.. on her virginal throat
Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star,"
and in the mocking-birds, whose
"... love notes fill the enchanted land;
Through leaf-wrought bars they storm the stars,
These love songs of the mocking-birds!"
The chief characteristics of his finest poetry are a tender love of nature,
a profusion of figurative language, and a gentle air of meditation.
SIDNEY LANIER, 1842-1881
[Illustration: SIDNEY LANIER]
LIFE.--Sidney Lanier was the product of a long line of cultured ancestors,
among whom appeared, both in England and America, men of striking musical
and artistic ability. He was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1842. He served in
the Confederate army during the four years of the war, and was taken
prisoner and exposed to the hardest conditions, both during his confinement
and after his release. The remainder of his life was a losing fight against
the ravages of consumption.
He was fairly successful for a short time in his father's law office; but
if ever a man believed that it was his duty to devote his every breath to
the gift of music and poetry bestowed upon him, that man was Lanier. His
wife agreed with him in his ideals and faith, so in 1873 he left his family
in Georgia and went to Baltimore, the land of libraries and orchestras.
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