GEMS OF POETRY,

FROM

FORTY-EIGHT

AMERICAN POETS.

EMBRACING

THE MOST POPULAR AUTHORS.

WITH PORTRAITS.

HARTFORD:

S. ANDRUS AND SON.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, by

OTIS, BROADERS, AND COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts

PS 586 G5

PREFACE.

THIS little volume is confidently offered to the public, as a suitable companion for the adult or the juvenile class of readers, and with the confident hope that the beautiful productions, of which it is composed, will be duly appreciated by every admirer of polite literature. Our poetry is, as yet, almost entirely lyric in its character. Barlow's Columbiad is an exception; but that work, though not contemptible, is deficient in all the properties of a great poem. No one, in these days, would think of quoting it as a production honorable to our infant literature. The lumbering epic of Dr. Dwight, though marked with passages of beauty, is yet little better than dull prose, measured off into indifferent pentameters. An obruit oblivio is already its doom. There have been other long-winded attempts in verse, claiming the title of epics, which it is now the part of humanity to forget. Our poetical history cannot be traced back, with much credit tc ourselves, beyond the last war. Since that period few of our poets have attempted to soar beyond the lyric in their efforts.

The "Bucaneer" of Dana, and the "Curiosity' of Sprague, are works which will be honorably remembered while American literature survives. Hal1*

leck's "Alnwick Castle" is decidedly one of the most spirited poems of the kind in the language. But our most promising poets- - those who have given the most unequivocal proofs that they possess "the vision and the faculty divine -seem to have contented themselves with one or two exhibitions of their strength, and to have quitted the arena after showing of what they are capable; they seem to think it "excellent to have a giant's strength," but manifest no disposition to "use it like a giant.”

The fact is, that the causes of our deliciency in works of poetry, as well as in other departments of literature, are to be looked for, not in any imaginary want of the outward elements of inspiration, or of the inward sympathies that feel and appreciate them, and the genius which gives to them expression, but in the circumstances by which we are surrounded, and under which we grow up, and in the general necessity by which we are impelled to action. So many opportunities of honorable enterprise are presented to our young men, and such are the diverting prospects held out to them, that they often lose, in the excitement of politics or the bustle of trade, those poetic aspirations, which they may at one time have cherished. In this new country, where the most-lavish resources of nature and of art are daily being developed,

"All is in busy, stirring, stormy motion,

And many a cloud drifts by, but none sojourns."

We have no time to" strictly meditate the thankless muse." A new railroad may interfere with the

progress of a new poem, and the turmoil of an election may not chime with the melody of verse. A good poet in this country often subsides into a secondrate politician; or he may turn his attention from the speculations of fancy to speculations in stocks. One of our most enchanting bards is in the "cotton trade and sugar line;" another is a cashier in a bank; and another (proh pudor !) is a partisan editor.

It would be absurd to deny that all the sources of inspiration, and all the external influences which can operate upon a poet, abound in unlimited exuberance in this country. Nature has been most lavish of her wonders. Our ancient and magnificent forests, in one of which, to borrow an idea from John Neal, a whole nation of Europe might lose itself — our inland oceans, where fleets might wander, and have wandered, for weeks without coming in sight of each other our mountains bristling with dark woods — our stupendous cataracts—our immense prairies rolling their waves of verdure as the sea rolls its billows, and bounded, like the sea, on all sides by a level horizonour princely and abounding rivers-our line of seacoast, indented with noble bays, sublime in storm and beautiful in calm-all these natural characteristics cannot be regarded as deficient in the elements of the loftiest poetry.

The collection of poems here offered to the public has no higher pretension than that of being simply a specimen of the lyrical poetry of our country. Many such volumes would not contain half of the American productions in verse, which are worthy of being embraced in such a collection.