to work on what is to be my first `magnum opus', a long poem, founded on that strange uprising in the middle of the fourteenth century in France, called `The Jacquerie'.It was the first time that the big hungers of `the People' appear in our modern civilization;and it is full of significance.The peasants learned from the merchant potentates of Flanders that a man who could not be a lord by birth, might be one by wealth; and so Trade arose, and overthrew Chivalry.Trade has now had possession of the civilized world for four hundred years: it controls all things, it interprets the Bible, it guides our national and almost all our individual life with its maxims;and its oppressions upon the moral existence of man have come to be ten thousand times more grievous than the worst tyrannies of the Feudal System ever were.Thus in the reversals of time, it is NOW the GENTLEMANwho must rise and overthrow Trade.That chivalry which every man has, in some degree, in his heart; which does not depend upon birth, but which is a revelation from God of justice, of fair dealing, of scorn of mean advantages; which contemns the selling of stock which one KNOWS is going to fall, to a man who BELIEVES it is going to rise, as much as it would contemn any other form of rascality or of injustice or of meanness; -- it is this which must in these latter days organize its insurrections and burn up every one of the cunning moral castles from which Trade sends out its forays upon the conscience of modern society.
-- This is about the plan which is to run through my book:
though I conceal it under the form of a pure novel."Mr.F.F.Browne is doubtless right in saying that `The Symphony' recalls parts of Tennyson's `Maud', but the closest congeners of `The Symphony'
in English are, I think, Langland's `Piers The Plowman' in poetry and Ruskin's `Unto This Last' in prose.Widely as these two works differ from `The Symphony' in form, they are one with it in purpose and in spirit.All three voice the outcry of the poor against the hardness of their lot and their longing for a larger life;all three show that the only hope of relief lies in a broader and deeper love for humanity.Analogues to individual verses of `The Symphony'
are cited below.
1-2.See `Introduction', p.xxviii [Part III].
31-61.See `Introduction', p.xxix [Part III].
42-43.See St.Matthew 4:4.
55-60.It is precisely this evil that Ruskin has in mind, I take it, when he condemns the commercial text, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest," and when he declares that "Competition is the law of death"(`Unto This Last', pp.40, 59).
117.Compare `Corn', l.21 ff.
161.For `lotos-sleeps' see Tennyson's `The Lotos-eaters', which almost lulls one to sleep, and `The Odyssey' ix.80-104.
178.See St.Matthew 19:19.
182.See St.Luke 10:29, ff.
183-190.Compare `Corn', ll.4-9, and see `Introduction', p.xxxii [Part III].
232-248.See `Introduction', p.xxxiv f., and Peacock's `Lady Clarinda's Song' (Gosse's `English Lyrics').
294-298.See `Tiger-lilies', p.49, and `Betrayal' in Lanier's complete `Poems', p.213.These lines of `The Symphony' show clearly that Lanier did not believe that God made one law for man and another for woman, or that one very grievous sin should forever blight a woman's life.
What Christ himself thought is clear from St.Luke 7:36-50, and St.John 8:1-11.
302.See `Introduction', p.liv [Part VI].
326.For a full account of the `hautboy' and other musical instruments mentioned in the poem see Lanier's `The Orchestra of To-day', cited in the `Bibliography'.
359.See `Introduction', p.xxxvi [Part III].Compare 1 Corinthians 13;Drummond's `The Greatest Thing in the World'; William Morris's `Love Is Enough'; `Aurora Leigh', Book ix.:
"Art is much, but Love is more!
O Art, my Art, thou'rt much, but Love is more!
Art symbolizes Heaven, but Love is God And makes Heaven;"and Langland's `Piers the Plowman' (ed.by Skeat, i.202-3):
"Love is leche of lyf and nexte oure Lorde selve, And also the graith gate that goth into hevene."The two lines may be translated: "Love is the physician of life and next to our Lord himself; moreover, it is the way that goes straight to Heaven."368.See `Introduction', p.xxxii [Part III].
The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the AlabamaBy Sidney and Clifford LanierYou, Dinah! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet.[1]
De Lord, HE made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat.
Umph dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' old nigger's feet.
It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' June.
I 'clar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de fiddle soon!
Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ringin' in de moon.
Well, ef dis nigger IS been blind for fo'ty year or mo', Dese ears, DEY sees de world, like, th'u' de cracks dat's in de do'.
For de Lord has built dis body wid de windows 'hind and 'fo'.
I know my front ones IS stopped up, and things is sort o' dim, But den, th'u' DEM, temptation's rain won't leak in on ole Jim![11]
De back ones show me earth enough, aldo' dey's mons'ous slim.
And as for Hebben, -- bless de Lord, and praise His holy name --DAT shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de same As ef dat cabin hadn't nar' a plank upon de frame!
Who CALL me? Listen down de ribber, Dinah! Don't you hyar Somebody holl'in' "HOO, JIM, HOO?" My Sarah died las' y'ar;IS dat black angel done come back to call ole Jim f'om hyar?
My stars, dat cain't be Sarah, shuh! Jes' listen, Dinah, NOW!
What KIN be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a row?
Fus' bellerin' like a pawin' bull, den squealin' like a sow? [21]
De Lord 'a' mussy sakes alive, jes' hear, -- ker-woof, ker-woof --De Debble's comin' round dat bend, he's comin' shuh enuff, A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his hoof!
I'se pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run away:
I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day.
YOU screech, and swish de water, Satan! I'se a gwine to pray.
