"Thou gashed and hairy Lear
Whom the divine Cordelia of the year,
E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer."*2*

Like other Southern poets,*3* Lanier sometimes fails to check his imagination,
and in consequence leaves his readers "bramble-tangled in a brilliant maze,"
as in his description of the stars in `June Dreams'*4*
and in the `Psalm of the West'.*5* While I do not like a maze,
brilliant though it be and sweet, I must say that I prefer
the embarrassment of riches to the embarrassment of poverty. On the whole,
however, Lanier's figures strike me as singularly fresh and happy.
In `Sunrise', for example, the poet speaks of the marsh as follows:

"The tide's at full: the marsh with flooded streams
Glimmers a limpid labyrinth of dreams;"*6*

and of the heavens reflected in the marsh waters:

"Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies
A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies
Shine scant with one forked galaxy, --
The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast they lie."*7*

Later, as the ebb-tide flows from marsh to sea, we are parenthetically treated
to these two lines:

"Run home, little streams,
With your lapfuls of stars and dreams."*8*

Finally, the heaven itself is thus pictured: