Drawn in select proportion fair bond air; From darkness of the dreadful night, From antique ashes, whose departed In thee has finer life and longer fame; From storms and calms, From potsherds and dry bones Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wrought Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought; Yea, into cool solacing green hast spun White radiance hot from out the sun. So thou dost mutually leaven Strength of earth with grace of heaven; So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold, And many a perplexing opposite, And so, Akin by blood to high and low, Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part, Richly expending thy much - bruised heart In equal care to nourish lord in hall Thou took'st from all that thou mightest. give to all. The author of this conception of a poet therefore very naturally considers all the questions of the hour and ponders the problems of the day. To the old hill of his native state, worn out, abandoned, he exclaims with prophetic voice in "Corn: " Thou gashed and hairy Lear Whom the divine Cordelia of the year, E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer Yet shall the great God turn thy fate, And bring thee back into thy monarch state And majesty immaculate. Against unbelief and all half-beliefs he protests in "Acknowledgment," and "Remonstrance contains his fierce denunciation against bigotry and intolerance, concluding with: Opinion, damned intriguer, gray with guile, Let me alone! The cold, metallic spirit of moneygetting with its paralyzing effect upon all the finer instincts and nobler passions of the soul, with its destructive consequences to the saint's faith, the artist's love of beauty, and the poet's high imaginings, and its accompanying degradation of the poor-afflicted him still more deeply. In the "Symphony" he cries out: O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead! The time needs heart-'tis tired of head: and the song of the poor, Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand, is eloquent with melodious heartthrobs: We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, 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 all that cometh from the Throne? 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. Alas, for the poor to have some part Love alone, then, can cure the ills that flesh is heir to, can solve the difficulties arising from so many sources, and Lanier uses every note in his gamut in sounding love's praises : Music is love in search of a word. And in an ecstasy of love he exclaims: O, sweet my pretty sum of history, I leapt the breadth of time in loving thee! For "music means harmony, harmony means love, and love means— God." 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. His view of life may then be given in one line: When life's all love,' tis life: aught else, 'tis naught. To the lover of nature Lanier gives the keenest delight and sub |