His

give variety to his song. originality does not bind him to one idea or to one form. Now he uses nice observation, curious questioning, and quaint comparison in the neat sonnet on "The Mocking Bird: "

Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,

He summed the woods in song; or typic drew

The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay

Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,

And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew

At morn in brake or bosky avenue.

Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird

could say.

Then down he shot, bounced airily along The sward, twitched in a grasshopper,

made song

Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.

Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:

How may the death of that dull insect be

The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree?

Then again in the same verse form he gives his luxuriant fancy freer play and takes us into the higher region of the imagination in "The Harlequin of Dreams: "

Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found,

Dim-paneled in the painted scene of Sleep,

Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap

Upon my spirit's stage. Then Sight and Sound,

Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound,

And all familiar Forms that firmly keep Man's reason in the road, change faces,

peep

Betwixt the legs and mock the daily round.

Yet thou canst more than mock: some. times my tears

At midnight break through bounden lids-a sign

Thou hast a heart: and oft thy little leaven

Of dream-taught wisdom works me bettered years.

In one night witch, saint, trickster, fool divine,

I think thou'rt jester at the Court of Heaven.

In the third stage of Lanier's poetical development, however, the most distinctive features of his art and gifts are presented. According to his own theories were written

those poems in which he gave the best exhibition of his melody, strength, and personal flavor, and the highest manifestation of his passion, power, and originality. In these his luxuriant fancy has freest range; his love of nature is most poetically displayed. In these later poems we may, it is true, still chance upon a line fashioned after Poe and observe a manner imitated from Browning, for not even "dearest Keats," it would seem, exercised such an influence upon him as these; yet no other poet ever wrote a series

of poems like "Corn," "Clover," "The Bee," "Remonstrance," "The Crystal," "The Symphony," "Individuality," "Sunset," "The Marshes of Glynn," and "Sunrise." In merit most unequal, in peculiarities most marked, they are nevertheless distinctive, and they are poetry, surely the rarest product of English or American literature during the last quarter of a century. After all it is to this body of verse we must turn for the completest interpretation of Lanier's ideas of the poet, of personality, of life, nature, love, God. If it be asked, "What profit e'er a poet brings?" he answers in "The Bee: "

He beareth starry stuff about his wings To pollen thee and sting thee fertile:

for oft these pollens be Fine dust from wars that poets wage for thee.

Or, if the question be, "A poet, thou; what worth, what worth, the

The artist's market is the heart of man, The artist's price, some little good of man.

In "Corn," one tall corn-captain types

The poet-soul sublime That leads the vanward of his timid time And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme;

addressing whom he sings:

Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal

man's

Yet ever piercest downward in the mold
And keepest hold

Upon the reverend and steadfast earth
That gave thee birth;

Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave,
Serene and brave,

With unremitting breath
Inhaling life from death,

Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage elo

quent,

Thyself thy monument.

As poets should

Thou hast built up thy hardihood

With universal food,