`Life and Song' is the fifth of a series of seven poems
published under the general heading of `Street-cries',
with the two stanzas following as an introduction:
"Oft seems the Time a market-town
Where many merchant-spirits meet
Who up and down and up and down
Cry out along the street
"Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO:
Till all the ways are full of sound:
-- But still come rain, and sun, and snow,
And still the world goes round."
The remaining numbers of the series are: 1. `Remonstrance',
given in this volume; 2. `The Ship of Earth'; 3. `How Love Looked for Hell';
4. `Tyranny'; 6. `To Richard Wagner'; 7. `A Song of Love'.
I can think of no more helpful comment on the subject of our poem
than this sentence from Milton's `Apology for Smectymnuus',
already alluded to in the `Introduction' (p. liv [Part VI]):
"And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion,
that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter
in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is,
a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things;
not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities,
unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that
which is praiseworthy."
Lines 19-20. I have been pleased to discover that the application
I have made of this poem, especially of these lines
(see `Introduction', p. liv [Part VI]), is likewise made
by most students of Lanier's life, and that Mrs. Lanier has chosen
these two lines for inscription on the monument to be erected to his memory.
On the reverse side of the stone, I may add, are to be put these words:
"He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God" (I John iv. 16).