Poem Outlines. Sidney Lanier

believe in God would be much less hard if it were not for the wind. Pray hold one little minute, I cry: O spare this once to bite yonder poor old shivering soul in the bare house, let the rags have but a little chance to warm yon woman round the city corner. Stop, stop, wind: but I might as well talk to the wind: and lo, the proverb paralyzes prayer, and I am ready to say: Good God, is it possible thou canst stop this wind which at this moment is mocking ten thousand babies and thin-clad mothers with the unimaginable anguish of cold—is it possible thou canst stop this, and wilt not? Do you know what cold is? Story of the Prisoner, &c., &c., and the stone.

      The courses of the wind, and the shifts thereof, as also what way the clouds go; and that which is happening a long way off; and the full face of the sun; and the bow of the Milky Way from end to end; as also the small, the life of the fiddler-crab, and the household of the marsh-hen; and more, the translation of black ooze into green blade of marsh-grass, which is as if filth bred heaven:

      This a man seeth upon the marsh.

      [Hymns of the Marshes]

      I wish, said the poet, that you should do thus and so:

      Laugh you thus, what matters a poet's wish?

      The poet's wish is Nature's law.

      It is for the satisfaction thereof that things are,

      And that Time moves.

      Observe Science in modern times proving the old poet's dreams.

      Nature with all her train of powers

      And Time with his ordered hours,

      And Space, … and said,

      What dost thou wish, my lord?

      [Credo, and Other Poems]

      How dusty it is!

      In trades and creeds and politics, much wind is about and the earth is dry;

      I must lay this dust, that men may see and breathe;

      There is need of rain, and I am it.

      [Credo, and Other Poems]