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Lanier, Sidney, 1842-1881

"Select Poems of Sidney Lanier"


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*1* See `Bibliography'.
*2* `The Spectator' (London); see `Bibliography'.
*3* `My Springs', ll. 49-50.
*4* `My Springs', ll. 55-56.
*5* It is to be hoped that these letters may yet be published.
I quote from one dated November 15, 1874.
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If not always simple, Lanier is often forcible in the extreme,
as in `The Symphony', `The Revenge of Hamish', `Remonstrance', and `Sunrise'.
Of course, it is open to any one to see in these poems the "rage"
attributed to Lanier by Mr. Gosse, but I prefer to consider it divine wrath
in all but the last, and in it wonder unutterable, which yet is so uttered
that ears become eyes. I allude to the stanzas* describing
the break of dawn and the rising of the sun.
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* `Sunrise', ll. 86-152.
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Of the poet's marvelous euphony, `The Song of the Chattahoochee'
speaks clearly enough. As we have seen in our treatment of versification,
it is here a question not of too little but of too much.
But, despite an occasional too great yielding to his passion for music,
his extraordinary endowment in this direction gave Lanier a unique position
among English poets.


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