Outlines of English and American Literature Part 50

We mention these small incidents with a purpose. There is a delicacy of feeling in Lanier's verse which might lead a reader to a.s.sume that the poet was effeminate, when in truth he was as manly as any Norse scald or Saxon scop who ever stood beside his chief in battle. Of the war he never sang; but we find some reflection of the girl who waited in the poem "My Springs."

[Sidenote: WAR'S AFTERMATH]

Lanier was at sea, as signal officer on a blockade runner, when his s.h.i.+p was captured by a Federal cruiser and he was sent to the military prison at Point Lookout (1864). A hard and bitter experience it was, and his only comfort was the flute which he had hidden in his ragged sleeve. When released the following year he set out on foot for his home, five hundred miles away, and reached it more dead than alive; for consumption had laid a heavy hand upon him. For weeks he was desperately ill, and during the illness his mother died of the same wasting disease; then he rose and set out bravely to earn a living,--no easy matter in a place that had suffered as Georgia had during the war.

[Sidenote: THE GLEAM]

We shall not enter into his struggle for bread, or into his wanderings in search of a place where he could breathe without pain. He was a law clerk in his father's office at Macon when, knowing that he had but a slender lease of life, he made his resolve. To the remonstrances of his father he closed his ears, saying that music and poetry were calling him and he must follow the call. The superb climax of Tennyson's "Merlin and the Gleam"

was in his soul:

O young mariner, Down to the haven Call your companions, Launch your vessel And crowd your canvas, And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow the Gleam!

Thus bravely he went northward to Baltimore, taking his flute with him. He was evidently a wonderful artist, playing not by the score but making his instrument his voice, so that his audience seemed to hear a soul speaking in melody. His was a magic flute. Soon he was supporting himself by playing in the Peabody Orchestra, living joyously meanwhile in an atmosphere of music and poetry and books; for he was always a student, determined to understand as well as to practice his art. He wrote poems, stories, anything to earn an honest dollar; he gave lectures on music and literature; he planned a score of books that he did not and could not write, for he was living in a fever of mind and body. Music and poetry were surging within him for expression; but his strength was failing, his time short.

[Sidenote: THE STRUGGLE]

In 1879 he was appointed lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, and for the first time he had an a.s.sured income, small, indeed, but very heartening since it was enough to support his family. He began teaching with immense enthusiasm; but presently he was speaking in a whisper from an invalid's chair. Under such circ.u.mstances were uttered some of our most cheering words on art and poetry. Two years later he died in a tent among the hills, near Asheville, North Carolina, whither he had gone in a vain search for health.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VILLAGE OF McGAHEYSVILLE, VIRGINIA Near here Lanier spent his summers during the last years of his life]

There is in all Lanier's verse a fragmentariness, a sense of something left unsaid, which we may understand better if we remember that his heart was filled with the n.o.blest emotions, but that when he strove to write them his pen failed for weariness.

Read the daily miracle of dawn in "Sunrise," for example, and find there the waiting oaks, the stars, the tide, the marsh with its dreaming pools, light, color, fragrance, melody,--everything except that the hand which wrote the poem was too weak to guide the pencil. The rush of impressions and memories in "Sunrise," its tender beauty and vague incompleteness, as of something left unsaid, may be explained by the fact that it was Lanier's last song.

WORKS OF LANIER. Many readers have grown familiar with Lanier's name in connection with _The Boy's Froissart_, _The Boy's King Arthur_, _The Boy's Mabinogion_ and _The Boy's Percy_, four books in which he retold in simple language some of the old tales that are forever young.

His chief prose works, _The English Novel_ and _The Science of English Verse_, are of interest chiefly to critics; they need not detain us here except to note that the latter volume is devoted to Lanier's pet theory that music and poetry are governed by the same laws. Of more general interest are his scattered "Notes," which contain suggestions for many a poem that was never written, intermingled with condensed criticisms. Of the poet Swinburne he says, "He invited me to eat; the service was silver and gold, but no food therein except salt and pepper." One might say less than that with more words, or read a whole book to arrive at this summary of Whitman's style and bottomless philosophy: "Whitman is poetry's butcher; huge raw collops slashed from the rump of poetry, and never mind the gristle, is what he feeds our souls with.... His argument seems to be that because the Mississippi is long, therefore every American is a G.o.d."

[Sidenote: HIS BEST POEMS]

Those who read Lanier's poems should begin with the simplest, with his love songs, "My Springs" and "In Absence," or his "Ballad of Trees and the Master," or his outdoor poems, such as "Tampa Robins," "Song of the Chattahoochee," "Mocking Bird," and "Evening Song." In the last-named lyrics he began the work (carried out more fully in his later poems) of interpreting in words the harmony which his sensitive ear detected in the manifold voices of nature.

Next in order are the poems in which is hidden a thought or an ideal not to be detected at first glance; for to Lanier poetry was like certain oriental idols which when opened are found to be filled with exquisite perfumes.

"The Stirrup Cup" is one of the simplest of these allegories. It was a custom in olden days when a man was ready to journey, for one who loved him to bring a gla.s.s of wine which he drank in the saddle; and this was called the stirrup or parting cup. In the cup offered Lanier was a rare cordial, filled with "sweet herbs from all antiquity," and the name of the cordial was Death:

Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt: Hand me the cup whene'er thou wilt; 'T is thy rich stirrup cup to me; I'll drink it down right smilingly.

In four stanzas of "Night and Day" he compresses the tragedy of _Oth.e.l.lo_, not the tragedy that Shakespeare wrote but the tragedy that was in the Moor's soul when Desdemona was gone. In "Life and Song" he sought to express the ideal of a poet, and the closing lines might well be the measure of his own heroic life:

His song was only living aloud, His work a singing with his hand.

In "How Love Looked for h.e.l.l" the lesson is hidden deeper; for the profound yet simple meaning of the poem is that, search high or low, Love can never find h.e.l.l because he takes heaven with him wherever he goes. Another poem of the same cla.s.s, but longer and more involved, is "The Symphony." Here Lanier faces one of the greatest problems of the age, the problem of industrialism with its false standards and waste of human happiness, and his answer is the same that Tennyson gave in his later poems; namely, that the familiar love in human hearts can settle every social question when left to its own unselfish way:

Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it, Plainly the heart of a child might solve it.

[Sidenote: MARSHES OF GLYNN]

The longer poems of Lanier are of uneven merit and are all more or less fragmentary. The chief impression from reading the "Psalm of the West," for example, is that it is the prelude to some greater work that was left unfinished. More finely wrought and more typical of Lanier's mood and method is "The Marshes of Glynn," his best-known work. It is a marvelous poem, one of the most haunting in our language; yet it is like certain symphonies in that it says nothing, being all feeling,--vague, inexpressible feeling. Some readers find no meaning or satisfaction in it; others hail it as a perfect interpretation of their own mood or emotion when they stand speechless before the sunrise or the afterglow or a landscape upon which the very spirit of beauty and peace is brooding.

THE QUALITY OF LANIER. In order to sympathize with Lanier, and so to understand him, it is necessary to keep in mind that he was a musician rather than a poet in our ordinary understanding of the term. In his verse he used words, exactly as he used the tones of his flute, not so much to express ideas as to call up certain emotions that find no voice save in music. As he said, "Music takes up the thread that language drops," which explains that beautiful but puzzling line which closes "The Symphony":

Music is Love in search of a word.

[Sidenote: MUSIC AND POETRY]

We have spoken of "The Symphony" as an answer to the problem of industrial waste and sorrow, but it contains also Lanier's confession of faith; namely, that social evils arise among men because of their lack of harmony; and that spiritual harmony, the concord of souls which makes strife impossible, may be attained through music. The same belief appears in _Tiger Lilies_ (a novel written by Lanier in his early days), in which a certain character makes these professions:

"To make a _home_ out of a household, given the raw materials--to wit, wife, children, a friend or two and a house--two other things are necessary. These are a good fire and good music.

And inasmuch as we can do without the fire for half the year, I may say music is the one essential."

"Late explorers say they have found some nations that have no G.o.d; but I have not read of any that had no music." "Music means harmony, harmony means love, love means--G.o.d!"

One may therefore summarize Lanier by saying that he was poet who used verbal rhythm, as a musician uses harmonious chords, to play upon our better feelings. His poems of nature give us no definite picture of the external world but are filled with murmurings, tremblings, undertones,--all the vague impressions which one receives when alone in the solitudes, as if the world were alive but inarticulate:

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-witholding and free Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!

Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, Ye spread and span like the catholic man that hath mightily won G.o.d out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

His poems of life have similar virtues and weaknesses: they are melodious; they are n.o.bly inspired; they appeal to our finest feelings; but they are always vague in that they record no definite thought and speak no downright message.

[Sidenote: LANIER AND WHITTIER]

The criticism may be more clear if we compare Lanier with Whittier, a man equally n.o.ble, who speaks a language that all men understand. The poems of the two supplement each other, one reflecting the reality of life, the other its mysterious dreams. In Whittier's poetry we look upon a landscape and a people, and we say, "I have seen that rugged landscape with my own eyes; I have eaten bread with those people, and have understood and loved them." Then we read Lanier's poetry and say, "Yes, I have had those feelings at times; but I do not speak of them to others because I cannot tell what they mean to me." Both poets are good, and both fail of greatness in poetry, Whittier because he has no exalted imagination, Lanier because he lacks primitive simplicity and strength. One poet sings a song to cheer the day's labor, the other makes a melody to accompany our twilight reveries.

"WALT" WHITMAN (1819-1892)

Since Whitman insisted upon being called "Walt" instead of Walter, so let it be. The name accords with the free-and-easy style of his verse. If you can find some abridged selections from that verse, read them by all means; but if you must search the whole of it for the pa.s.sages that are worth reading, then pa.s.s it cheerfully by; for such another vain display of egotism, vulgarity and rant never appeared under the name of poetry.

Whitman was so absurdly fond of his "chants" and so ignorant of poetry that he preserved the whole of his work in a final edition, and his publishers still insist upon printing it, rubbish and all. The result is that the few rare verses which stamp him as a poet are apt to be overlooked in the mult.i.tudinous gabblings which, of themselves, might mark him as a mere freak or "sensation" in our modest literature.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALT WHITMAN]

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ordinarily when we read poetry we desire to know something of the man who wrote it, of his youth, his training, the circ.u.mstance of his work and the personal ideals which made him view life steadily in one light rather than in another. In dealing with Whitman it is advisable to leave such natural curiosity unsatisfied, and for two reasons: first, the man was far from admirable or upright, and to meet him at certain stages is to lose all desire to read his poetry; and second, he was so extremely secretive about himself, while professing boundless good-fellows.h.i.+p with all men, that we can seldom trust his own record, much less that of his admirers. There are great blanks in the story of his life; his real biography has not yet been written; and in the jungle of controversial writings which has grown up around him one loses sight of Whitman in a maze of extravagant or contradictory opinions. [Footnote: Of the many biographies of Whitman perhaps the best for beginners is Perry's _Walt Whitman_ (1906), in American Men of Letters Series.]

[Sidenote: TRAITS AND INCIDENTS]

Let it suffice then to record, in catalogue fas.h.i.+on, that Whitman was born (1819) on Long Island, of stubborn farmer stock; that he spent his earliest years by the sea, which inspired his best verse; that he grew up in the streets of Brooklyn and was always fascinated by the restless tide of city life, as reflected in such poems as "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"; that his education was scanty and of the "picked up" variety; that to the end of his life, though ignorant of what literary men regard as the _a-b-c_ of knowledge, he was supremely well satisfied with himself; that till he was past forty he worked irregularly at odd jobs, but was by choice a loafer; that he was a man of superb physical health and gloried in his body, without much regard for moral standards; that his strength was broken by nursing wounded soldiers during the war, a beautiful and unselfish service; that he was then a government clerk in Was.h.i.+ngton until partly disabled by a paralytic stroke, and that the remainder of his life was spent at Camden, New Jersey.

His _Leaves of Gra.s.s_ (published first in 1855, and republished with additions many times) brought him very little return in money, and his last years were spent in a state of semipoverty, relieved by the gifts of a small circle of admirers.

WHITMAN'S VERSE. In a single book, _Leaves of Gra.s.s_, Whitman has collected all his verse. This book would be a chaos even had he left his works in the order in which they were written; but that is precisely what he did not do. Instead, he enlarged and rearranged the work ten different times, mixing up his worst and his best verses, so that it is now very difficult to trace his development as a poet. We may, however, tentatively arrange his work in three divisions: his early shouting to attract attention (as summarized in the line "I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world"), his war poems, and his later verse written after he had learned something of the discipline of life and poetry.

The quality of his early work may be judged from a few disjointed lines of his characteristic "Song of Myself":

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I pa.s.s death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good, The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready, The dried gra.s.s of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon, The clear light plays on the brown, gray and green intertinged, The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load, I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other, I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy, And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.