The poet's fancy
personifies what at first blush seems to us incapable of personification.
Thus at one time*1* he likens men to clover-leaves and the Course-of-things
to the browsing ox, which makes way with the clover-heads;
while at another he addresses an old red hill of Georgia as
"Thou gashed and hairy Lear
Whom the divine Cordelia of the year,
E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer."*2*
Like other Southern poets,*3* Lanier sometimes fails to check his imagination,
and in consequence leaves his readers "bramble-tangled in a brilliant maze,"
as in his description of the stars in `June Dreams'*4*
and in the `Psalm of the West'.*5* While I do not like a maze,
brilliant though it be and sweet, I must say that I prefer
the embarrassment of riches to the embarrassment of poverty. On the whole,
however, Lanier's figures strike me as singularly fresh and happy.
In `Sunrise', for example, the poet speaks of the marsh as follows:
"The tide's at full: the marsh with flooded streams
Glimmers a limpid labyrinth of dreams;"*6*
and of the heavens reflected in the marsh waters:
"Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies
A rhapsody of morning-stars.
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