Editorial. CRITICAL NOTICES. BRYANT. We think on what they were, with many fears the word many is, from its nature, too rapidly pronounced for the fulfilment of the time necessary to give weight to the foot of two syllables. All words of two syllables do not necessarily constitute a foot (we speak now of the Pentameter here employed) even although the syllables Poems by William Cullen Bryant. Fourth Edition. New be entirely distinct, as in many, very, often and the like. York: Harper and Brothers. Mr. Bryant's poetical reputation, both at home and abroad, is greater, we presume, than that of any other American. British critics have frequently awarded him high praise; and here, the public press have been unanimous in approbation. We can call to mind no dissenting voice. Yet the nature, and, most especially the manner, of the expressed opinions in this case, should be considered as somewhat equivocal, and but too frequently must have borne to the mind of the poet, doubts and dissatisfaction. The edition now before us may be supposed to embrace all such of his poems as he deems not unworthy his name. These (amounting to about one hundred) have been "carefully revised." With the exception of some few, about which nothing could well be said, we will speak briefly of them one by one, but in such order as we may find conve nient. The Ages, a didactic piece of thirty-five Spenserian stanzas, is the first and longest in the volume. It was originally printed in 1821, with about half a dozen others now included in this collection. The design of the author in this poem is "from a survey of the past ages of the world, and of the successive advances of mankind in knowledge and virtue, to justify and confirm the hopes of the philanthropist for the future destinies of the human race." It is, indeed, an essay on the perfectibility of man, wherein, among other better arguments, some, in the very teeth of analogy, are deduced from the eternal cycles of physical nature, to sustain a hope of progression in happiness. But it is only as a poem that we wish to examine The Ages. Its commencement is impressive. The four initial lines arrest the attention at once by a quiet dignity of manner, an air of placid contemplation, and a versification combining the extremes of melody and force When to the common rest that crowns our days, When, o'er the buds of youth, the death-wind blows, The defects, here, are all of a metrical and of course minor nature, but are still defects. The line When o'er the buds of youth the death-wind blows is impeded in its flow by the final th in youth, and especially in death where w follows. The word tears cannot readily be pronounced after the final st in bitterest; and its own final consonants, rs, in like manner render an effort necessary in the utterance of stream which comniences the next line. In the verse Such as, without effort, cannot employ in their pronunciation the time demanded by each of the preceding and succeeding feet of the verse, and occasionally of a preceding verse, will never fail to offend. It is the perception of this fact which so frequently forces the versifier of delicate ear to employ feet exceeding what are unjustly called legitimate dimensions. For example. At page 21 of the volume before us we have the following lines Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side The emulous nations of the West repair! These verses are exceedingly forcible, yet, upon scan. ning the latter, we find a syllable too many. We shall be told possibly that there should be an elision of the e in the at the commencement. But no-this was not intended. Both the and emulous demand a perfect accentuation. The verse commencing Lo! Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side, has, it will be observed, a Trochee in its first foot. As is usually the case, the whole line partakes, in consequence, of a stately and emphatic enunciation, and, to equalize the time in the verse succeeding, something more is necessary than the succession of Iambuses which constitute the ordinary English Pentameter. The equalization is therefore judiciously effected by the introduction of an additional syllable. But in the lines Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close, We think on what they were with many fears, lines to which the preceding observations will equally apply, this additional syllable is wanting. Did the rhyme admit of the alteration, every thing necessary could be accomplished by writing We think on what they were with many a fear, Lest goodness die with them and leave the coming year. These remarks may be considered hypercritical-yet it is undeniable that upon a rigid attention to minutiæ such as we have pointed out, any great degree of metrical success must altogether depend. We are more disposed, too, to dwell upon the particular point mentioned above, since, with regard to it, the American Monthly, in a late critique upon the poems of Mr. Willis, has evidently done that gentleman injustice. The reviewer has fallen into what we conceive the error of citing, by themselves, (that is to say insulated from the context) such verses as The night-wind with a desolate moan swept by. With difficult energy and when the rod. Fell through, and with the tremulous hand of age. With supernatural whiteness loosely fell. for the purpose of animadversion. "The license" he says "of turning such words as 'passionate' and 'delilate' into two syllables could only have been taken by a pupil of the Fantastic School." We are quite sure that Mr. Willis had no purpose of turning them into words of two syllables-nor even, as may be supposed upon a careless examination, of pronouncing them in the VOL. III.-6 the two additional syllables are employed with a view of equalizing the time with that of the verse same time which would be required for two ordinary syllables. The excesses of measure are here employed (perhaps without any definite design on the part of the But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raisewriter, who may have been guided solely by ear) with a verse which will be perceived to labor in its proreference to the proper equalization, or balancing, if we gress-and which Pope, in accordance with his favomay so term it, of time, throughout an entire sentence. rite theory of making sound accord with sense, eviThis, we confess, is a novel idea, but, we think, perfect-dently intended so to labor. It is useless to say that ly tenable. Any musician will understand us. Efforts for the words should be written with elision-starv❜ling and the relief of monotone will necessarily produce fluctua- degen'rate. Their pronunciation is not thereby materitions in the time of any metre, which fluctuations, if not ally effected-and, besides, granting it to be so, it may subsequently counterbalanced, affect the ear like unre- be as well to make the elision also in the case of Mr. solved discords in music. The deviations then of which Willis. But Pope had no such intention, nor we prewe have been speaking, from the strict rules of proso-sume, had Mr. W. It is somewhat singular, we may dial art, are but improvements upon the rigor of those rules, and are a merit, not a fault. It is the nicety of this species of equalization more than any other metrical merit, which elevates Pope as a versifier above the mere couplet-makers of his day; and, on the other hand, it is the extension of the principle to sentences of greater length which elevates Milton above Pope. Knowing this, it was, of course, with some surprise that we found the American Monthly (for whose opinion we still have the highest respect,) citing Pope in opposition to Mr. Willis upon the very point to which we allude. A few examples will be sufficient to show that Pope not only made free use of the license referred to, but that he used it for the reasons, and under the circumstances which we have suggested. Oh thou! whatever title please thine ear, Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious chair differs in time from the usual course of the rhythm, and requires some counterbalance in the line which succeeds. It is indeed precisely such a verse as that of Mr. Bryant's upon which we have commented, Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close, Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines Else all my prose and verse were much the same, And thrice he lifted high the birth-day band Here to her chosen all her works she shows Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise These are all taken at random from the first book of the Dunciad. In the last example it will be seen that remark, en passant, that the American Monthly, in a subsequent portion of the critique alluded to, quotes from Pope as a line of "sonorous grandeur" and one beyond the ability of our American poet, the well known Luke's iron crown and Damien's bed of steel. Does prodigal Autumn to our age deny Will then the merciful one who stamped our race He who has tamed the elements shall not live when Liberty awoke New-born, amid those beautiful vales. Oh Greece, thy flourishing cities were a spoil And thou didst drive from thy unnatural breast Yet her degenerate children sold the crown. Far like the comet's way thro' infinite space. The full region leads Full many a horrible worship that, of old, Held o'er the shuddering realms unquestioned sway. All these instances, and some others, occur in a poem of but thirty-five stanzas—yet, in only a very few cases is the license improperly used. Before quitting this subject it may be as well to cite a striking example from Wordsworth in the stanza, and by their arrangement no impediment is offered to the flow of the verse. Liquids and the most melodious vowels abound. World, eternal, season, wide, change, full, air, everlasting, wings, flings, complacent, surge, gulfs, myriads, azure, ocean, soil, and joyous, are among the softest and most sonorous sounds in the language, and the partial line after the pause at surge, together with the stately march of the Alexandrine which succeeds, is one of the finest imaginable of finales Eternal love doth keep There was a youth whom I had loved so long, That when I loved him not I cannot say. Mid the green mountains many and many a song We two had sung like gladsome birds in May. Another specimen, and one still more to the purpose, may be given from Milton, whose accurate ear (although he cannot justly be called the best of versifiers) included and balanced without difficulty the rhythm of the long-ning, middle and end. The tone, too, of calm, hopeest passages. But say, if our Deliverer up to heaven The other metrical faults in The Ages are few. Mr. Bryant is not always successful in his Alexandrines. Too great care cannot be taken, we think, in so regulating this species of verse as to admit of the necessary pause at the end of the third foot-or at least as not to render a pause necessary elsewhere. We object, therefore, to such lines as A palm like his, and catch from him the hallowed flame. The truth of heaven, and kneel to Gods that heard them not. That which concludes Stanza X, although correctly cadenced in the above respect, requires an accent on the monosyllable the, which is too unimportant to sustain it. The defect is rendered the more perceptible by the introduction of a Trochee in the first foot. The sick untended then Languished in the damp shade, and died afar from men. We are not sure that such lines as A boundless sea of blood and the wild air. The smile of heaven, till a new age expands. are in any case justifiable, and they can be easily avoided. As in the Alexandrine mentioned above, the course of the rhythm demands an accent on monosyllables too unimportant to sustain it. For this prevalent heresy in metre we are mainly indebted to Byron, who introduced it freely, with a view of imparting an abrupt energy to his verse. There are, however, many better ways of relieving a monotone. Stanza VI is, throughout, an exquisite specimen of versification, besides embracing many beauties both of thought and expression. Look on this beautiful world and read the truth In her fair page; see every season brings New change, to her, of everlasting youth; Still the green soil with joyous living things Swarms; the wide air is full of joyous wings; And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings The restless surge. Eternal love doth keep In his complacent arms the earth, the air, the deep. The cadences, here, at the words page, swarms, and surge respectively, cannot be surpassed. We shall find, upon examination, comparatively few consonants In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep. The higher beauties of the poem are not, we think, of the highest. It has unity, completeness,―a begin ful, and elevated reflection, is well sustained throughout. There is an occasional quaint grace of expression, as in Nurse of full streams, and lifter up of proud or of antithetical and rhythmical force combined, as in The shock that hurled To dust in many fragments dashed and strown The throne whose roots were in another world And whose far-stretching shadow awed our own. But we look in vain for something more worthy commendation. At the same time the piece is especially free from errors. Once only we meet with an unjust metonymy, where a sheet of water is said to Cradle, in his soft embrace, a gay We find little originality of thought, and less imagination. But in a poem essentially didactic, of course we cannot hope for the loftiest breathings of the Muse. To the Past is a poem of fourteen quatrains—three feet and four alternately. In the second quatrain, the lines And glorious ages gone Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb are, to us, disagreeable. Such images are common, but at best, repulsive. In the present case there is not even the merit of illustration. The womb, in any just imagery, should be spoken of with a view to things future; here it is employed, in the sense of the tomb, and with a view to things past. In Stanza XI the idea is even worse. The allegorical meaning throughout the poem, although generally well sustained, is not always so. In the quatrain Thine for a space are they Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last; it seems that The Past, as an allegorical personification, is confounded with Death. The Old Man's Funeral is of seven stanzas, each of six lines four Pentameters with alternates rhymes, ending with a Pentameter and Alexandrine, rhyming. At the funeral of an old man who has lived out his full quota of years, another, as aged, reproves the company for weeping. The poem is nearly perfect in its waythe thoughts striking and natural-the versification singularly sweet. The third stanza embodies a fine idea, beautifully expressed. Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled, Earth, a poem of similar length and construction to The Prairies, embodies a noble conception. The poet represents himself as lying on the earth in a "midnight black with clouds," and giving ideal voices to the varied sounds of the coming tempest. The following passages remind us of some of the more beautiful portions of The technical word chronic should have been avoided Young. in the fifth line of Stanza VI No chronic tortures racked his aged limb. The Rivulet has about ninety octo-syllabic verses. They contrast the changing and perishable nature of our human frame, with the greater durability of the Rivulet. The chief merit is simplicity. We should imagine the poem to be one of the earliest pieces of Mr. Bryant, and to have undergone much correction. In the first paragraph are, however, some awkward constructions. In the verses, for example This little rill that from the springs the reader is apt to suppose that rill is the nominative to plays, whereas it is the nominative only to drew in the subsequent lines, Oft to its warbling waters drew My little feet when life was new. The proper verb is, of course, immediately seen upon reading these latter lines-but the ambiguity has occurred. The Prairies. This is a poem, in blank Pentameter, of about one hundred and twenty-five lines, and possesses features which do not appear in any of the pieces above mentioned. Its descriptive beauty is of a high order. The peculiar points of interest in the Prairie are vividly shown forth, and as a local painting, the work is, altogether, excellent. Here are, moreover, evidences of fine imagination. For example The great heavens Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love— A nearer vault and of a tenderer blue Than that which bends above the eastern hills. On the breast of Earth I lie and listen to her mighty voice: A voice of many tones-sent up from streams Ha! how the murmur deepens! I perceive In this poem, and elsewhere occasionally throughout the volume, we meet with a species of grammatical construction, which, although it is to be found in writers of high merit, is a mere affectation, and of course objectionable. We mean the abrupt employment of a direct pronoun in place of the customary relative. For example Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die- The note of interrogation here, renders the affectation more perceptible. The poem To the Appenines resembles, in metre, that entitled The Old Man's Funeral, except that the former has a Pentameter in place of the Alexandrine. This Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked and wooed piece is chiefly remarkable for the force, metrical and In a forgotten language, and old tunes From instruments of unremembered form Gave the soft winds a voice. -The bee Within the hollow oak. I listen long To his domestic hum, and think I hear The sound of the advancing multitude Which soon shall fill these deserts. Breezes of the south! There is an objectionable elipsis in the expression "I behold them for the first," meaning "first time;" and either a grammatical or typographical error of moment in the fine sentence commencing Fitting floor For this magnificent temple of the sky- moral, of its concluding stanza. In you the heart that sighs for Freedom seeks The Knight's Epitaph consists of about fifty lines of blank Pentameter. This poem is well conceived and executed. Entering the Church of St. Catherine at Pisa, the poet is arrested by the image of an armed knight graven upon the lid of a sepulchre. The Epitaph consists of an imaginative portraiture of the knight, in which he is made the impersonation of the ancient Italian chivalry. Seventy-Six has seven stanzas of a common, but musical versification, of which these lines will afford an excellent specimen. That death-stain on the vernal sword, Hallowed to freedom all the shore-In fragments fell the yoke abhorred— The footsteps of a foreign lord Profaned the soil no more. The Living Lost has four stanzas of somewhat peculiar construction, but admirably adapted to the tone of contemplative melancholy which pervades the poem. We can call to mind few things more singularly impressive than the eight concluding verses. They combine ease with severity, and have antithetical force without effort or flippancy. The final thought has also a high ideal beauty. But ye who for the living lost That agony in secret bear, A gloom from which ye turn your eyes. The first stanza commences with one of those affectations which we noticed in the poem "Earth.” Matron, the children of whose love, The Hunter's Vision is skilfully and sweetly told. It is the tale of a young hunter who, overcome with toil, dozes on the brink of a precipice. In this state between waking and sleeping, he fancies a spirit-land in the fogs of the valley beneath him, and sees approaching him the deceased lady of his love. Arising to meet her, he falls, with the effort, from the crag, and perishes. The state of reverie is admirably pictured in the following stanzas. The poem consists of nine such. All dim in haze the mountains lay While ever rose a murmuring sound He listened till he seem to hear A strain so soft and low That whether in the mind or ear The listener scarce might know. With such a tone, so sweet and mild The watching mother lulls her child. Catterskill Falls is a narrative somewhat similar. Here the hero is also a hunter-but of delicate frame. He and is near perishing-but, being found by some woodis overcome with the cold at the foot of the falls, sleeps, men, is taken care of, and recovers. As in the Hunter's the poem. He fancies a goblin palace in the icy netVision, the dream of the youth is the main subject of work of the cascade, and peoples it in his vision with ghosts. His entry into this palace is, with rich imagination on the part of the poet, made to correspond with the time of the transition from the state of reverie to that of nearly total insensibility. They eye him not as they pass along, When he feels that he moves with that phantom throng Till those icy turrets are over his head, The glittering threshold is scarcely passed In which there is neither form nor sound; The Song of Pitcairn's Island is a sweet, quiet, and simple poem, of a versification differing from that of any preceding piece. We subjoin a specimen. The Tahetian maiden addresses her lover. Come talk of Europe's maids with me White foam and crimson shell. Rispah is a scriptural theme from 2 Samuel, and we like it less than any poem yet mentioned. The subject, we think, derives no additional interest from its poetical |