An original nature. Rejects both the genteel tradition and the ideals of the rising middle class. An artist to whom life means beauty.

He revivifies nature-is almost pagan in his adoration of the beauty of the sun and water. A half-personification of the sun-myth. He is essentially religious. To Longfellow and Tennyson nature is pretty embroidery; to Emerson it is a dwelling-place of the oversoul; to Lanier it is an object of adoration. See "The Marshes of Glynn."

He attacks industrialism-the first of the poets to cry out against it as a deadly blight on life and civilization. See "Corn," "The Symphony," "The Jacquerie."

He seeks a new religion, recognizing a quantitative element.