Lanier’s genius was many-sided, and there is not a line he wrote of poetry or prose that one would care to blot. He had the exquisite sense of melody of Poe, but he had what Poe did not in the spirit of the maxim of his art which he often expressed in the words: “The beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty.” He had, too, the tenderness and pathos and lyrical beauty of Timrod and Haynes, yet the characteristic of his poems is that they call one to worship God. They usher us with bowed head and chastened spirit into the holy of holies. “A holy tune was in my soul when I fell asleep,” he writes; “it was going when I awoke.” Just as in the ancient mythology, while one of divine descent might hold converse for a time with sons and daughters of men unmarked or unrecognized, yet by glance of eye or grace of motion would inevitably betray himself as of the progeny of the gods, so if ever for a moment I were in doubt as to the genius of Lanier my doubt would vanish as in the darkness, with bowed head and pitying heart of love, I sang to myself his “Ballad of the Trees and the Master:” Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to him, The little gray leaves were kind to him, The thorn tree had a mind to him, When into the woods he came. Out of the woods my Master went, And he was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, Content with death and shame. When death and shame would woo him last, From under the trees they drew him—last; ’Twas on a tree they slew him—last, When out of the woods he came. One of the aphorisms of my youth was, “Poeta nascitur, orator fit.” That the poet is “born,” and ever bears upon himself the marks of his divine enduement, I do not doubt; but that the orator “becomes” or happens so by chance or labor, I must strongly deny. A certain fluency of speech, a certain gloss of oratory, may possibly be achieved by dint of elocutionary drill and practice. If one is minded, like orators of an elegant postprandial type, to stand before a mirror and practice the tricks of gesture and speech, he may hope to attain applause from those whose blood is kept well cooled by the ices of the banquet room. I have described it fittingly as “postprandial” oratory, for the reason that it is most appreciated when the stomach and not the brain is chiefly in operation.