this began with the
publication of his novel, `Tiger-lilies', in 1867,
and in the same year, of
occasional poems in `The Round Table' of New York.
`Corn', published in `Lippincott's Magazine' (Philadelphia)
for February, 1875, is the first of his poems that attracted general notice,
and the one that gained him the friendship of Bayard Taylor.
To Taylor he owed his
selection to write the `Centennial Cantata',
which gave him still greater notoriety, though, to be sure,
some of it was not very
grateful to him. In 1876 the Lippincotts published
his `Florida', and in 1877 his first
volume of `Poems',
which contained ninety-four pages and consisted
chiefly of pieces*2*
previously published in the magazines. Soon after settling in Baltimore,
Lanier made a careful study of Old and Middle English, the fruits of which
he
partially" target="_blank" title="ad.部分地;局部地">
partially embodied in courses of lectures given to his private class
and to the public, the latter at the Peabody Institute, in 1879.
During these years, too, he had been
steadily turning out poems of high order.
On his birthday, February 3, in 1879, he received notice of his appointment
as Lecturer on English Literature at the Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore
for the ensuing scholastic year, with a fixed salary, the first since
his marriage. In the summer of 1879 he wrote his `Science of English Verse',
which constituted the basis of his first course of lectures
at the Johns Hopkins University. Notwithstanding serious
illness,
this same winter, 1879-80, he lectured at three private schools
and kept up his
musicalengagement at the Peabody Concerts.
The next winter, 1880-81, he came near dying, but still kept writing
(`Sunrise' was written with a fever temperature of 104 Degrees)
and went through his twelve lectures at the Hopkins, afterwards embodied
in `The English Novel'. How
trying this must have been to him
can be gathered from the following words of Mr. Ward:
"A few of the earlier lectures he penned himself; the rest he was obliged
to
dictate to his wife. With the
utmost care of himself,
going in a closed
carriage and sitting during his lecture,
his strength was so exhausted that the struggle for
breathin the
carriage on his return seemed each time to
threaten the end.
Those who heard him listened in a sort of fascinated
terror, as in doubt
whether the hoarded
breath would
suffice to the end of the hour."*3*
After this a trip was made to New York to arrange for issuing some books
for boys, and four were issued, two posthumously: `Boy's Froissart' (1878),
`Boy's King Arthur' (1880), `Boy's Mabinogion' (1881),
and `Boy's Percy' (1882). Another work, an
account of North Carolina
similar to that of Florida, was
contracted for and was
definitely planned,
but, owing to aggravating infirmities, could not be completed.
--
*1* Ward's `Memorial', p. xx. f.
*2* They are named in the `Bibliography'.
*3* Ward's `Memorial', p. xxviii.
--
For the end was near at hand. Desperate
illness had made it necessary
to seek
relief near Asheville, N.C., where he was joined
by Mrs. Lanier and by his father and step-mother. Growing no better,
he was moved to Lynn, Polk County, N.C. Of the rest we shall hear
in the words of his wife: "We are left alone (it is August 29, 1881)
with one another. On the last night of the summer comes a change.
His love and
immortal will hold off the destroyer of our summer
yet one more week, until the
forenoon of September 7th, and then falls
the frost, and that unfaltering will renders its
supremesubmission to
the will of God."* Unusually checkered his life had been, and yet for Lanier
as for Timrod
poetry (and music) had "turned life's tasteless waters
into wine, and flushed them through and through with
purple tints."**
The body was taken to Mr. Lanier's home in Baltimore,
thence to
the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, where services were conducted
by the
rector, the Rev. Dr. William Kirkus. It was then buried
in Greenmount Cemetery, in the lot of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull,
two of the dearest friends that Mr. and Mrs. Lanier had in Baltimore.
--
* Ward's `Memorial', p. xxx.
** Timrod's `A Vision of Poesy',
stanza xliv.
--
Mr. Lanier left a family consisting of his wife and four sons.
Mrs. Lanier, who lives at Tryon, N.C., was the inspiration
not only of those
glorious tributes, `Laus Mariae' and `My Springs',
but also of the poet's whole life. The
eldest son, Mr. Charles Day Lanier,
was born at Macon, Ga., September 12, 1868, and was graduated A.B.
at the Johns Hopkins University in 1888. At one time he was
Assistant Editor of `The Cosmopolitan Magazine', a position that he gave up
only to become Business Manager of `The Review of Reviews',
with which he has been connected from its beginning.
He is the author of several
gracefulsketches in the magazines.
The second son, Sidney, is
passionately fond of music,
and would have
devoted himself
thereto but for life-long ill-health.
After teaching three years in West Virginia, he has started a fruit farm
at Tryon, N.C., where he hopes to build up his health.
The third son, Henry Wysham, was prevented from entering the Johns Hopkins
by a
partialfailure of sight, and for three years has
devoted himself
to railroad
engineering in Baltimore and in Jamaica. The youngest,
Robert Sampson, only fourteen, is at Tryon, N.C., with his mother.
That interest in Lanier's life and work did not cease with his death,
there is
abundant evidence. On October 22, 1881, a
memorial meeting was held
by the Faculty and students of the Johns Hopkins University, at which
addresses*1* were made by President Gilman and Professor Wm. Hand Browne,
of the University, and by the Rev. Dr. William Kirkus, of Baltimore,
and a letter*1* was read from the poet-critic, Edmund C. Stedman,
of New York. In 1883 `The English Novel' was published,
and in 1884 the `Poems', edited by his wife, with the excellent `Memorial'
by Dr. Wm. Hayes Ward, who declared that he thought Lanier
would "take his final rank with the first princes of American song."*2*
Numerous
reviews of his life and works were published,
notably those
by Mr. Wm. R. Thayer, Dr. Merrill E. Gates, Professor Charles W. Kent,
and by the London `Spectator'. On February 3, 1888,
the Johns Hopkins University held another
memorial meeting in Baltimore,
attended by many from other cities. "A bust of the poet, in bronze
(modelled by Ephraim Keyser,
sculptor, in the last period of Lanier's life,
at the
suggestion of Mr. J. R. Tait), was presented to the University
by his kinsman, Charles Lanier, Esq., of New York. It was also announced that
a citizen of Baltimore had offered a
pedestal, to be cut in Georgia marble
from a design by Mr. J. B. N. Wyatt. On a
temporarypedestalhung the flute of Lanier, which had so often been his solace,
and a roll of his
manuscript music. The bust was crowned
with a
wreath of
laurel; the words of Lanier, `The Time needs Heart',
were woven into the strings of a floral lyre; and other flowers,
likewise brought by personal friends, were grouped around the
pedestal.
As a memento a card, designed by Mrs. Henry Whitman, of Boston,
was given to those who were present. Upon its face was a
wreath,
with Lanier's name and the date, and the motto -- `Aspiro dum Exspiro';
upon the
reverse appeared the closing lines of the Hymn of the Sun,
taken from the poet's `Hymns of the Marshes' -- and beneath,
a flute with ivy twined about it."*3* The exercises,
which were interspersed with music, were as follows:
addresses by President Gilman of the Hopkins and President Gates of Rutgers
(now of Amherst);
selections from Lanier's
poetry, read by
Miss Susan Hayes Ward, of Newark, N.J.; a paper on Lanier's
`Science of English Verse', by Professor A. H. Tolman, of Ripon College, Wis.
(now of the University of Chicago);
poetic tributes by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull,
Miss Edith M. Thomas, and Messrs. James Cummings, Richard E. Burton,
and John B. Tabb; and letters from Messrs. Richard W. Gilder,
Edmund C. Stedman, and James Russell Lowell -- all of which may be found
in President Gilman's
dainty `Memorial of Sidney Lanier'. Again,
a replica of the above-mentioned bust, the gift also of Mr. Charles Lanier,
was unveiled at the poet's
birthplace, Macon, Ga., on October 17, 1890;
on which occasion tender tributes*4* were again poured forth
in prose and verse, by Messrs. W. B. Hill, Hugh V. Washington,
Charles Lanier, Clifford Lanier, Wm. Hand Browne, Charles G. D. Roberts,
John B. Tabb, H. S. Edwards, Wm. H. Hayne, Charles W. Hubner,
Joel Chandler Harris, Charles Dudley Warner, and Daniel C. Gilman.
But more
significant than these demonstrations, perhaps,
is the
steadily growing study
devoted to Lanier's works.
Mr. Higginson*5* tells us, for
instance, that, when he wrote his tribute