It should be compared with Hayne's The River and also with his The
Meadow Brook:—
"Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
Hark! the tiny swell;
Of wavelets softly, silverly
Toned like a fairy bell,
Whose every note, dropped sweetly
In mellow glamour round,
Echo hath caught and harvested
In airy sheaves of sound!"
But The Song of the Chattahoochee has what the other poems lack, —a lofty moral purpose. The noble stream consciously resists the allurements of pleasure to heed "the voices of duty," and this spirit imparts to it a greater dignity and weight.]
[Footnote 11: This poem appeared in The Independent, July 15, 1880, from which it is taken. It illustrates the intellectual rather than the musical side of Lanier's genius. It is purely didactic, and thought rather than melody guides the poet's pen. The meter is quite regular,—an unusual thing in our author's most characteristic work.
It shows Lanier's use of pentameter blank verse,—a use that is somewhat lacking in ease and clearness. The first sentence is longer than that of Paradise Lost, without Milton's unity and force. Such ponderous sentences are all too frequent in Lanier, and as a result he is sometimes obscure. Repeated readings are necessary to take in the full meaning of his best work.
This poem, though not bearing the distinctive marks of his genius, is peculiarly interesting for two reasons,—it gives us an insight into his wide range of reading and study, and it exhibits his penetration and sanity as a critic. In the long list of great names he never fails to put his finger on the vulnerable spot. Frequently he is exceedingly felicitous, as when he speaks of "rapt Behmen, rapt too far," or of "Emerson, Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost Thy Self sometimes.">[
[Footnote 12: It will be remembered that Lanier was a careful student of
Shakespeare, on whom he lectured to private classes in Baltimore.]
[Footnote 13: See second part of King Henry IV, iii. I. The passage which the poet had in mind begins:—
"How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep!">[
[Footnote 14: See The Two Gentlemen of Verona.]