With `At Sunset' compare Lanier's `Evening Song', another and a more agreeable
sunset picture.
A Ballad of Trees and the Master
Into the woods my Master went, [1]
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came, [11]
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
'Twas on a tree they slew Him -- last
When out of the woods He came.
____
Baltimore, November, 1880.
Notes: A Ballad of Trees and the Master
In the `Introduction' (p. xxxi ff. [Part III]) I have tried to show
the intensity and the breadth of Lanier's love of nature in general.
President Gates gives a separate section to Lanier's love
of trees and plant-life; and, after quoting some lines
on the soothing and inspiring companionship of trees,
thus speaks of our Ballad: "This ministration of trees to a mind and heart
`forspent with shame and grief' finds its culmination in the pathetic lines
upon that olive-garden near Jerusalem, which to those of us
who have sat within its shade must always seem the most sacred spot on earth.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164