"Opinion, let me alone: I am not thine.
Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear
To feature me my Lord by rule and line."
Yet, as shown in the conclusion of The Crystal he had an exalted sense of the unapproachable beauty of the life and teachings of Christ. His tenderest poem is A Ballad of Trees and the Master:—
"Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him;
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him,
When into the woods He came.
"Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
'Twas on a tree they slew Him—last
When out of the woods He came.">[
[Footnote 33: This poem was first published in The Independent, December 14, 1882, from which it is here taken. The editor said, "This poem, we do not hesitate to say, is one of the few great poems that have been written on this side of the ocean." With this judgment there will be general agreement on the part of appreciative readers. On the emotional side, it may be said to reach the high-water mark of poetic achievement in this country. Its emotion at times reaches the summits of poetic rapture; a little more, and it would have passed into the boundary of hysterical ecstasy.
The circumstances of its composition possess a melancholy interest. It was Lanier's last and greatest poem. He penciled it a few months before his death when he was too feeble to raise his food to his mouth and when a burning fever was consuming him. Had he not made this supreme effort, American literature would be the poorer. This poem exhibits, in a high degree, the poet's love for Nature. Indeed, most of his great pieces— The Marshes of Glynn, Clover, Corn, and others—are inspired by the sights and sounds of Nature. Sunrise, in general tone and style, closely resembles The Marshes of Glynn.
The musical theories of Lanier in relation to poetry find their highest exemplification in Sunrise. It is made up of all the poetic feet —iambics, trochees, dactyls, anapests—so that it almost defies any attempt at scansion. But the melody of the verse never fails; equality of time is observed, along with a rich use of alliteration and assonance.
The poem may be easily analyzed; and a distinct notation of its successive themes may be helpful to the young reader. Its divisions are marked by its irregular stanzas. It consists of fifteen parts as follows: 1. The call of the marshes to the poet in his slumbers, and his awaking. 2. He comes as a lover to the live-oaks and marshes. 3. His address to the "man-bodied tree," and the "cunning green leaves." 4. His petition for wisdom and for a prayer of intercession. 5. The stirring of the owl. 6. Address to the "reverend marsh, distilling silence." 7. Description of the full tide. 8. "The bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence." 9. The motion of dawn. 10. The golden flush of the eastern sky. 11. The sacramental marsh at worship. 12. The slow rising of the sun above the sea horizon. 13. Apostrophe to heat. 14. The worker must pass from the contemplation of this splendor to his toil. 15. The poet's inextinguishable adoration of the sun.]
[Footnote 34: "Gospeling glooms" means glooms that convey to the sensitive spirit sweet messages of good news.]
[Footnote 35: Lanier continually attributes personality to the objects of Nature, and places them in tender relations to man. Here the little leaves become—