Sidney Lanier - Poet and Musician

Georgia-Born, Virginia-Trained,
His Works Have Won Ever-Increasing Popularity
in Literary Field Since His Death in '81

By Sallie Gravatt Fox

Today is the anniversary of the birth of a Southern poet and musician who is known as the "Sir Galahad of American letters." Sidney Lanier was the son of a Virginia woman and his father was but a few generations removed from the Old Dominion. Sidney Lanier, born in Macon, Ga., February 3, 1842, was the son of Robert Sampson Lanier and Mary J. Anderson.

The father was a struggling young lawyer who had a taste for Shakespeare and Addison. The mother was a woman of much piety, thrift and musical ability. There were on both sides traditions of gentility which went back to the older States of Virginia and North Carolina, and in the case of the Laniers to Southern France and England. An ancestor of Robert Lanier, John Lanier, settled in Virginia in 1670. Members of this family moved to North Carolina, then on to Georgia and Alabama.

Robert was sent to Virginia for his education and while a student at Randolph-Macon College he met Mary J. Anderson, who later became his wife and Sidney Lanier's mother. It was from this mother Sidney Lanier inherited his Scotch-Irish blood and by her he was reared in rigid Presbyterian discipline. From both parents he inherited a talent for music and poetry. Dr. Edwin Mims says in his biography of Lanier that as a child he could play any instrument placed in his hand, and while still a youth he learned to play the flute, piano, guitar, banjo and violin.

In 1857 Lanier entered Oglethorpe University, Midway, Ga. The piety of the men in the faculty confirmed in Lanier a natural religious fervor, and his alert mind and energy enabled him to take at once a position of leadership in the college. He was a constant reader in the wide field of English literature, but in spite of his extensive reading and flute playing, Lanier graduated at the head of his class in 1860 and in the autumn returned to Oglethorpe as a tutor, laying plans for two years of graduate study in Europe. Before he was 20 years old, the master passions of Lanier's soul--scholarship, music, poetry--asserted themselves.

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At the outbreak of the War Between the States Lanier volunteered as a private and joined the Macon volunteers. They were the first troops to leave Georgia, the first Confederate troops to arrive in Virginia. All during the war Lanier substituted the writing of prose and verse for the course of study in Europe, and still hoped to become a professional man of letters. After nearly four years of service he was captured, and sent as a prisoner to Point Lookout, Md. This confinement of four months completely shattered his frail health and when he returned to his Georgia home in spring of 1865, ill himself, he found his mother dying of consumption, and his family and friends reduced to poverty.

Forced to earn a living as best he could, Lanier clerked in a hotel, taught school and in 1867 published a novel, "Tiger Lilies," On December 21, 1867 he married Mary Day, daughter of Charles Day, a prosperous merchant in Macon. After his marriage he studied law and practiced with his father. His legal work was painstakingly and conscientiously performed, but his heart was not in it, for he realized that his passion for music had been stifled, and his poetic talent undeveloped.

In 1871 Lanier went to Texas hoping to be benefited by the climate, for his health was failing. One of his biographers says he underwent an artistic rebirth in the winter of 1872-73. His playing of the flute before the mannerchor of San Antonio was perhaps the turning point in his career. Later he returned East to Baltimore and was appointed first flutist of the new Peabody Orchestra. It was here that he began anew his efforts to infuse the spirit of music into poetry. He soon made friends among the literary and musical people, chief among them being Bayard Taylor.

He began to study literature again for he had a remarkable insight into literature, but his studies were often interrupted by journeys taken in search of health. We have these trips to thank for the "Historical Sketches of San Antonio, Texas" and Lanier's guide book of Florida, a guide book that only a poet could have written.

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Lanier was a prolific and excellent writer, but he never had the time nor strength to write as many letters as he desired. We are indebted to these letters for a more accurate knowledge of the man. As Lanier's musical genius lay in playing rather than in composing, there could remain no adequate record of his instrumental triumphs, but the music he infused into his poetry has survived to bring delight to an increasing number of readers. Bayard Taylor had Lanier appointed to write the "cantata" for the Centennial Exposition held in 1876 at Philadelphia. Dudley Buck wrote the music and it was sung with great success, though many criticized the libretto, published without the music.

By 1877 Lanier became such an authority on English literature that he was invited to deliver at Peabody Institute and John Hopkins University the lectures to which we owe his critical works entitled, "The Science of English Verse" and "The English Novel."

From 1884 to 1904 the space devoted to Lanier in histories of American literature increased from 10 to 12 lines to as many pages. This indicated the increasing number of scholars and critics who recognized the value of his work. His fame has constantly broadened, his reputation grown, and his genius commands an ever-widening circle of admirers. In 1905 Dr. Edwin Mims wrote a book length biography of Lanier and in 1933 Aubrey Harrison Starke wrote "Sidney Lanier, a Biographical and Critical Study." Mr. Starke's book has been widely read and has brought tributes to Lanier and foreign countries.

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Few episodes of the War Between the States so moved the hearts of the Southern people as the death of "Stonewall" Jackson. Lanier caught the spirit and in September, 1865, his first real poem appeared--"The Dying Words of Stonewall Jackson." His poems, "Corn" and "The Symphony," which appeared in Lippincott's Magazine in 1875 met with general approval and won him influential friends. Lanier wrote of religion, social questions, science, philosophy, nature and love. Dr. Mims says: "From 1875 to the time of his death in 1881 he made great strides in poetry. Up to the very last he was making plans for the future, work demanding decades, rather than years. No American anthology would be complete that did not contain a dozen of his poems, and no study of American poetry would be complete that did not take into consideration some 25 or 30 poems." When Lanier wrote "The Marshes of Glynn" only a few saw the beauty and charm of the poem, but 20 years later Dr. Mims declared, "If one had to rely upon one poem to keep alive the fame of Lanier he could single out this poem, with assurance that . . . it will live not only in American poetry, but in English." Truly could Lanier say:

"By many roots as the marsh grass sents in the sod,
I will heartily lay me ahold on the greatness of God."

 

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The Times-Dispatch in a brief paragraph two weeks ago stated that the tree under which Sidney Lanier is reputed to have written his famous poem, "The Marshes of Glynn," is still standing at the edge of the marsh near Brunswick, Ga., and Mr. Starke includes in the illustrations in his biography a picture of the Lanier oak and memorial at Brunswick.

When Snyder & Snyder published their "Book of American Literature" in 1930 they selected "The Dying Words of Stonewall Jackson," "Night and Day," "Song of the Chattahoochee," "The Stirrup Cup," "The Revenge of Hamish," "The Marshes of Glynn" and "A Ballad of Trees and the Master" as the poems of Lanier to include in their book. The man who at so early an age wrote "The Marshes of Glynn" and "the Science of English Verse," and who in addition gave evidence of constant growth, would undoubtedly have achieved much worthier things in the future. Cheerful in the presence of death, which he held off for years by sheer force of will, at last, when he had wrested from Time enough to show what manner of man he was, he, in his own words, greeted death:

"Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt;
Hand me the cup wheve'er thou wilt;
'Tis thy rich stirup-cup to me;
I'll drink it down right smilingly."

Lanier's sun set in a glorious morning, but his fame has grown into a brilliant day, worthy of the greatest honor his fellow Americans can bestow.