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No man is pure poet, he admits, but in proportion as he approaches perfect artistry, his life is purified. Sidney Lanier's verse expresses this argument of Shelley precisely. In The Crystal, Lanier indicates that the ideal poet has never been embodied. Pointing out the faults of his favorite poets, he contrasts their muddy characters with the perfect purity of Christ.
No wonder the two walked the faster and gave but perfunctory replies. "Indeed, I beg pardon," he blundered on. "I'm just bound for Lanier's. Any message?"
All, men-bards with a divine spark, and bards without, feel the need at times of an inspiration from without, "the breath of another soul to stir our inner flame," especially when we are in pursuit of a part of that "utmost musical beauty," that we are capable of understanding when we are breathlessly running to catch a glimpse of that unforeseen grandeur of Mr. Lanier's dream.
Friday again, and late in the day, and Bob Lanier's arrest lacked but a few hours of its first full week, and Bob was in bandages and bed in a sunny room of the hospital. Ennis, after a long night in saddle and a short "spat" with the colonel, was taking a much needed nap. Stannard and his wife had gone down to Doctor Mayhew's to meet Mrs. Osborn, who had come to spend the afternoon.
He struck more matches and threw the burning stumps to the floor, drank his fill, then stumbled away, intending to give himself up to his first sergeant for absence without leave. Back round by way of the store and the east front he went, but before he could reach the barracks came the appalling cry of fire Lanier's quarters!
The three afterward were seated in Hyde Park. Esther moved away, as Alice seemed anxious to talk with Oswald upon some confidential matter. Alice related Paul Lanier's proposal, and dwelt at length upon the many persecutions she had endured, culminating in the lake tragedy. "I always felt an unaccountable dread of both Paul and his father.
I must talk in simpler ways for all I study." They fell quiet. "Read me again that live oak poem of Lanier's," said Carl. She read, as she frequently read to Carl and Mic-co in the long quiet afternoons, with an accent musical and soft, of the immortal marshes of Glynn.
And then, with the lone trumpet of the musician of the guard wailing its good-night to the garrison the sweet, solemn strain of "Taps" the adjutant led his stunned and silent comrade home. Ennis and Schuchardt were still there, and started at sight of Lanier's white face. Without a word he led on to an inner room, where Ennis sprang to his side.
You see, I was all he had " She broke off, her voice faltering. "Come over by the window," I said, to change her thought. "I have something to repeat to you. It is a song of Sydney Lanier's. I think he was the greatest poet that ever lived in America, though not many agree with me. But he is my dear friend anyway, though he is dead, and I never saw him; and I want you to hear some of his words."
Others there were, casual visitors, and of course it did not escape the squawks and squabbles of the English sparrow, "Irritant, iterant, maddening bird." The robins, who one sometimes wishes, with Lanier's owl, "had more to think and less to say," were not so self-assertive as they usually are; in fact, they were quite subdued.
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