"Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves,"
as a few lines before they were "little masters." In Individuality we read,—
"Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud."
And in Corn there is a passage of great tenderness:—
"The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.">[
[Footnote 36: This passage is Wordsworthian in spirit. Nature is regarded as a teacher who suggests or reveals ineffable things. Lanier might have said, as did Wordsworth,—
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.">[
[Footnote 37: Lanier had a lively and vigorous imagination, which is seen in his use of personification and metaphor. In this poem almost every object—trees, leaves, marsh, streams, sun, heat—is personified. This same fondness for personification may be observed in his other characteristic poems.
In the use of metaphor it may be doubted whether the poet is always so happy. There is sometimes inaptness or remoteness in his resemblances. To liken the naming heavens to a beehive, and the rising sun to a bee issuing from the "hive-hole," can hardly be said to add dignity to the description.
In Clover men are clover heads, which the Course-of-things, as an ox, browses upon:—