Lanier's most important prose works besides those already mentioned are Boy's Frois sart> (1878) ' • 'The Boy's King Arthur' (1880) ; 'The Boy's Mabinogion> (1881) ; 'The Boy's Percy' (1882) ; 'Shakespeare and his Forerun ners' (1902). His best-known poems are 'Hymns of the Marshes' • ; 'The Song of the Chattahoochee' ' • 'The Crystal' ; 'Corn> ; 'The Symphony> and 'Thee Centennial Medita tion.' The distinctive characteristics of his poetry are a wholesome outlook upon life, a constant recognition of the highest in character and in thought and a varied fresh and melodi ous rhythm. His passion for good and love; his robustness, his high conception of the mean ing and power of the love of man and woman, proclaim his close kinship to Browning. In questions of social economics Lanier was abreast of his time; he believed in the rights of the individual, he hated the iron hand of unjust trade, but he realized that these problems must be solved in the "patient modern way.'" He knew that the great poet must be an artist in sound and color, as well as a thinker, and that no labor was too arduous for perfecting verse forms; to attain perfection in his art the poet must make the mechanical verse fulfil its vast possibilities, he must gain the mastery over imagination, so that imagination may be come his servant. But for Lanier there was
no art for art's sake; art was consecrated to man and to God. Like all true poets he lived near to nature, and he has described our Southern scenery . with loving faithfulness warmed by vivid imagination. He has given new meaning to "our forests of live-oak beauti fully braided and woven with intricate shades of the vine; to our broad fronded fern and keen-leaved canes? The luxuriance of the Southern forests, the wealth of undergrowth, the warmth, the color, the singing birds live in his poetry, but there is no undue heat, no trop ical languor. Whittier has not been more faithful to the rocky coasts, to the snowstorms of New England, than has Lanier to the South. His letters and complete poems were edited by his widow with a memoir by William Hayes Ward (New York 1881, 1884, 1906), with bibliography. Consult also 'The Lanier Book' (New York 1904), and Nims, 'Sidney Lanier' (Boston 1905). See 'SONG OF THE