The germ of this poem is found perhaps in a letter written from Wheeling,
West Virginia, where he went with some of his fellow musicians
to give a concert, April 16, 1874. It is a realistic picture of a city
completely dominated by factory life. What he afterwards called
"the hell-colored smoke of the factories" created within him
a feeling of righteous indignation akin to that of Ruskin,
although it must be said in justice to Lanier that, in combating the evils
of industrial life, he never went to the extreme of eccentric passion
displayed by the English writer. Nor, on the other hand,
could he say with Walt Whitman: "I hail with joy the oceanic, variegated,
intense practical energy, the demand for facts, even the business materialism,
of the current age. . . . I perceive clearly that the extreme business energy
and this almost maniacal appetite for wealth prevalent in the United States
are parts of a melioration and progress, indispensably needed to prepare
the very results I demand."
Lanier's poem is more applicable to the conditions that prevail to-day
than to those of his own time. He shows himself a prophet,
the truth of whose words is realized by many of the finer minds
of the country. He lets the various instruments of the orchestra
utter their protest against the evils of modern trade. The violin,
speaking for the poor who stand wedged by the pressing of trade's hand
and "weave in the mills and heave in the kilns," protests against
the spirit of competition that says even when human life is involved,
"Trade is only war grown miserly.
Pages:
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154