WE design to express our opinion of the merit of these poems. Το speak what we think, plainly and freely, will only be discharging a debt of gratitude that has been accumulating for a long while.

That they should have passed through four large editions is some indication of the existence among us of a pure taste; at least, the author has no right to complain. He has found favor enough to satisfy a literary vanity more inordinate than we take his to be. His book has been read extensively, and praised as often as it was read; quoted frequently, and always with admiration; and republished time and again in every magazine and newspaper from the land of the Pilgrims to that of the Cherokees. The more accomplished his readers, the keener their relish of the rich repast which he has furnished. Yet his friends may, perhaps, complain that while these manifestations of kindly feeling have been hearty, they have not in all instances been intelligent; they have been spent on minor graces and excellencies, to the neglect of higher traits. Would not some of his warmest admirers be surprised to hear his true rank? Suppose we were to compare him, not with "the everduring men," with Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, who hold the first place, but with those just below them, with Thompson, Cowper, Wordsworth and others, would it betray the want of critical sagacity? We confess it is our conviction, that, estimated according to the strictest rules of art, his poetry is not inferior to their best passages. Without running a formal parallel, we shall endeavour to state why and in what respect we think so, by describing what we conceive to be it's chief characteristics.

• Poems by William Cullen Bryant. Fifth Edition. Harper and Brothers. New York. 1839.

There is no occasion for defining, as a preliminary task, what poetry is. All that we shall say may be comprehended by those who will read this sentence from Matthias Claudius, "I have heard from Herr Ahrens that poetry is a sort of roaring foam substance (Schaum weren) that must rhyme. Herr Ahrens, you have deceived me! My cousin says it must not foam, but must be clear as a dew-drop and penetrating as a sigh of love."

What a thorough mastery of language has the author of this book. Sometimes we are disposed to think exquisite grace and propriety of expression his chief excellence. It seems as if his whole study had been how his thoughts might be most beautifully uttered. Not only are words not misused, which would be small praise indeed, but none occur in the entire volume that any process of refinement can improve. Their precision is remarkable, unaccompanied as it is by any loss of elegance or force. Warmth and richness are not sacrificed to mere dry and meagre chastity. Most writers, when they attempt neatness, become hard and cold; freshness and flexibility is exchanged for a frigid accuracy and their phrases, perhaps well adapted to a metaphysical treatise, are altogether out of place in verse. By laboring too exclusively after exactness, they neglect what is of the last importance in the felicitous and effective use of words, the power of association. This is never the case with Bryant. With all his nicety of expression he is ever racy, warm, suggestive. Certain of his pieces it is impossible to read without gliding unconsciously into a thousand trains of associated thought. A single epithet sometimes draws a veil from before a whole world of thought. For instance, in the " Death of Schiller," how that one term "the peering Chinese" brings up all the peculiarities as well of Chinese life as of Chinese features. And, again in the Greek Boy, whom he regards as

"A shoot of that old vine which made
The nations silent in its shade,"

does not old Greece, in her glory and magnificence, and yet with somewhat of a solemn grandeur, move before us, as in a stately funeral procession?

Delicacy and refinement of language are of course incompatible with the least mark of turgidness. There is, therefore, in Bryant no tumid pomp, no forced strength-none -none of the inflation of Thompson, nor of the unnatural and pompous splendor of Young. The same is true of his versification, for that is no less exquisite than his choice of language, and manifests no less of the skilfulness of an accomplished artist. It combines melody and freedom with great correctness. An ear the most perfectly attuned detects no false quantities nor discordant rhythms. Line follows line in liquid harmony. There is a mellowness and smooth flow that beguiles the mind by a kind of fascination, as if the ancient conception of the true lyric had been more than realized by converting poetry into music itself. Yet the versification is adapted to the subject. In that grand ode "To the Past," the lines seem to move with slow and solemn step, while, in the "Song of the Stars," they dart away with the joyousness and buoyancy of youth, like "the orbs of beauty and spheres of flame" which dance over the widening wastes of the clear blue sky.

Bryant possesses, however, other and higher requisites of the genuine poet. An eminent writer, himself aspiring to the highest place in the poetical literature of his country, has told us what those requisites are, and they are just those which our poet has in a signal degree. As to sensibility, no man ever lived more delicately susceptible of external influences. Not only is his eye open to the forms of nature, but every fibre of his being seems to be tremblingly alive to their presence. His nerves, like the strings of an Eolian harp, the faintest breath of the wind can fan into music. In the observation of the outward world he has been both varied and minute. Natural objects, with their infinite diversity of name, shape and hue, are the constant companions of his thoughts. Scarcely a flower, a leaf exists with which he is not familiar. From the spire of grass to the huge mountain oak; from the violet, in its silent retreats, to the bright and boundless firmament; from the shy bird, brooding in the deep and quiet woods, to the stars in their eternal dances, all things of nature have attracted his frequent and friendly attention. Streams, and woods, and meadows, and skies, mingle in all his musings, are the staple of his imagination, form a part, indeed, of his intellectual being. His sympathy with nature is universal. The seasons, with their thousand alternating influences, with their smiles and tears, with their sunshine and gloom; day and night, with their strange contrasts; forests, where gush the silver fountains; thick groves, with verdant roofs and mossy floors; trees in their stateliness and beauty; lone lakes; the song of birds; the soft whisper of the evening winds, and the gentle murmur of the brooks, have been to him a delightful study.

"Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on the delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth,
After soft showers; and the coming on
Of grateful evening mild."

He has, in truth, lived in the bosom of nature as in the arms of a tender mother, whose every smile and frown touched the quick chords of sensibility. He has watched her face with the confiding fondness of youthful love, while she has been to him a teacher and guide. In the unbroken solitude, where his home has been, his heart, free to expand under genial influences, has awakened to the consciousness of the sacred dignity of his calling, and of the lofty purposes of life. Nature is ever silently teaching a lesson of elevation and peace. She is the kind parent of sweet thoughts, the friend of lowly but self-dependent virtue; not the nurse of sickly sentiment, but the inspirer of the best wisdom, which is that which is linked to goodness.

*Wordsworth. See preface to Lyrical Ballads.

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This familiarity with nature gives freshness and truth to these descriptions. They are not like the collections of a naturalist, dry specimens of withered leaves and decayed plants. In the great temple of nature the author's worship has been pure and exalted, and he has transferred to his poems the rich feelings which such worship inspires. They are at all times warm, picturesque, faithful. They present scenes in all the life and glowing beauty of original nature. Opening them at any page is like transporting one's self to the free air and broad prospects of the country. Lovely sights and sweet sounds are about us, and we gaze earnestly on green leaves and running brooks, and listen, delighted, to the lowing of herds. Can there be a picture more like than this from "Lines after a Tempest." We quote the whole poem because it is one of the best specimens of the peculiarities of the author's genius:

"The day had been a day of wind and storm;
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,
And stooping from the zenith bright and warm
Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.
I stood upon the upland slope, and cast
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene,
Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast,
And hills o'er hills lifted their beds of green,
With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between.

The rain drops glistened on the trees around,

Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred,
Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground,
Was shaken by the flight of started bird;
For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard
About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung!
And gossiped as he hastened ocean-ward;
To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung,
And chirping from the ground the grasshopper upsprung.

And from beneath the leaves that kept them dry
Flew many a glittering insect here and there,
And darted up and down the butterfly,

That seemed a living blossom of the air.
The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where
The violent rain had pent them; in the way

Strolled groups of damsels frolicksome and fair;
The farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay,
And 'twixt the heavy swaths his children were at play.

It was a scene of peace-and, like a spell,

Did that serene and golden sunlight fall
Upon the motionless wood that clothed the fell,
And precipice upspringing like a wall,
And glassy river and white waterfall,
And happy living things that trod the bright

And beauteous scene; while far beyond them all,

On many a lovely valley out of sight,

Was poured from the blue heavens the same soft golden light.

I looked and thought the quiet of the scene
An emblem of the peace that yet shall be,
When o'er earth's continents and isles between,
The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea,
And married nations dwell in harmony;
When millions crouching in the dust to one,
No more shall beg their lives on bended knee,
Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun
The o'er labored captive toil, and wish his life were done.

Too long at clash of arms amid her bowers

And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast,
The fair earth that should only blush with flowers
And ruddy fruits; but not for aye can last
The storm, and sweet the sunshine when 'tis past.
Lo! the clouds roll away-they break-they fly,
And like the glorious light of summer, cast
O'er the wide landscape from the embracing sky,
On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven shall lie."

This is not so much description as painting, in which minute accuracy of touch is combined with the finest general effect, and the whole pervaded by a deep tone of beautiful and touching sentiment. But here the scene itself would be recognized as poetical by the dullest person, in treating which properly, many suppose the highest kind of skill is not required. Let such take the description of a scene of which the poetry is not so generally confessed. Take winter, the season in which nature is presented in her most bleak, dreary, and unlovely aspect, and see what life and beauty can be infused into what most of us regard as a sterile subject:

When shrieked

The bleak November winds, and smote the woods,
And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades
That rest above the merry rivulet,

Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still;-they seemed
Like old companions in adversity.

Still there was beauty in my walks; the brook
Bordered with sparkling frost-work, was as gay
As with its fringe of summer flowers. Afar,
The village with its spires, the path of streams,
And dim receding valleys, hid before-
By interposing trees, lay visible

Through the bare grove, and my familiar haunts
Seemed new to me. Nor was I slow to come:
Among them, when the clouds, from their still skirts,
Had shaken down on earth the feathery snow,
And all was white. The pure, keen air, abroad,
Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard
Love-call of bird nor merry hum of bee,
Was not the air of death. Bright mosses crept
Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds
That lay along the boughs, instinct with life,
Patient and waiting the soft breath of Spring,
Feared not the piercing spirit of the North.