At the same time a generously enterprising spirit led several of the leading Northern editors to accept and even solicit contributions from the South. In 1873 Scribner’s Monthly projected and secured a widely advertised series of articles on “the great South.” Harper’s had a series of its own. The Atlantic, with Howells as editor, followed conservatively, and the Independent opened its columns to the poetry of the men whom it had condemned in most aggressive terms a dozen years earlier. More important to Lanier than any of these was Lippincott’s, in which “Corn,” “The Symphony,” and “The Psalm of the West,” with certain shorter poems, were published in 1875, 1876, and 1877—poems by which his wide reputation was established.
The encouragement given him by Hayne in the dark days of the law, when he had no time to write, was followed by a Northern friendship of even greater value to him when the Lippincott poems were brought to the kindly attention of Bayard Taylor. This busy and large-hearted man of letters seems to have been the literary friend of his whole generation. He was on terms of easy acquaintance with the most renowned of his day. He was a companion of publishers, editors, and journalists, and he showed a most generous interest in the fortunes of promising younger men. His literary status is summarized in his relation to the literary ceremonies of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. He wrote the Ode for the Fourth of July celebration after the honor had been declined by Bryant, Lowell, and Longfellow, and he had sufficient influence to gain for Lanier the distinction of writing the Cantata for the opening ceremonies. The exchange of letters between the two in connection with their efforts is unsurpassed as a record of detailed processes in poetic composition, criticism and rejoinder, and final revision.
Lanier’s conscious command of a poetic theory was a product of his habits of study and led to his appointment by President Daniel Coit Gilman as lecturer in English literature at Johns Hopkins University.[33] From youth Lanier had been an extensive reader of the early English classics, and in Baltimore he eagerly used the resources of the Peabody Library, which was maintained especially for research students. He was keenly interested in stimulating general intelligence in literature among the adult public and also in promoting exact and technical study by qualified scholars. In 1878 he plunged once more into study, planned lecture courses, projected a research program for himself, and early in the next year received the Hopkins appointment. He approached his work with the utmost zest and, as long as his strength lasted, lectured effectively and worked on the critical texts and treatises which the scholarship of his time was just beginning to supply. Now, however, when he had established working relations with the orchestra and the university, he sank under the strain of all the preceding struggle, and in 1881 he died before reaching his fortieth year.
Lanier’s abiding conviction put the poet on the same plane with the prophet and the seer. He was far from according with Poe’s total subordination of intellect and moral sense to the feeling for beauty. He seldom or never wrote a didactic poem, but he usually composed over a strong moralistic counterpoint. In “Corn” the poet
leads the vanward of his timid time
And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme.
In “The Bee” he will wage wars for the world. In “The Marshes of Glynn” he is
the catholic man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain.
The poet’s judgments are, therefore, certain to surpass those of his age, certain to reap a harvest of derision and abuse, and certain to approach the right because they are made in the light of eternity rather than in the ephemeral shadow of any passing day.