Selected Poems of Sidney Lanier | Page 6

the forenoon of September 7th, and then falls the frost, and that
unfaltering will renders its supreme submission to the will of God."*
Unusually checkered his life had been, and yet for Lanier as for Timrod
poetry (and music) had "turned life's tasteless waters into wine, and
flushed them through and through with purple tints."** The body was
taken to Mr. Lanier's home in Baltimore, thence to the Church of St.
Michael and All Angels, where services were conducted by the rector,
the Rev. Dr. William Kirkus. It was then buried in Greenmount
Cemetery, in the lot of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull, two of the
dearest friends that Mr. and Mrs. Lanier had in Baltimore.
--
* Ward's `Memorial', p. xxx.
** Timrod's `A Vision of Poesy',
stanza xliv.
--
Mr. Lanier left a family consisting of his wife and four sons. Mrs.
Lanier, who lives at Tryon, N.C., was the inspiration
not only of
those glorious tributes, `Laus Mariae' and `My Springs', but also of the
poet's whole life. The eldest son, Mr. Charles Day Lanier, was born at
Macon, Ga., September 12, 1868, and was graduated A.B. at the Johns
Hopkins University in 1888. At one time he was Assistant Editor of
`The Cosmopolitan Magazine', a position that he gave up only to
become Business Manager of `The Review of Reviews', with which he
has been connected from its beginning.
He is the author of several
graceful sketches in the magazines. The second son, Sidney, is
passionately fond of music,
and would have devoted himself thereto
but for life-long ill-health. After teaching three years in West Virginia,
he has started a fruit farm at Tryon, N.C., where he hopes to build up
his health.
The third son, Henry Wysham, was prevented from
entering the Johns Hopkins by a partial failure of sight, and for three
years has devoted himself to railroad engineering in Baltimore and in
Jamaica. The youngest, Robert Sampson, only fourteen, is at Tryon,
N.C., with his mother.

That interest in Lanier's life and work did not cease with his death,
there is abundant evidence. On October 22, 1881, a memorial meeting
was held by the Faculty and students of the Johns Hopkins University,
at which addresses*1* were made by President Gilman and Professor
Wm. Hand Browne, of the University, and by the Rev. Dr. William
Kirkus, of Baltimore, and a letter*1* was read from the poet-critic,
Edmund C. Stedman, of New York. In 1883 `The English Novel' was
published,
and in 1884 the `Poems', edited by his wife, with the
excellent `Memorial' by Dr. Wm. Hayes Ward, who declared that he
thought Lanier
would "take his final rank with the first princes of
American song."*2* Numerous reviews of his life and works were
published, notably those by Mr. Wm. R. Thayer, Dr. Merrill E. Gates,
Professor Charles W. Kent, and by the London `Spectator'. On
February 3, 1888,
the Johns Hopkins University held another
memorial meeting in Baltimore, attended by many from other cities. "A
bust of the poet, in bronze (modelled by Ephraim Keyser, sculptor, in
the last period of Lanier's life, at the suggestion of Mr. J. R. Tait), was
presented to the University by his kinsman, Charles Lanier, Esq., of
New York. It was also announced that a citizen of Baltimore had
offered a pedestal, to be cut in Georgia marble from a design by Mr. J.
B. N. Wyatt. On a temporary pedestal hung the flute of Lanier, which
had so often been his solace, and a roll of his manuscript music. The
bust was crowned
with a wreath of laurel; the words of Lanier, `The
Time needs Heart', were woven into the strings of a floral lyre; and
other flowers, likewise brought by personal friends, were grouped
around the pedestal. As a memento a card, designed by Mrs. Henry
Whitman, of Boston, was given to those who were present. Upon its
face was a wreath, with Lanier's name and the date, and the motto --
`Aspiro dum Exspiro'; upon the reverse appeared the closing lines of
the Hymn of the Sun, taken from the poet's `Hymns of the Marshes' --
and beneath, a flute with ivy twined about it."*3* The exercises,

which were interspersed with music, were as follows:
addresses by
President Gilman of the Hopkins and President Gates of Rutgers (now
of Amherst); selections from Lanier's poetry, read by
Miss Susan
Hayes Ward, of Newark, N.J.; a paper on Lanier's `Science of English
Verse', by Professor A. H. Tolman, of Ripon College, Wis. (now of the

University of Chicago); poetic tributes by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull,
Miss Edith M. Thomas, and Messrs. James Cummings, Richard E.
Burton, and John B. Tabb; and letters from Messrs. Richard W. Gilder,
Edmund C. Stedman, and James Russell Lowell -- all of which may be
found in President Gilman's dainty `Memorial of Sidney Lanier'. Again,
a replica of the