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Lanier's Place in Letter

A Critical Notice of the Work of Sidney Lanier's Poems.

No One Has Surpassed Him in Depth of Feeling or Appreciation of Nature-Nora Perry's Poems.

"Poems of Sidney Lanier" New York, Charles Scribner's Sons.

Like flowers that spring from the rich decay of a human grave is the love that grows for a poet after he is dead.

Sidney Lanier is a name which was known to few while the bearer of it lived but growing daily dearer to those who find out God through the messages of His posts. One hesitates to say that Lanier is the greatest of American poets because it seems like ingratitude to others who are dear-to Whitman, Whitter, Longfellow, Lowell, Stoddard and Steadman. Aldrich and Harte, Poe-but one does not count Poe, for what he thought was art was only artifice. It is impossible to be a poet unless there is love and reverence in the soul. Poe had neither love nor reverence-except for Poe. Joaquin Miller, one almost counts, because now and then when he forgets himself has verses almost thrill. Still, they embody only a sentiment or an impression. There are so few who dug deep at the roots of truth.

Of course there is Holmes. Many in Boston think he is a poet. But a poet is a star which shines eternal in the heavens. Holmes is a calcium light, used to light banquet halls and eastern college chapels. And there is Bryant. He wrote Thanatopsis. The rest of his work is an anticlimax.

The greatest poet is he who tells the most truth in the highest way. Whitman has told the truth, but he forgot to put it into poetry. Longfellow has said so many things such a kind and familiar way, and lives so intimately in the homes of us all, sitting at our board, comforting us at night when we are tired, telling us always to hope and to be true, that it is hard to remember that he lacked the passion, the splendor, the wild music of great poets. A stream which flows through a plenteous land, adding to its beauty and its richness, is a blessed thing. But its not the sea!

Judged by standards of art and by standards of ethics, Lowell came nearer to being a poet than any other of the great Americans. But circumstances forced him to do what may be termed poetic drudgery. And it is Lowell's satires that have won for him the greater part of the unique reputation.

So, looking over the held of American poetry, I know of no one whose whole expression was full of the passion of art as was Lauler's.

He was born in Macon, Ga, in 1842, and he had as fine an ancestry as America can provide; his forefathers helped to make the farms, the laws and the drawing rooms of a new continent. His passion was music, and sometimes it found expression on the violin, and sometimes in "rhymed words," But his father found these pursuits hardly respectable, and so he made a laywer of him. In this profession he was able to earn more than a competence, but the [voices?] of the dead immortals clamored for his company, and he voluntarily took privation, and late lu his short life gave himself up to singing the songs that God created him to sing. He was in the war of the rebellion-and of course fought as Georgia fought. Probably he entered the war more because it represented an enthusiasm than for any other reason. He had a wife whom he loved, and whose tenderness was balm for the wounds of sorry fate. He struggled hand to hand with death for years and his verses are made eloquent by the poignant prick of his pain.

"From the time he was of age," writes one of his biographers, "he waged a constant, courageous, hopeless fight against adverse circumstances for room to live and write."

There never was a poet from when it is more difficult to make selections, for his thoughts flow on continuously-grand, wayward, compelling, unaccountable like the wind. He had not the allocation of epigrams. He does not [pa?] out of his thoughts in marketable packages. He is incapable of neatly rhymed clap-trap verses, which are so well liked by persons of votable tongues and indolent memories. And one thing it is necessary to explain, because in this he differs from any poet he never divorces man from the rest of nature. He does not count ties as the fuel and birds as the food, and the sea as the majestic servitor of man, but all as pastor of recreation-all skin. The cloud he calls his cousin, trees are his close friends, the marsh, the sea, the dawn are "of his fellowship." He is roused at night by the voices of the marsh which call to him. The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep," he cries. He seems to lie with his ear at the very hear of nature. He hears "The great soft rumble of the course of things." Never were verses less artificial. Big things are big with Lanier. Petty things petty. No [miasma?] form vanity far poisons the pure at which he breathes. Pope was his attires and his second wave philosophy, Bryon with his puerile bitterness, Shelley with his gibes at Delty, all seem pitiable compared with Lanier--speaking of them as men. Of course there is no intention of saying that the art of Laner compares with that of Shelly. America is yet to her Shelly and her Keats. Yet neither one nor the other of these great masters would have refused close fellowship with the man who could write lines as musicals as these.
[?]

But on a sudden lot
I marked a blossom shiver to and fro
With dainty inward storm, and there within
A down-drawn trump of yellow [Jessamine?]
A bee
Thrust up its and gold body [?],
All in a honey madness hotly bound
On blissful burglary

Here is a song of [?]--a ballad of the divine tragedy where peace and love triumphed over pain. All the forces of nature quiver with His passion; the [?] in the trees throbs as the blood does in his quaking frame. Poetry and art each their climax when they express the highest ideals of a people. Here is the most inspiring moment of Christian history redeemed from the horror with which the church has invested it and once more made luminous.

A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER
Into the woods my master went,
Clean forspent, forspent
Into the woods my master came,
Forspent with love and shame
But the olives they were not blind to him,
The little gray leaves were kind to him,
The thorn tree had a mind to him
When into the woods he came

Out of the woods my master went,
And he was well content
Out of the woods my master came,
Content with death and shame
When death and shame would woo him last,
From under the trees they drew him last
"I was on a tree they saw him--last
When out of the woods he came

And here is a love song, warm as Bayard Taylor could have written. Dudley Buck has composed music for it which is no shame to the words.

EVENING SONG.
Look of dear love, across the sallow sands,
And mark you meeting of the sun and sea,
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands,
Ah! longer, longer we.

Now in the sea a red vintage meets the sun,
As Egypt [?] [?] dissolved in rosy wine,
And Cleopatra's night drinks all, its done,
Love lay thine hand in mine.

Come forth, sweet stars and comfort heaven's heart.
Glimmer, ye waves, 'round else unlighted sands,
Oh, night, divorce on sun and sky apart,
Never our lips, our bonds

The fierce and grotesque spirit of the French revolution is embodied in this wild snatch from "The Jacquerie."

SONG FROM "THE JACQUERIE"

The hound was cuffed, the hound was kicked
O the ears was cropped, O the tail was nicked,
(ALL)--Oo--hoo-o, howled the hound
The bound into his kennel crepts

He rarely wept, he never slept,
His mouth he always open kept
Licking his bitter wound,
The hound
(ALL)--U to-to, howled the hound.

A star upon his kennel shone
That showed hound a meat-bare bone
(ALL)- O hungry was the hound!
The hound had but a [?] wit,
He seized the bone, he crunched, he bit
"An thou wert master, I had silt
Thy throat with a huge wound,"
Quo' hound
(ALL)-O, angry was the hound.

The star in Castle window shone
The master lay in bed, alone
(ALL)--Oh no, why not, quo' hound,
He leapt, he seized the throat, he tore
And rolled the head in the kennel door,
And fled and salved his wound,
Good hound!
(ALL)--U- lu lo, howled the hound.
Read this bit of sentiment. Could any thing be more purely delicate--ore daintily refined!

THE DOVE.

If haply thou, O [?] Morn,
Shouldn't call along the curving sphere "He main,
Dear Night, sweet Moor, nay, leave me not [?] scorn!
With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain,--

Shoulds thou, O spring! a-cower in covert dark,
'Gainst proud supplanting summer sig thy plea,
And moved the mighty woulds through [?] bark
Till mortal heartbreak throbbe in every tree

Or (grievous if that may be [?] so on')
If thou, my heart, long holden from thy sweet,
Should knock death's door with mellow shock of tune,
Sad inquiry to make--when may we meet?

Say, if ye three, O Morn! O Spring! O Heart
Should chant [?] of grief and love
Ye could not mourn with more melodious [?]
Than [d?] y doth you [?] [?] dove.

But none of these selections fitly represent the genius of Lanier, because it is in his 'Hymns of the Marshes" and other such songs of nature that the depth of his perception becomes apparent. From these it is impossible to quote, for no one [par?] has its proper significance without the whole. In these the poet lives with elemental things--with those things which are "fresh from the hand of God". The wind, sun dawn and moonset, rain with its music, "the long reluctant waves," growth and decay--these are the things he counts beautiful. Sophistry would stifle in air so rare. Doubt [?] not climb such heights. By the [?] of this majestic placidity one sees how kindly is the link between life and death--how short is the step from the apprenticeship of the present to the full knowledge and equipment of eternity.
ELIA W. PEATTIE

The Shape of the Earth.

"Geodesy" J. Howard Gore Houghton, [M?] & Co., Boston. J. S. Calfield, Omaha

This is the latest addition to the excellent Riverside Science series, which numbers in its contents Thurston's "Heat as a Form of Energy," Mendenhall's "Century of Electricity," and other works. In the book the author has only given a comprehensive sketch of the science, reserving as his life work a critical history of the subject. The reader is astonished at himself for becoming so interested as he does in [?] a science. This is due to the entertaining way in which Mr. Gore handles the subject. Probably no one living is so well fitted, so far as possession of facts is concerned, as Mr. Gore to write a critical history of, or in fact anything pertaining to geodesy, for he is not only in the first rank of mathematics, but he has devoted his life to this branch of the subject, and he also possesses the original reports describing the work prosecuted in many lands and at divers epochs. It is therefore a comparatively easy thing for him to write upon it, but few could have condensed into 200 small pages so graphic and understandable account (from a layman's views) of how our present valuable knowledge concerning the earth's area and curvature was evolved from mere conjectures to absolute mathematical facts.

Nora Perry's Poems.

"Lyrics and Legends," by Nora Perry, Boston Little, Brown & Co.

No one sings a sweeter strain than Nora Perry and this collection of her verses is as pure and elevated as any she has written [?] the immortal. "After the Ball." These poems are divided into songs of "Spring," "Summer," "Autumn," "Winter," "Love and Friendship," "Loss and Gain," "Hope and Memory," "Songs of New England," and "Ballads."

SECRET SOCIETY NOTES.

Echoes From the [A?]-Rooms of Omaha's Secret Orders

The Knights of the Golden Eagle will give their first ball of the season next Friday evening at G. A. R. hall.

Wednesday evening Red Cross castle will receive its supreme chief.

A union ball and supper will be given at Goodrich hall next Thursday evening by Maple, Omaha and Beech camps, Modern Woodmen of America.

Abraham Lincoln garrison, No. 13, gave its [?] social hop and high five party Thursday evening last at the post hall at Fort Omaha. Dancing and card parties were kept up until 12 o'clock, when a bountiful [?] was given by the [?]. The music was furnished by the Second Infantry band and was greatly enjoyed. It is intended to continue these socials during the coming winter the [?] one having proved such a decided success.

The badge recently adopted by the Sons of the American Revolution consists of an eight-point cross, [?] midway by a wreath in green enamel. On the obverse side is a medallion bearing the head of Washington, with the motto, "[?] at Patria". On the reverse the "Minute-Man" and the name of the society appear. This is held in suspense by the talons of an eagle, and the whole by a red and blue ribbon.

SCIENTIFIC CRACKSMEN
They Make a Raid on the Sidney, Ia., Postoffice

SIDNEY, Ia., Oct. 24--[Special]-- The postoffice and Hill's clothing house were entered by cracksmen last night. The safe in the postoffice was blown open and about $200 in cash taken. The thieves procured drills, chisels, and sledges from the blacksmith shops, and did a scientific job. They wrapped the safe in canvas tie sacks, and braced the door to prevent the report being heard any distance. After smashing the safe they cooly sat down in the alley and divided the cash box and examined registered letters, strewing the ground with what they did not want. They then went to the barn of N. C. Wilson and took a bay and a black horse and a single harness. Finding the black horse lame they tied him to the McCracken's fence where, it is evident, they enjoyed a [?] pieces of egg shell and bologna being [?]. Hill is short several overcoats, jewelry, neckwear, etc. They start in to tap Hill's safe, but the drill would not work after burning a lot of matches they gave it up.

Catarrh Can't Be Cured
With LOCAL APPLICATIONS, as they cannot reach the seat of the disease. Catarrh is a blood or constitutional disease, and in order to cure it if you have to take internal remedies. Hall's Catarrh cure is taken internally and acts directly on the blood and mucous surfaces. Hall's Catarrh Cure is no quack medicine. It was prescribed by one of the best physicians in this country for years and is a regular prescription. It is composed of the best tonics known, combined with the best blood purifiers, acting directly on the mucous surfaces. The perfect combination of the two ingredients is what produces such wonderful results in curing catarrh. Send for testimonials free.

F. J. CHENEY & CO. Props Toledo, O.
Sold by druggists, price 75c

VERDICTS IN A CATTLE CASE.
turned a verdict yesterday allowing the

The jury in the case of the Utah National bank against Burke & Frazier re-bank $7, 440.56. The suit grew out of a cattle shipment some time ago and the case has been tried several times, but never before with the result of a verdict.