go by, of which of course Uncle Dan'l has no doubt. The apparition reappears and Uncle Dan'l betakes himself to prayer again, this time a long way off.
I wrote the authors of `The Gilded Age' and asked the source of `Uncle Daniel's Apparition and Prayer'. Mr. Clemens kindly replied that he is the author of the piece, and that it is pure fiction without either history or tradition back of it.
A comparison of the two stories shows some differences. The scene in the one case is the Alabama River, in the other the Mississippi. Moreover, the PERSONNEL is different. The Negro man in Twain's story is about forty, in Lanier's he is old and has been blind for forty years. Another difference Mr. Sidney Lanier points out to his wife in his letter of October 1, 1874: "Cliff's and my `Power of Prayer' will come out in the Scribner's; probably in the `Etchings' at the end of the Magazine. I wrote thee what Dr. Holland said anent its resemblance to something of Mark Twain's in plot. Day before yesterday I called and asked Dr. Holland what work of Mark Twain's he referred to. `Well,' said he, `I know nothing about it myself: I read the poem to a friend, and he suggested that the plot was like something of Mark Twain's. But yesterday I read him your note, and he then recollected that in Twain's version it is God Almighty that is coming up the bend. In yours it is the Devil: — which certainly makes a little difference!' and here he broke into a great laugh. `Yes,' I rejoined, `a difference toto coelo,' whereat he laughed again, and told me he had already ordered a check to be sent me for the poem."
Mr. Clifford Lanier was born at Griffin, Ga., April 24, 1844, entered business in Montgomery, Ala., at fourteen, subsequently attended college for a year and a half, and in May, 1862, joined his brother in the Confederate Army. His soldier life has been detailed in connection with that of the poet. In October, 1864, Mr. Clifford Lanier was assigned as signal officer to the blockade-runner `Talisman', which, after two successful runs to the Bermuda Islands, was wrecked in December, 1864. He escaped, however, and surrendered to the Federal authorities at the end of April, 1865. He has been successively lawyer, hotel manager, and superintendent of schools in Montgomery, Ala. For several years past he has been a director of the Bank of Montgomery and other corporations. All the while, however, he has been deeply interested in literature and has written some graceful sketches and poems, among which may be mentioned the following: `Thorn-fruit' (1867), `Love and Loyalty at War' (1893), `Biding Tryst' (1894), prose; `Greatest of These is Love', `The American Philomel', `Keats and Fanny B——', `The Spirit of Art', `Antinous to Hadrian', `Time', `Tireless', `Tramp' (in Stedman and Hutchinson's `Library of American Literature'), `Love and Life', `Edgar Allan Poe', etc. As stated in the `Introduction', the Chautauquans of 1898 have named themselves "The Laniers" in honor of Messrs. Sidney and Clifford Lanier. The motto of the class is the first line of Mr. Clifford Lanier's `Transformation' (`Sunday-school Times', Phila., June 30, 1894):
"The humblest life that lives may be divine."
8. The complete `Poems' has `the' before `world', but Mrs. Lanier thinks the poet must have used `de' here as elsewhere.
Rose-morals
I. — Red
Would that my songs might be [1]What roses make by day and night —Distillments of my clod of miseryInto delight.
Soul, could'st thou bare thy breastAs yon red rose, and dare the day,All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?Say yea — say yea!
Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye;The wind is up; so; drift away.That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly, [11]I strive, I pray.
II. — White
Soul, get thee to the heartOf yonder tuberose: hide thee there —There breathe the meditations of thine artSuffused with prayer.
Of spirit grave yet light,How fervent fragrances uprisePure-born from these most rich and yet most whiteVirginities!
Mulched with unsavory death, [21]Grow, Soul! unto such white estate,That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath,Thy work, thy fate.
____ Baltimore, 1875.
Notes: Rose-morals
Rose-morals in English literature probably begin with Sir John Mandeville in the fourteenth century. At any rate, in the eighteenth chapter of his `Voyage and Travels' he professes to tell us the origin of red and white roses. A fair maid had been unjustly accused of wrong-doing and doomed to die by fire. "And as the woode began to brenne (burn) about hir, she made hir prayer to our Lorde as she was not gyltie of that thing, that he would helpe hir that it might be knowne to all men. And whan (when) she had thus sayde, she entered the fyre and anone the fyre went out, and those braunches that were brenninge (burning) became red Roses and those braunches that were not kindled became white Rosiers (rose bushes) full of white roses, and those were the fyrst roses and rosyers that any man sawe, and so was the mayden saved through the grace of God."
Thomas Carew has several rose-moralities, as `The True Beauty', beginning "He that loves a rosy cheek," and his exquisite `Red and White Roses':
"Read in these roses the sad storyOf my hard fate and your own glory:In the white you may discoverThe paleness of a fainting lover;In the red, the flames still feedingOn my heart with fresh wounds bleeding.The white will tell you how I languish,And the red express my anguish:The white my innocence displaying,The red my martyrdom betraying.The frowns that on your brow residedHave those roses thus divided;Oh! let your smiles but clear the weather,And then they both shall grow together."*
—* See Saintsbury's `Elizabethan Literature' (Macmillan & Co., New York, 1887),p. 363.—
Rollicking Robert Herrick, too, draws his morals, now advising the virgins to make much of time, as in his `Gather ye rose-buds while ye may', now preaching a rarely pathetic sermon, as in `To Blossoms':
"Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,Why do ye fall so fast?Your date is not so past,But you may stay yet here awhileTo blush and gently smile,And go at last.