Hayne wrote a large amount of poetry, and tried many forms of verse, in almost all of which he maintained a smoothness of meter, a correctness of rhyme, and, in general, a high level of artistic finish. He is a skilled craftsman, his ear is finely attuned to harmonious arrangements of sounds, and he shows an acquaintance with the best melodists in English poetry. The limpid ease and grace in his lines may be judged by this dainty poem:-- "A tiny rift within the lute May sometimes make the music mute! By slow degrees, the rift grows wide, By slow degrees, the tender tide-- Harmonious once--of loving thought Becomes with harsher measures fraught, Until the heart's Arcadian breath Lapses thro' discord into death!" His best poems are nature lyrics. In _The Woodland Phases_, one of the finest of these, he tells how nature is to him a revelation of the divine:-- "And midway, betwixt heaven and us, Stands Nature in her fadeless grace, Still pointing to our Father's house, His glory on her mystic face." Hayne found the inspiration for his verse in the scenes about his forest home: in the "fairy South Wind" that "floateth on the subtle wings of balm," in "... the one small glimmering rill That twinkles like a wood-fay's mirthful eye," in the solitary lake "Shrined in the woodland's secret heart," in "His blasted pines, smit by the fiery West, Uptowering rank on rank, like Titan spears," in the storm among the Georgian hills, in the twilight, that "... on her virginal throat Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star," and in the mocking-birds, whose "... love notes fill the enchanted land; Through leaf-wrought bars they storm the stars, These love songs of the mocking-birds!" The chief characteristics of his finest poetry are a tender love of nature, a profusion of figurative language, and a gentle air of meditation. SIDNEY LANIER, 1842-1881 [Illustration: SIDNEY LANIER] LIFE.--Sidney Lanier was the product of a long line of cultured ancestors, among whom appeared, both in England and America, men of striking musical and artistic ability. He was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1842. He served in the Confederate army during the four years of the war, and was taken prisoner and exposed to the hardest conditions, both during his confinement and after his release. The remainder of his life was a losing fight against the ravages of consumption.