Appreciation: Sidney Lanier

Does anyone remember Sidney Lanier any more? Apparently so; he has a Wiki page. Still, almost everything about him conspires to make him forgettable. He was a Southerner; a Confederate soldier; he worked variously as a hotel desk clerk and s small-town lawyer and a university faculty member. He wrote poetry for money, and he died of tuberculosis.

His “Hymns to the Marshes”—uncompleted—describe the vast, open salt marshes on the coast of Georgia. The largest bridge in Georgia is nearby; it is called the Sidney Lanier Bridge (that's not it in the picture).

He wrote in something called “logaoedic dactyls,” attempting to imitate the rhythm of common speech. Wiki suggests a comparison with Gerard Manley Hopkins, but I don’t think my English teacher knew about it. Here is a verse from “The Marshes of Glynn:”

As the marsh-hen secretly builds in the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God;
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the space ‘twixt the marsh and the skies:
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold of the greatness of God.
Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.

Sidney Lanier, The Marshes of Glynn