In "The Symphony" more than elsewhere, perhaps, he is the poet of his period. The poem is a cry against the materialism that Lanier felt was crushing the higher things out of American life:
"O Trade! O, Trade! Would thou wert dead!
The Time needs heart—'t is tired of head:
We're all for love," the violins said.
Each instrument in the orchestra joins in the argument. "A velvet flute note" followed the passion of the violins, the reeds whispered, "the bold straightforward horn" spoke out,
And then the hautboy played and smiled
And sang like any large-eyed child.
The solution of the problem was the same that Shelley had brought. Love alone could master the evils of the time:
Life! Life! thou sea-fugue, writ from east to west,
Love, love alone can pore
On thy dissolving score
Of harsh half-phrasings,
Blotted ere writ,
And double erasings
Of chords most fit.
And love was to come through music:
Music is love in search of a word.
The poem is indeed a symphony. One feels that the poet is composing rather than writing, that he is thinking in terms of orchestration, balancing parts and instruments, and working out tone values. The same is true of "The Marshes of Glynn" and "Sunrise": they are symphonies.
One must appreciate fully this musical basis of Lanier's art if one is to understand him. He thought in musical forms. The best illustration, perhaps, may be found in his Centennial Cantata. To the average man the poem meant little. One must read it and reread it and study it if one is to get any consecutive thought from it. But read after Lanier's explanation, it becomes not only clear but illuminating: