I quote again from Professor Kent:*
"But if his sense of beauty made him a peer of our great poets,
it was the heavenly gift of music that distinguished him from them.
Milton, it is true, whom he most resembles in this respect,
had a knowledge of music, but not the same passion for it. Milton's music
was more a recreation, an accompaniment of reverie; Lanier's was a fiery zeal;
a yearning love, a chosen and adequate form of expression
of his soul's deepest feeling. Combined with this passion for music
was his technical knowledge of the art, and these combined formed at once
the foundation and the framework of his poetry. He seems literally
to have sung his poems; they are essentially musical, tuneful, and melodious.
Surcharged with music, he overflows in mellifluous numbers. Here, then,
Lanier stands out differentiated in the choir of poets, and here we find
that distinctive quality which is the very flavor of his writing."
--
* P. 62.
--
While most of Lanier's poems are in a serious strain,
several disclose no mean sense of humor. I refer to his dialect poems,
such as `Jones's Private Argyment', `Uncle Jim's Baptist Revival Hymn',
and `The Power of Prayer', especially the last, written in conjunction
with his brother, Mr.
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