"I remember well the day of trial. The President of the United States, the Emperor of Brazil, the governors of States, the judges of the highest courts, the chief military and naval heroes, were seated on the platform in the face of an immense assembly. There was no pictorial effect in the way they were grouped. They were a mass of living beings, a crowd of black-coated dignitaries, not arranged in any impressive order. No cathedral of Canterbury, no Sanders Hall, no episcopal or academic gowns. The oratory was likewise ineffective. There were loud voices and vigorous gestures, but none of the eloquence which enchants a multitude. The devotional exercises awakened no sentiment of reverence. At length came the Cantata. From the overture to the closing cadence it held the attention of the vast throng of listeners, and when it was concluded loud applause rang through the air. A noble conception had been nobly rendered. Words and music, voices and instruments, produced an impression as remarkable as the rendering of the Hallelujah Chorus in the nave of Westminster Abbey. Lanier had triumphed. It was an opportunity of a lifetime to test upon a grand scale his theory of verse. He came off victorious."*

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* `South Atlantic Quarterly', April, 1905.
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The most important thing, however, about the writing of the Cantata was that it gave expression to a strong faith in the nation as felt by one who had been a Confederate soldier. The central note of the poem is the preservation of the Union. In spite of all the physical obstacles that had hindered the early settlers, in spite of the distinct individualities of the various people of the sections, in spite of sectional misunderstandings which had led in the process of time to a bloody civil war, the nation had survived. All of these had said, "No, thou shalt not be."

    Now praise to God's oft-granted grace,
    Now praise to man's undaunted face,
    Despite the land, despite the sea,
    I was: I am: and I shall be.

Lanier desired, however, to avoid anything like spread-eagleism, and so after the chorus of jubilation just quoted, there is a note of doubt as to how long the nation will last. The answer, sung by the Boston soloist, Myron D. Whitney, was particularly impressive: --

    Long as thine Art shall love true love,
    Long as thy Science truth shall know,
    Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove,
    Long as thy Law by law shall grow,
    Long as thy God is God above,
    Thy Brother every man below,
    So long, dear Land of all my love,
    Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow!

Soon after finishing the Centennial Cantata, Lanier started upon a much longer centennial poem which, as the "Psalm of the West", was published in "Lippincott's Magazine", June, 1876, and for which he received $300. "By the grace of God," he writes to Bayard Taylor, April 4, 1876, "my centennial Ode is finished. I now only know how divine has been the agony of the last three weeks, during which I have been rapt away to heights where all my own purposes as to a revisal of artistic forms lay clear before me, and where the sole travail was of choice out of multitude." This poem was written with the idea of a symphony in his mind. One of the last things he planned was to write the music for it.

The poem as a whole is a musical rhapsody rather than a self-contained work of art. Although there are fancies and obscurities, the general theme, the magnificent opening lines, and the Columbus sonnets, with here and there lines of imaginative power, make it noteworthy. The poem is a passionate assertion of the triumph of freedom in America, -- freedom, the Eve of this tall Adam of lands.

    Her shalt thou clasp for a balm to the scars of thy breast,
    Her shalt thou kiss for a calm to thy wars of unrest,
    Her shalt extol in the psalm of the soul of the West.

Freedom with all its dangers is the precious heritage of Americans. "For Weakness, in freedom, grows stronger than Strength with a chain." With the aid of the God of the artist the poet reviews the history of the past, beginning with the time when in this continent "Blank was king and Nothing had his will." The coming of the Northmen, the discovery of the land by Columbus, the voyage of the Mayflower, -- ship of Faith's best hope, -- the battle of Lexington, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the opening up of the West, are all chanted in unrestrained poetry. The Civil War is described as a tournament: --

    Heartstrong South would have his way,
    Headstrong North hath said him nay.
    They charged, they struck; both fell, both bled;
       Brain rose again, ungloved;
    Heart fainting smiled and softly said,
       `My love to my Beloved.'

    Heart and brain! no more be twain;
    Throb and think, one flesh again!
    Lo! they weep, they turn, they run;
    Lo! they kiss: Love, thou art one.

The poem closes as it began, with the triumphant vision of the future: --

    At heart let no man fear for thee:
       Thy Past sings ever Freedom's song,
    Thy Future's voice sounds wondrous free;
       And Freedom is more large than Crime,
       And Error is more small than Time.

The significance of the national spirit in these two poems may be seen only when it is looked at from the standpoint of the sectionalism that prevailed in the South and in the North. At the very time when Lanier was writing them, men in Congress were giving exhibitions of partisanship and prejudice that threatened to make of the Centennial a farce. "The fate of the Centennial bill in Congress," he writes to Dudley Buck, "reveals -- in spite of its passage -- a good deal of opposition. All this will die out in a couple of months, and THEN every one will be in a temper to receive a poem of reconciliation. I fancy that to print the poem NOW will be much like making a dinner speech before the wine has been around." Indeed, there were few men in America at this time who really understood the significance of the national spirit. Southern men, smarting under reconstruction governments and bitter with the prejudice engendered by the war, had not been able, except in rare cases, to rise to a national point of view. The sectional spirit was ready to break out at any time. It was but natural. In the Centennial year a speaker at the University of Virginia said: "Not space, or time, or the convenience of any human arm, can reconcile institutions for the turbulent fanatic of Plymouth Rock and the God-fearing Christian of Jamestown. . . . You may assign them to the closest territorial proximity, with all the forms, modes, and shows of civilization, but you can never cement them into the bonds of brotherhood." On the other hand, the leading public men of the North, while protesting their love of the Union and naturally believing in the Union, which Northern armies had saved, had little of the spirit of a sympathetic realization of the South's problem and her condition. Only in a few large-minded publicists, and in editors like Godkin and poets like Lowell and Walt Whitman, did the national spirit prevail.