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'Daring with my poem 'Special Pleading' to give myself such freedom as I desired, in my own style'
— Sidney Lanier
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SL
Sidney Lanier
poet, writer, hymnwriter, organist, flautist, prose writer
1842 – 1881
Sidney Clopton Lanier was an American musician, poet and author. He served in the Confederate States Army as a private, worked on a blockade-running ship for which he was imprisoned, taught, worked at a hotel where he gave musical performances, was a church organist, and worked as a lawyer. As a poet he sometimes used dialects. Many of his poems are written in heightened, but often archaic, American English. He became a flautist and sold poems to publications. He eventually became a professor of literature at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and is known for his adaptation of musical meter to poetry. Many schools, other structures and two lakes are named for him, and he became hailed in the South as the "poet of the Confederacy". A 1972 US postage stamp honored him as an "American poet".
All Quotes by Sidney Lanier
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Sweet Sometime, fly fast for me.
— Sidney Lanier
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My principle is, the artist shall put forth, humbly & lovingly, without bitterness, the very best & highest that is within him,utterly regardless of contemporary criticism.
— Sidney Lanier
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Music means harmony, harmony means love. Love means God.
— Sidney Lanier
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On Poe - I esteem Poe more highly than my countrymen are wont to do . The trouble with him (Poe) was, he did not KNOW enough. He needed to know a good many more things in order to be a great poet.
— Sidney Lanier
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On Swinburne - He invited me to eat; the service was silver and gold, but no food therein save pepper and salt.
— Sidney Lanier
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On William Morris - He caught a crystal cupful of the yellow light of sunset, and persuading himself to dream it wine, drank it with a sort of smile.
— Sidney Lanier
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On Whitman - His poetry refreshed me like harsh salt spray.
— Sidney Lanier
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Music is love in search of a word.
— Sidney Lanier