In the `Introduction' (p. xxxi ff. [Part III]) I have tried to show
the intensity and the breadth of Lanier's love of nature in general.
President Gates gives a separate section to Lanier's love
of trees and plant-life; and, after quoting some lines
on the soothing and inspiring companionship of trees,
thus speaks of our Ballad: "This ministration of trees to a mind and heart
`forspent with shame and grief' finds its culmination in the pathetic lines
upon that olive-garden near Jerusalem, which to those of us
who have sat within its shade must always seem the most sacred spot on earth.
The almost mystic exaltation of the power of poetic sympathy
which inspired these intense lines, `Into the Woods my Master went',
may impair their religious effect for many devout souls.
But to many others this short poem will express most wonderfully
that essential human-heartedness in the Son of Man, our Divine Saviour,
which made Him one with us in His need of the quiet,
sympathetic ministrations of nature -- perhaps the heart of the reason
why this olive-grove was `the place where He was wont to go' for prayer."
See St. Luke 22:39.
For Lanier's other poems on Christ see `Introduction',
p. xxxvii f. [Part III].