Different as they were in nearly every respect,
the two poets were yet alike in their idea that there should be a reaction
against the conventional and artificial poetry of their time,
-- the difference being, that Whitman's reaction took
the direction of formlessness, while Lanier's was concerned about
the extension and revival of poetic forms. In both poets
there is a range and sweep, both of conception and of utterance,
that sharply differentiates them from all other poets since the Civil War.
The question then is, whether Lanier, with his lofty conception
of the poet's work, and with his faith in himself, succeeded in writing
poetry that will stand the test of time. He undoubtedly had
some of the necessary qualities of a poet. He had, first of all,
a sense of melody that found vent primarily in music and then in words
which moved with a certain rhythmic cadence. "A holy tune was in my soul
when I fell asleep; it was going when I awoke. This melody is always
moving along in the background of my spirit. If I wish to compose,
I abstract my attention from the things which occupy the front of the stage,
the `dramatis personae' of the moment, and fix myself upon
the deeper scene in the rear." "All day my soul hath been
cutting swiftly into the great space of the subtle, unspeakable deep,
driven by wind after wind of heavenly melody," he writes
at another time. His best poems move to the cadence of a tune.
He probably heard them as did Milton the lines of "Paradise Lost".
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