Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste-
Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings; yet the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest. And what if thou shalt fall
Unheeded by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of Care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men-
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the greyheaded man-
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

Would that some of the best American landscape-painters would send us over some of their best pictures, that we, who we fear must never cross the Atlantic, might see with our bodily eyes shadows of the scenery of the New World! Is it superior in aught but trees to our own Highlands? They are not inferior in power to any other Alps. Bryant makes rare and little mention of mountains; nor in his descriptive poetry

is there often the sound of cataracts. He makes not much even of "those great rivers, great as any seas," up one of which Coleridge makes his wild Leoni sail "to live and die among the savage men;" nor does he sketch out before our gaze the green, wide, interminable savannahs. But he makes us feel with himself the profound stillness—the utter solitude, of the bright and the hoary Forests, where youth and eld-all gigantic-mingle in life, growth, decay, and death, as if alien in their own ancient reign from everything appertaining, however remotely, to the race of man. Uninvaded regions of mighty nature—yet cheerful with the songs of birds, the hum of bees, the chirp of the squirrel, and brightened with ground-flowers that "soften the severe sojourn" with the presence of the beautiful.

It is indeed in the beautiful that the genius of Bryant finds its prime delight. He ensouls all dead insensate things, in that deep and delicate sense of their seeming life, in which they breathe and smile before the eyes "that love all they look upon," and thus there is animation and enjoyment in the heart of the solitude. Here are some lines breathing a woodland and (you will understand us) a Wordsworthian feeling: while we read them, as Burns says, our hearts rejoice in nature's joy," and in our serene sympathy we love the poet.

66

INSCRIPTION FOR THE ENTRANCE TO A WOOD.

Stranger, if thou hast learnt a truth which needs

No school of long experience, that the world

Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
To tire thee of it-enter this wild wood

And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men,
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence these shades
Are still the abodes of gladness, the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit; while below

The squirrel, with raised paws, and form erect,
Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade
Try their thin wings, and dance in the warm beam
That waked them into life. Even the green trees
Partake the deep contentment; as they bend
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy
Existence, than the winged plunderer

That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks themselves,
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll, a causey rude,

Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their earth upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet
Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed
Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks,
Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice
In its own being. Softly tread the marge,
Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren
That dips her bill in water. The cool wind,
That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
Like one that loves thee, nor will let thee pass
Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace."

There are other three pieces in blank verse (which Mr Bryant writes well-better, as far as we know, than any other American poet), "Monument Mountain," "A Winter Piece," and the "Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus." The "Winter Piece" we think the best; and it reminds us-though 'tis no imitation-of Cowper. Here is a splendid picture :

"Come when the rains

Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice,
While the slant sun of February pours

Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach!
The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps,
And the broad arching portals of the grove
Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks
Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water-drops,
That stream with rainbow radiance as they move.
But round the parent stem the long low boughs
Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbours hide
The grassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot,
The spacious cavern of the virgin mine,

Deep in the womb of earth-where the gems grow,

And diamonds put forth radiant rods, and bud
With amethyst and topaz-and the place
Lit up most royally, with the pure beam
That dwells in them. Or haply the vast hall
Of fairy palace, that outlasts the night,
And fades not in the glory of the sun;—
Where crystal columns send forth slender shafts
And crossing arches; and fantastic aisles
Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost
Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye,—
Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault :
There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud
Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams
Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose,
And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air,
And all their sluices sealed. All, all is light-
Light without shade. But all shall pass away
With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks
Loosened the crashing ice shall make a sound
Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve

Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont."

We have quoted much that is beautiful; but do our readers find in it many "graphic descriptions of American scenery" -much "indigenous style of thinking, and local peculiarity of imagery," "condensed into a narrow compass, and sublimated into poetry?" It seems to us, that by leaving out a very few allusions to objects living or dead, not native with us, it might be read to any familiar lover of nature, without his imagination being moved to leave the British Isles, and fly to America. We have no right to complain that Mr Bryant has presented us with such poetry-for much of it is exquisite; but is the scenery it paints as American as the scenery of The Task is English-and of The Seasons Scottish? If it bethen there is little difference between the character of the Old World's aspect and of the New. But we feel that there is much difference-and that distinctive-while we are reading the novels of Cooper.

Be this as it may, there are sprinkled all over this volume felicitous lines, and half lines, and epithets, that, independently of the general fidelity and feeling of his descriptions, show that Bryant has learned

"To muse on nature with a poet's eye."

Not a few such are to be seen in the passages already quoted-and here are some charming instances.

"Lodged in sunny cleft

Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone
The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at,
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves
With unexpected beauty, for the time
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar."

"Thou shalt look

Upon the green and rolling forest top,
And down into the secrets of the glens,
And streams that in their bordering thickets strive
To hide their windings."

"to lay thine ear

Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound

Of winds, that struggle with the woods below,

Borne up like ocean murmurs."

"All is silent, save the faint

And interrupted murmur of the bee,

Settling on the rich flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing."

"Lo! where the grassy meadow runs in waves!

"A thousand flowers

By the road-side, and the borders of the brook,
Nod gaily to each other."

(In the sudden Wind.)

"On thy soft breath the new-fledged bird
Takes wing, half-happy, half-afraid."

"Lo! their orbs burn more bright,

And shake out softer fires."

(Jupiter and Venus.)

"Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue-as if there were let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall."

(To the Fringed Gentian)

These are a few specimens; but there are scores of others that show the observant eye and the sensitive soul of the poetic lover of nature.

But there is much poetry in this volume of a kind that, to many minds, will be more affecting than anything we have. yet quoted-for it relates to the sons of the soil, whose races are now so sadly thinned, and as civilisation keeps hewing