feel that the poet has reached a height of which little promise is given
in his earlier poems. Here are the opening lines:--

"To-day the woods are trembling through and through
With shimmering forms, and flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.
The beach dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song;
Through that vague wafture, expirations strong
Throb from young hickories breathing deep and long
With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring
And ecstasy burgeoning."

This poem is remarkable, too, for its presentation of Lanier's conception
of the poetic office. The poet should be a prophet and leader, arousing
mankind to all noble truth and action:--

"Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands
Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands,
And waves his blades upon the very edge
And hottest thicket of the battling hedge.
Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk,
Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime
That leads the vanward of his timid time,
And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme--