The Poems of Sidney Lanier | Page 9

faith in his theories of art. To his father he wrote from New York, May 8, 1876:
==?"My experience in the varying judgments given about poetry . . . has all converged upon one solitary principle, and the experience of the artist in all ages is reported by history to be of precisely the same direction. That principle is, that the artist shall put forth, humbly and lovingly, and without bitterness against opposition, the very best and highest that is within him, utterly regardless of contemporary criticism. What possible claim can contemporary criticism set up to respect -- that criticism which crucified Jesus Christ, stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for a madman, tried Luther for a criminal, tortured Galileo, bound Columbus in chains, drove Dante into a hell of exile, made Shakespeare write the sonnet, `When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes', gave Milton five pounds for `Paradise Lost', kept Samuel Johnson cooling his heels on Lord Chesterfield's doorstep, reviled Shelley as an unclean dog, killed Keats, cracked jokes on Glueck, Schubert, Beethoven, Berlioz, and Wagner, and committed so many other impious follies and stupidities that a thousand letters like this could not suffice even to catalogue them?"?==
Since first coming to the North in September, 1873,?Mr. Lanier had been separated from his family. The two happy months with them after his visit to Florida was followed by several other briefer visits. The winters of 1874-75 and 1875-76 found him still in Baltimore, playing at the Peabody, pursuing his studies and writing the "Symphony", the "Psalm of the West", the "Cantata", and some shorter poems, with a series of prose descriptive articles for `Lippincott's Magazine'. In the summer of 1876 he called his family to join him at West Chester, Pa. This was authorized by an engagement to write the Life of Charlotte Cushman. The work was begun, but the engagement was broken two months later, owing to the illness of the friend of the family who was to provide the material from the mass of private correspondence.
Following this disappointment a new cold was incurred,?and his health became so much impaired that in November?the physicians told him he could not expect to live longer than May, unless he sought a warmer climate. About the middle of December he started with his wife for the Gulf coast, and visited Tampa, Fla., gaining considerable benefit from the mild climate. In April he ventured North again, tarrying through the spring with his friends in Georgia; and, after a summer with his own family in Chadd's Ford, Pa., a final move was ventured in October to Baltimore as home.?Here he resumed his old place in the Peabody orchestra,?and continued to play there for three winters.
The Old English studies which he had pursued with such deep delight, he now put to use in a course of lectures on Elizabethan Verse, given in a private parlor to a class of thirty ladies.?This was followed by a more ambitious "Shakespeare Course" of lectures in the smaller hall of the Peabody Institute. The undertaking was immensely cheered on and greatly praised, but was a financial failure. It opened the way, however, to one of the chiefest delights of his life, his appointment as lecturer on English literature for the ensuing year at the Johns Hopkins University. After some correspondence on the subject with President Gilman, he received notice on his birthday, 1879, of his appointment, with a salary attached (it may be mentioned), which gave him the first income assured in any year since his marriage. This stimulated him to new life, for he was now barely able to walk after a severe illness and renewed hemorrhage.
The last two years had been more fruitful in verse than any that had gone before, as he had now acquired confidence in his view of the principles of art. In 1875 he had written:
==?"In this little song [`Special Pleading'] I have begun to dare to give myself some freedom in my own peculiar style, and have allowed myself to treat words, similes, and metres with such freedom as I desired. The result convinces me that I can do so now safely."?==
Among his poems of this period may be mentioned "A Song of the Future", "The Revenge of Hamish", and -- what are excellent examples of the kind of art of which he had now gained command -- "The Song of the Chattahoochee", and "A Song of Love". It was at this time that he wrote?"The Marshes of Glynn", his most ambitious poem thus far,?and one which he intended to follow with a series of "Hymns of the Marshes", which he left incomplete.
The summer of 1879 was spent at Rockingham Springs, Va.,?and here, in six weeks, was begun and finished his volume,?"Science of English Verse". Another severe illness prostrated him in September, but the