reby we shall be known in every land
Is that vast gulf which lips our Southern strand,
And through the cold, untempered ocean pours
Its genial streams, that far off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas."

"The Cotton Boll", in "the snow of Southern summers", is a forerunner
of Lanier's "Corn". It reveals the mystic spell and kingly power of
that far-stretching tropic snow, and contains that glowing painting of
Carolina from sea to mountain, which closes

"No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays,
Or given a home to man!"

"Too Long, O Spirit of Storm", is the fused passion of the poet's heart
appalled at the moral death of stagnation. It has all the intensity and
subtlety of Shelley.

In "The Lily Confidante", delicate and fanciful as it is, the reply
of the Lily "is a simple yet sacred melody", hallowing the purity of
passion.

"The Arctic Voyager" suggests Tennyson's "Ulysses" in its high faith,
lofty purpose, and sustained power.

"Spring" is the burst of the Southern spring, in its flooding life and
glory and beauty. There is "a nameless pathos in the air." A wonderful
revelation is going on before our eyes! No miracle could startle in the
ever new creation, so strange and rapturous is this joy of sense and
spiritual rebirth.

Nor was his genius only reflective, and creative, and playful; his was a
trumpet voice also. When the blast of war sounded, his voice rang like
a clarion in "Carolina" and "Cry to Arms". Beyond their local meaning,
which kindles and thrills, now as then, the men of the South, they have
an abiding, universal power from the standpoint of art; for there is
nothing finer in all the martial strains of the lyric.

Paul Hayne, his brother poet, speaking of "Carolina", as "lines destined
perhaps to outlive the political vitality of the State, whose antique
fame they celebrate," said:--

"I read them first, and was thrilled by their power and pathos, upon
a stormy March evening in Fort Sumter! Walking along the battlements,
under the red light of a tempestuous sunset, the wind steadily and
loudly blowing from off the bar across the tossing and moaning waste of
waters, driven inland; with scores of gulls and white sea-birds flying
and shrieking round me,--those wild voices of Nature mingled strangely
with the rhythmic roll and beat of the poet's impassioned music. The
very spirit, or dark genius,