--
*1* See Ward's `Memorial', pp. xx, xxxi.
*2* Hayne's (P. H.) `A Poet's Letters to a Friend'.
*3* `Tiger-lilies', p. 32.
*4* Hayne's `A Poet's Letters to a Friend'. After settling in Baltimore
Lanier devoted more time to poetry than to music, as we may see
from this sentence to Judge Bleckley, in his letter of March 20, 1876:
"As for me, life has resolved simply into a time during which
I must get upon paper as many as possible of the poems
with which my heart is stuffed like a schoolboy's pocket."
*5* `The Symphony', l. 368.
*6* `To Beethoven', ll. 61-68.
--

Like most great poets of modern times, Lanier was a sincere lover of nature.
And it seems to me that with him this love was as all-embracing as
with Wordsworth. Lanier found beauty in the waving corn*1* and the clover;*2*
in the mocking-bird,*3* the robin,*4* and the dove;*5*
in the hickory,*6* the dogwood,*6* and the live-oak;*7*
in the murmuring leaves*8* and the chattering streams;*9*
in the old red hills*10* and the sea;*11* in the clouds,*12*
sunrise,*13* and sunset;*14* and even in the marshes,*15*
which "burst into bloom" for this worshiper. Again, Lanier's love of nature
was no less insistent than Wordsworth's. We all remember the latter's
oft-quoted lines:

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears;"*16*

and beside them one may put this line of Lanier's,