WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

NATURE has not a more appreciating admirer and devout worshipper than William Cullen Bryant. The beautiful trees, when covered with green foliage, or crowned with the golden pomp of Autumn, or glassed in the ice of winter, as they stand with root clasped in root, and branch embracing branch, like a band of brothers, have been his instructors. The sweet sisterhood of flowers, gleaming like drops of sky and sunbeam, and rainbow, are the pets of his passionate love. The warbling birds, pouring forth their roundelays, or building their soft, round nests, or sitting on their spotted eggs, or cutting the air with swift-moving pinions, are his favorites. So are the lakes, shining like broaches set in emerald on the bosom of the earth-so are the streams sweeping like silver sickles through the green fields and forests.

The rock is an altar on which he would offer the sacrifice of a song—each stanza burning with holy fire, when, on the mountain sod he stands, with his feet on the earth and his heart in Heaven-the mountain is a footstool which touches the throne of God, and he kneels there. He looks upon the sea with sublime emotions, and the spirit which moves upon the waters stirs the great deep of his soul.

"He can impart substance to shadows, and spirit to storms -put an Oread on every hill, and plunge a Naiad into every gushing spring "—

"Ah! Bard, tremendous in sublimity,

Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood,
Wandering alone with finely frenzied eye,
Beneath some vast, old, tempest-swinging wood,
Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood,
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy."

Mr. Bryant is one of the most polished poets of the age No one in America approximates more closely to perfection of finish than he. He is generally meditative, always in earnest, often sad. He has never been guilty of literary larceny; has never violated the exact rules of exquisite taste; has never published a mediocre poem from his own pen, and although for many years connected with the daily press, he has never wantonly assailed a brother bard or any one else, but has invariably exhibited that Christian courtesy for which he is preeminently distinguished. As for his style, it is so accurate, so elegant, so in accordance with the "decora of composition" he has been regarded by some, as cold and conservative, and without genius-but such is not the case. It is true he has not the versatility of Willis, nor the fire of Whittier, nor the humor of Lowell, nor the eloquent radicalism of Pierpont; but he is not a whit behind them in his appreciation of nature, and far ahead of them in artistic skill, and unsurpassed by any American writer in descriptive power. He is not only a scholarly man of superb talents,

but a man of remarkable genius, whose writings will be as fresh as nature, centuries hence, when the writings of many of his cotemporaries, overestimated now, will be confined to the closet of the antiquarian. He was a precocious child; when but thirteen years of age he wrote a poem, from which I copy the following lines:

1

"Oh, might some patriot rise, the gloom dispel,
Chase Error's mist, and break the magic spell!
But vain the wish, for hark the murmuring meed
Of hoarse applause from yonder shed proceed.
Enter and view the thronging concourse there,
Intent with gaping mouth and stupid stare,
While in their midst their supple leader stands,
Harangues aloud and flourishes his hands."

The "Waterfowl" is one of the most beautiful and perfect poems in the language.

66 Whither, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

"Vainly the fowler's eye,

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

"Seekest thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide;
Or, where the rocking billows rise and sink,
On the chafed ocean side?

"There is a power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,

The desert and illimitable air,

Lone, wandering, but not lost.

"All day thy wings have fann'd,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

"And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest,

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

"Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form, yet, on my heart

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

"He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright."

Edgar A. Poe, says that the poem entitled "Oh, Fairest of the Rural Maids," will strike every poet as the truest poem written by Bryant. It is richly ideal.

Here are a few passages which prove their author a man of lofty genius, and not a mere man of talent and erudition.

"Breezes of the south,

That toss the golden and the flame-like flowers."