272 f.
** `The English Novel', p. 280. Of the numerous discussions of this thesis,
the student should consult at least those by Matthew Arnold
(`Preface' to his edition of `Wordsworth's Poems'),
John Ruskin (`Stones of Venice', vol. iii., chap. iv.),
and Victor Hugo (`William Shakespeare', Book VI.).
--
VI. Conclusion
Milton has somewhere said that in order to be a great poet
one must himself be a true poem, a dictum none the less trustworthy
because of its inapplicability to its author along with
several other great poets. Now of all English poets,
I know of none that came nearer being a true poem than did Lanier.
He was as spotless as "the Lady of Christ's", and infinitely more lovable.
Indeed, he seems to me to have realized the ideal of his own knightly Horn,
who hopes that some day men will be "maids in purity".*
I will not recall his gentle yet heroic life amid drawbacks
almost unparalleled; for it is even sadder than it is beautiful.
It is my deliberate judgment that, while, as the poet says
in his `Life and Song', no singer has ever wholly lived
his minstrelsy, Lanier came so near it that we may fairly say,
in the closing lines of the poem,
"His song was only living aloud,
His work, a singing with his hand.
Pages:
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77