Lanier

Sidney Lanier (1842 to 1881) was an American poet from Macon, Georgia, but music was his first love. In his short lifetime he learned to master the flute, the violin, the piano, the banjo and the guitar. He fought for the Confederacy in the American civil war until he was captured and imprisoned near Richmond, Virginia. During his imprisonment he contracted tuberculosis, which plagued him until his death at age 39. His father encouraged him to join him in his legal practice. Here is his response:  “My dear father, think how, for twenty years, through poverty, through pain, through weariness, through sickness, through the uncongenial atmosphere of a farcical college and of a bare army and then of an exacting business life. Think how, in spite of all these depressing circumstances, these two figures of music and of poetry have steadily kept in my heart so that I could not banish them.”