And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.

Then, come, my sister; come, I pray;
With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book, for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

(200) Song of MARION'S MEN. General Francis Marion, at the head of a few daring troops, carried on an irregular warfare with the British forces, in South Carolina, during the last years of the Revolutionary War, making night-attacks and other forays from forest and swamp; the British were so harassed by him "that they sent an officer to remonstrate with him for not coming into the open field and fighting 'like a gentleman and a Christian'" (Bryant).

(202) 49. Santee: the principal river of South Carolina.

(202) THE PRAIRIES. "Mr. Bryant first saw the great prairies of the West in 1832, while on a visit to his brothers, who were among the early settlers of the State of Illinois. This poem was the result of his visit."-Godwin. The poet rode for about a hundred miles over the prairies, on horseback. 10-15. "The prairies of the West, with an undulating surface, rolling prairies, as they are called, present to the unaccustomed eye a singular spectacle when the shadows of the clouds are passing rapidly over them: the face of the ground seems to fluctuate and toss like billows of the sea."-Bryant.

(203) 21. Sonora: one of the states of Mexico, bordering on the Gulf of California. 48. Pentelicus: a mountain near Athens, from which marble was quarried. 149. its rock: the Acropolis of Athens.

(204) 64. gopher: a small burrowing rodent.

(207) THE WIND AND STREAM. First published in The Atlantic Monthly, December, 1857.

(208) THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. "Written, at the request of the Committee of Arrangements, when the body of the murdered President was carried in funeral procession through the city of New York, April, 1865."-Godwin.

CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM

"This gentleman's poetry has found its way, piece-meal, into England, and having met with a little of our newspaper praise, which has been repeated with great emphasis in America, is now set up among his associates for a poet of extraordinary promise, on the ground of having produced, within the course of several years, about fifty duodecimo pages of poetry, such as we shall give a specimen of. Mr. B. is not, and never will be, a great poet. He wants fire-he wants the very rashness of a poet-the prodigality and fervour of those who are overflowing with inspiration. Mr. B., in fact, is a sensible young man, of a thrifty disposition, who knows how to manage a few plain ideas in a very handsome way. . . . Some lines, about fifteen or twenty, to a 'water-fowl,' which are very beautiful, to be sure, but with no more poetry in them than there is in the Sermon on the Mount, are supposed, by his countrymen, 'to be well known in Europe.'"-John Neal, in Blackwood's Magazine, September, 1824.

....

"We should think . . . . that he were formed rather for the beautiful than the sublime, rather for pensive tenderness than deep and harrowing pathos, rather for the effusions of fancy and feeling than for the creations of a bold and fertile imagination. . . . . The diction of these poems is unobjectionable and that is saying a great deal. It is simple and natural-there is no straining after effect, no meretricious glare, no affected point and brilliancy. It is clear and precise-Mr. Bryant does not seem to think mysticism any element of the true sublime, or the finest poetry at all inconsistent with common sense. It is idiomatic and racy."-The Southern Review, February, 1832.

"The faults of this poet . . . . are the same in kind, but not in degree, with those of Willis. He belongs to the same school [the English Lake School], though he does not carry its peculiarities to such a fanatical extent. His versification is formed upon the same quaint and sluggish model; but he oftener deviates from it, and infuses into it a degree of spirit which renders many of his productions not unpleasing to those who are fond of poring over sentimental stanzas or fragments in prosing blank verse. . . . . But we wish not to prejudice our readers against Mr. Bryant's poetry. Throughout the principal part of the effusions before us, he exhibits a manliness of thought and a facility of expression which, after the perusal of Willis's rhapsodies, we found a real relief to our jaded faculties. Mr. Bryant, although he generally uses the prosaic diction of the Lake School, keeps tolerably clear of its abstruse manner of thinking; and but seldom indulges in the conceits and occult meanings so prevalent in the poetry of that school, particularly as it is written by Shelley, Keats, Willis, and Percival. He also avoids the contemptible affectation of infantile simplicity with which Wordsworth so often degrades his pages; but he has none of this amiable but heavy poet's original vein of philosophical reflection on the dispositions of man, and but little of his graphical power in depicting the appearances of nature."-The American Quarterly Review, March, 1832.

"They appear to me to belong to the best school of English poetry, and to be entitled to rank among the highest of their class. . . . . The same keen eye and fresh feeling for nature, the same indigenous style of thinking and local peculiarity of imagery which give such novelty and interest to the pages of that gifted writer [Cooper] will be found to characterize this volume, condensed into a narrower compass and sublimated into poetry. The descriptive writings of Mr. Bryant are essentially American. They transport us into the depths of the solemn primeval forest-to the shores of the lonely lake-the banks of the wild nameless stream, or the brow of the rocky upland rising like a promontory from amidst a wide ocean of foliage; while they shed around us the glories of a climate fierce in its extremes but splendid in all its vicissitudes. His close observation of the phenomena of nature, and the graphic felicity of his details, prevent his descriptions from ever becoming general and commonplace; while he has the gift of shedding over them a pensive grace that blends them all into harmony, and of clothing them with moral associations that make them speak to the heart."-Washington Irving, in the Dedication of the London edition of Bryant's "Poems," 1832.

"To the American scenery and woodland characters, then, let us first of all turn; and while here we find much to please, we must strongly express our dissent from

taste.

Mr. Irving's opinion that in such delineations Bryant is equal to Cooper. The poet appears to be 'a man of milder mood' than the romancer, and of finer But there is nothing in the whole volume comparable in original power to many descriptions in the Prairie and the Spy. . . . His poetry overflows with natural religion-with what Wordsworth calls the 'religion of the woods.' This reverential awe of the Invisible pervades the verses entitled 'Thanatopsis' and 'Forest Hymn,' imparting to them a sweet solemnity which must affect all thinking hearts. There is little that is original either in the imagery of the 'Forest Hymn' or in its language; but the sentiment is simple, natural, and sustained, and the close is beautiful. . . . . Compare it with the 'Lines on revisiting the river Wye,' by that great poet whom Mr. Bryant wisely venerates, . . . . and it will be felt, perhaps, that Mr. Irving rashly says that his friend's poems are entitled to 'rank among the highest of their class in the best school of English poetry.'. . . . 'Thanatopsis' ... both in conception and execution is more original; and we quote it entire, as a noble example of true poetical enthusiasm. It alone would establish the author's claim to the honours of genius."-John Wilson, in Blackwood's Magazine, April, 1832.

way.

"Bryant is not a first-rate poet; but he has great power, and is original in his . . A violet becomes, in his hands, a gem fit to be placed in an imperial diadem; a mountain leads his eyes to the canopy above it. The woods, the hills, the flowers-whatever, in short, is his subject, is brought before our eyes with a fidelity of delineation, and a brightness of coloring, which the actual pencil cannot rival. The picture is always finished to the minutest particular. . . . . To equal if not excel Thomson, in his own department of literature, would be distinction enough for any one man; but his excellence in descriptive poetry is not Mr. Bryant's chief merit. The bent of his mind is essentially contemplative. He loves to muse in solitude, in the depths of the forest, and on the high places of the hills. . . . . His thoughts are natural and simple, seldom commonplace, and often sublime; yet his great conceptions are never abrupt and startling. . . . . 'Thanatopsis' is the most generally known and esteemed of Bryant's poems, and perhaps deserves its reputation. It is sublime throughout. . . If there be anything within the whole compass of literature more delicate, more pure, more exquisitely sweet than this ["The Evening Wind"] it has not yet fallen under our observation."-The North American Review, April, 1832.

"Mr. Bryant is not a literary meteor; he is not calculated to dazzle and astonish. The light he shines with is mild and pure, beneficent in its influence, and lending a tranquil beauty to that on which it falls. But it will be little attractive, except to sobered minds, which do not seek their intellectual pleasures in the racy draught of strong excitement. . . In poetry descriptive of the aspects of nature

Mr. Bryant principally excels. He has evidently observed accurately, and with the eye of a genuine lover of natural scenery, and he describes eloquently and unaffectedly what he has seen, selecting happily, using no tumid exaggeration and vain pomp of words, not perplexing us with vague redundancies, but laying before us with graceful simplicity the best features of the individual scene which has been presented to his eye. . . . He has much of the descriptive power of Thomson, divested

of the mannerism which pervaded that period of our poetry; much of the picturesqueness of touch which shines in the verse of Sir Walter Scott, but ennobled by associations which that great writer did not equally summon to his aid; much of the fidelity of Wordsworth, but without his minuteness and occasional overstrained and puerile simplicity, yet closely following him in that better characteristic, his power of elevating the humblest objects by connection with some moral truth. In this Mr. Bryant eminently shines. . . . . Mr. Bryant cannot, perhaps, be said to have a bad ear for metrical rhythm, but neither has he shown a very good one. . . . . His want of metrical polish is rendered very evident by comparison whenever he has adopted the measure of Moore. His blank verse is good, and more satisfactory to the ear than his other poetry. . . . . We do not consider him a first-rate port but we would assign him an honourable station in the second class."-The Foreign Quarterly Review, August, 1832.

....

"The editor presents us with no fewer than twenty specimens from his poems, several of which, such as his beautiful 'Lines to a Waterfowl,' 'After a Tempest,' and 'To the Evening Wind,' have already made their appearance in more than one of our British journals. All of them are pleasing, many of them exquisitely so; but certainly the epithet 'bold,' which the editor applies to his manner, appears to us singularly inapplicable to the mind of Bryant, which seems far more remarkable for tenderness and delicacy than power. . . . . Full of sweet sympathy with Nature's minutest beauties, as well as her more magnificent, are the lines, 'To the Fringed Gentian,' where the pure mind of the author draws a moral even from the flower." -The Edinburgh Review, April, 1835.

"Mr. William Cullen Bryant is the best poet in America. . . . . From the library of English poets it would be difficult to select a more freshly pleasing volume than Mr. Bryant's. It administers welcome nurture to the contemplative mind. It contains but little to excite the joyous and merry-hearted to louder mirth, but much to soothe and soften the elated spirit into a quietude that more nearly approaches true happiness. 'Thanatopsis' is not so sublime as Coleridge's 'Hymn in the Valley of Chamouni,' but its effect on the imagination of the reader is scarcely less grand. It is not so perfect a production as the 'Elegy in a Country ChurchYard,' but its strains Eolian sweep through the mind with a power equally subduing, for it breathes the same 'sad, sweet music of humanity.' Its concluding lines fall upon the ear as if uttered by some warning angel. . . . . Next, scarcely inferior to this, comes the 'Hymn to the Evening Wind.' Either would of itself be enough to stamp its author as a man of high poetical genius. These two and the 'Song of Marion's Men' are as common and as popular in the United States as many of the oldest lyrics of the British bards."-The Southern Literary Messenger, September. 1839.

"The Waterfowl' is very beautiful, but still not entitled to the admiration which it has occasionally elicited. There is a fidelity and force in the picture of the fowl as brought before the eye of the mind, and a fine sense of effect in throwing its figure on the background of the 'crimson sky,' amid 'falling dew,' 'while glow the heavens with the last steps of day.' But the merits which possibly have had most weight in the public estimation of the poem are the melody and strength of its versi

fication (which is indeed excellent), and more particularly its completeness. Its rounded and didactic termination has done wonders. . . . . Judging Mr. B. in this manner, and by a general estimate of the volume before us, we should of course pause long before assigning him a place with the spiritual Shelleys or Coleridges or Wordsworths, or with Keats, or even Tennyson or Wilson or with some other burning lights of our own day, to be valued in a day to come."-Edgar A. Poe, in The Southern Literary Messenger, January, 1837. "Why his "Thanatopsis' has been so widely received and quoted as his finest production may be explained in part by what has been just now said respecting the negative merits of composition. It is quite devoid of fault, is undoubtedly beautiful; and in judging, absolutely, of the poems of Bryant, the public voice is not altogether wrong in its decision. But as affording evidence of the higher powers of the poet, . . . . he himself, if we do not greatly misunderstand him, would select some other portions of his works. Had he indeed, always written as in the annexed little ballad "Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids"], he might have justly assumed that rank among the poets of all time into which our national pride and partiality are so blindly disposed to thrust him as it is."-Edgar A. Poe, in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, May, 1840.

"It has been the singular felicity of Mr. Bryant that he has done whatever he has done with consummate finish and completeness. If he has not, as the critics often tell us, the comprehensiveness or philosophic insight of Wordsworth, the weird fancy of Coleridge, the gorgeous diction of Keats, the exquisite subtlety of Tennyson, he is, nevertheless, the one among all our contemporaries who has written the fewest things carelessly and the most things well. . . . . It is admitted, we believe universally, that as a poet of Nature Mr. Bryant stands without a rival. No one has celebrated her as he has in all her changeful aspects of beauty and grandeur. . . . . He does not only depict her colors and shapes, giving us the landscape: he hears her mysterious voices, and he imparts to us some faint echo of those supernal melodies. . . . In these ["Sella" and "The Little People of the Snow"], with a delicacy of fancy which is like the tracery of frost-crystal, and with a fineness of feeling that Tennyson has never surpassed, he leads us into wholly new realms of faery."-The Independent (as reprinted in Littell's Living Age, February 13, 1864).

"Bryant, pulsing the first interior verse-throbs of a mighty world-bard of the river and the wood, ever conveying a taste of open air, with scents as from hayfields, grapes, birch-borders-always lurkingly fond of threnodies-beginning and ending his long career with chants of death, with here and there, through all, poems or passages of poems touching the highest universal truths, enthusiasms, duties -morals as grim and eternal, if not as stormy and fateful, as anything in Eschylus." -Walt Whitman, Specimen Days, April 16, 1881.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

"An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus, plainly, a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in the manifold forms and sounds and odours and sentiments amid which he exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition of these forms and sounds and colours and odours and sentiments