SIDNEY LANIER.
1842=1881.
Sidney Lanier was born in Macon, Georgia, descended from a line of artist ancestors, through whom he inherited great musical ability. He was educated at Oglethorpe College, being graduated in 1860. He and his brother Clifford entered the Confederate Army together in 1861 and served through the war; but the exposure and hardships and imprisonment developed consumption which finally caused his death.
After the war he lived for two years in Alabama as a clerk and a teacher; but his health failed and he was forced to return home where he practised law with his father till 1873. Then deciding to devote himself to music and poetry, he went to Baltimore where he was engaged as first flute in the Peabody Symphony Concerts and in 1879 as lecturer on English Literature in Johns Hopkins University. His dread disease never relaxed and he was often obliged to quit work and go to Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania in search of strength. His death occurred at Lynn, Polk County, North Carolina, on his last quest for strength and life with which to continue the work he so much loved.
His “Science of English Verse” is said to be a new and valuable addition to the study of poetry. His poems belong to the new order of thought and life. His “Tiger-Lilies” is a prose-poem, written in three weeks just after the war and laid in the mountains of Tennessee and on the eastern shore of Virginia where he was stationed. “Beauty is holiness, and holiness is beauty,” was his favorite remark on the subject of Art. His work and influence are growing in importance in the regard of students.
In 1876 he was invited to write the poem for the Centennial Exposition; and the “Meditation of Columbia,” composed with the musical expression always in mind,—and so too it should be read,—was the grand Ode that graced the opening day at Philadelphia. See under Waitman Barbe.
WORKS.
POEMS: Edited by his wife, Mary Day Lanier, with a Memorial by William Hayes Ward.
Tiger Lilies, [novel].
Florida: its Scenery, Climate, and History.
English Novel and Principles of Its Development.
Science of English Verse.
Boy’s Froissart.
Boy’s King Arthur.
Boy’s Mabinogion.
Boy’s Percy.