Thete actually isn't a specific conflict in the poem. Circumstances travel, flute-playing, military discipline, and a keen awareness of his own mortalitymay account for the major elements of his poetry : nature, music, moral duty, and religion. Lanier was able to see much of the South's natural beauty, and he found much religious and spiritual significance in it. As a poet, he is regarded as a minor writer in American literature whose prime contribution was to lyrical or musical poetry in the tradition of the American poet Edgar Allan Poe and the English poet Alfred Tennyson. "Song of the Chattahoochee" is primarily a musical poem whose words flow very much like the river that is its speaker. The river's aim is to do its duty, answering the call of God.