I had not bound myself by any ties
To that blessed land; none saw me and none sought;
Nor any shunned, nor from me turned their eyes; And yet such sense of guilt my conscience wrought, It seemed that every bosom's inmost thought Was fixed on me;-when back as from their view I shrunk, and would have fled or shrunk to naught, As some I loved and many that I knew Passed on uumindful why or whither I withdrew.
Whereat of sad remembrances a flood
Rushed o'er my spirit, and my heart beat low As with the heavy gush of curdling blood :— Soon left behind, awhile I followed slow, Then stopped and round me looked, my fate to know,
But looked in vain;-no voice my doom to tell;No arm to hurl me down the depths of woe;It seemed that I was brought to heaven to dwell, That conscience might alone do all the work of hell.
Now came the thought, the bitter thought of years Wasted in musings sad and fancies wild, And in the visionary hopes and fears
Of the false feeling of a heart beguiled By nature's strange enchantment, strong and wild; Now, with celestial beauty blooming round,
I stood as on some naked waste exiled: From gathering hosts came music's swelling sound, But deeper in despair my sinking spirits drowned.
At length methought a darkness as of death
Came slowly o'er me, and with that I woke ; Yet knew not, in the first suspended breath, Where I could be, so real seemed the stroke That in my dream all earthly ties had broke; A moment more, and melting in a tide
Of grateful fervor, how did I invoke Power from the Highest to leave all beside, And live but to secure the bliss my dream denied!
The sultry summer past, September comes, Soft twilight of the slow-declining year;— All mildness, soothing loveliness, and peace : The fading season, ere the falling come, More sober than the buxom blooming May, And therefore less the favorite of the world, But dearest month of all to pensive minds!
'Tis now far spent; and the meridian sun,
Most sweetly smiling with attempered beams, Sheds gently down a mild and grateful warmth.- Beneath its yellow lustre, groves and woods, Checkered by one night's frost with various hues, While yet no wind has swept a leaf away, Shine doubly rich. It were a sad delight Down the smooth stream to glide, and see it tinged Upon each brink with all the gorgeous hues, The yellow, red, or purple of the trees, That, singly, or in tufts, or forests thick, Adorn the shores; to see, perhaps, the side Of some high mount reflected far below With its bright colors, intermixed with spots Of darker green. Yes, it were sweetly sad To wander in the open fields, and hear E'en at this hour, the noonday hardly past, The lulling insects of the summer's night; To hear, where lately buzzing swarms were heard, A lonely bee, long roving here and there To find a single flower, but all in vain; Then rising quick, and with a louder hum, In widening circles round and round his head, Straight by the listener flying clear away, As if to bid the fields a last adien:- To hear, within the woodland's sunny side, Late full of music, nothing, save, perhaps, The sound of nutshells, by the squirrel dropped From some tall beech, fast falling through the leaves.
Bryant (1794-1878), the first American poet of celebrity, was born at Cummington, Mass., November 3d. He began to write verse at the age of ten; and at thirteen wrote and published "The Embargo," a political satire, and a very remarkable one, under the circumstances. Educated at Williams College, he was admitted to the Bar in 1815, married young, and began the practice of the law at Great Barrington. His celebrated poem of "Thanatopsis" was written before he was twenty.
In 1825 Bryant removed to New York, and in 1826 connected himself with the New York Evening Post, his proprietary interest in which eventually became the source of an ample fortune. In 1834 he travelled in Europe, and in 1845 and 1849 repeated his visit. A collection of his poems was published in New York in 1832, and republished in London. Repeated editions of his collected works have appeared. In 1870 a fine edition of his masterly translation of Homer, in which he surpasses all predecessors, was published in Boston.
"Bryant's writings," says Washington Irving, "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."
But it is not only in his descriptions of nature that Bryant excels. In his "Antiquity of Freedom," "The Future Life," "The Battle-field," etc., he reaches a high ethical strain, and is, at the same time, the genuine poet in thought and diction. Few men of letters have, in the latter half of their lives, had so prosperous, so honored, and so eminently successful a career, extending beyond fourscore years of physical activity and intellectual robustness. In his domestic relations singularly fortunate, he was equally so in all his public experiences.
“Bryant,” says a German critic,“is thoroughly American in his poetry. A truly national method of thinking and judging pervades even those from among his productions which treat of non-American subjects." The remark is just, and is a sufficient reply to the superficial sarcasm, heedlessly thrown out by Lord Jeffrey, that Bryant is "but a dilution of Mrs. Hemans." We can recall no one verse of Bryant's to which this rash comment could apply. He and Mrs. Hemans were born the same year, and some of his best poems were written before she was known in America. "It is in the beautiful," says John Wilson of Blackwood's Magazine, "that the genius of Bryant finds its prime delight. He ensouls all dead, insensate things; *** and thus there is animation in the heart of the solitude."
Bryant's morality was not only psychical but physiological. He reverenced and fulfilled the laws of physical health. He took scrupulous care of himself. His senses were perfect at fourscore; his eyes needed no glasses; his hearing was exquisitely fine; he outwalked most men of middle age. Milk and cereals and fruit were his preferred diet. Regular in his habits, he retained his youth almost to the last, and his final illness was contracted in a too fearless out-of-door exposure. "His power of work," says Dr. Bellows," never abated; and the Herculean translation of Homer, which was the amusement of the last lustre of his life, showed not only no senility, but no decrease of intellectual or physical endurance.”
Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! One mellow smile through the soft vapory air, Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, And the blue gentian flower that in the breeze Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, And man delight to linger in the ray. Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.
THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.
Here are old trees, tall oaks, and gnarléd pines, That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet To linger here, among the flitting birds And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds That shake the leaves, and scatter as they pass A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set With pale blueberries. In these peaceful shades- Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old— My thoughts go up the long dim path of years, Back to the earliest days of liberty.
O FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream, A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, And wavy tresses gushing from the cap With which the Roman master crowned his slave When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, Armed to the teeth, art thou: one mailéd hand Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs
Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee; They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven.
Merciless Power has dug thy dungeon deep, And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, Have forged thy chain; yet while he deems thee
The links are shivered, and the prison walls Fall outward: terribly thou springest forth, As springs the flame above a burning pile, And shoutest to the nations, who return Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.
Thy birthright was not given by human hands: Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields, While yet our race was few, thou satest with him, To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, And teach the reed to utter simple airs. Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, His only foes; and thou with him didst draw The earliest furrows on the mountain side, Soft with the Deluge. Tyranny himself, Thy enemy, although of reverend look, Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye, The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.
Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years, But he shall fade into a feebler age; Feebler, yet subtler: he shall weave his snares, And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap His withered hands, and from their ambush call His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms, To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth, Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread,
That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh! not yet Mayst thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps, And thou must watch and combat, till the day Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou rest Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men, These old and friendly solitudes invite Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees Were young upon the unviolated earth, And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new, Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language: for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart- Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around-- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Comes a still voice:-Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again; And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements; To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thy eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone,-nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings, The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills, Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales, Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods; rivers, that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray 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 heayen, 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, pierce the Barcan wilderness, 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 withdraw In silence from 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 favorite 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, The speechless babe, and the gray-headed 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!
Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew Were on them yet; and silver waters break Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.
It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk The dew that lay upon the morning grass; There is no rustling in the lofty elm That canopies my dwelling, and its shade Scarce cools me. All is silent save the faint And interrupted murmur of the bee, Settling on the sick flowers, and then again Instantly on the wing. The plants around Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, With all their growth of woods, silent and stern, As if the scorching heat and dazzling light Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven,—— Their bases on the mountains, their white tops Shining in the far ether,-fire the air With a reflected radiance, and make turn The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind That still delays its coming. Why so slow, Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?
Oh come, and breathe upon the fainting earth Coolness and life! Is it that in his caves He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge, The pine is bending his proud top, and now, Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes! Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves! The deep, distressful silence of the scene Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds And universal motion. He is come, Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs, And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings Music of birds and rustling of young boughs, And sound of swaying branches, and the voice Of distant water-falls. All the green herbs Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers, By the roadside and the borders of the brook,
LINES ADDRESSED TO HIS WIFE.
How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps The disembodied spirits of the dead, When all of thee that time could wither, sleeps, And perishes among the dust we tread?
For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain,
If there I meet thy gentle presence not; Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.
Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given? My name on earth was ever in thy prayer; Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?
In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, And larger movements of the unfettered mind, Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? The love that lived through all the stormy past, And meekly with my harsher nature bore, And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?
A happier lot than mine, and larger light, Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will In cheerful homage to the rule of right, And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.
For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell, Shrink and consume the heart, as heat the scroll; And wrath has left its scar-that fire of hell Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.
Yet, though thou wearest the glory of the sky, Wilt thou not keep the same belovéd name? The same fair, thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in thisThe wisdom which is love,-till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?
MEETING OF HECTOR AND ACHILLES.
The following is a specimen of Bryant's translation of the "Iliad." The reader of Homer will remember that Hector first retreats before Achilles, but at length turns upon his pursuer, determined to meet his fate, whatever it may be.
He spake, and drew the keen-edged sword that hung,
Massive and finely tempered, at his side,
And sprang,- —as when an eagle high in heaven, Through the thick cloud, darts downward to the plain,
To clutch some tender lamb or timid hare. So Hector, brandishing that keen-edged sword, Sprang forward, while Achilles opposite Leaped toward him, all on fire with savage hate, And holding his bright buckler, nobly wrought, Before him. As in the still hours of night Hesper goes forth among the host of stars, The fairest light of heaven, so brightly shone, Brandished in the right hand of Peleus' son, The spear's keen blade, as, confident to slay The noble Hector, o'er his glorious form His quick eye ran, exploring where to plant The surest wound. The glittering mail of brass Won from the slain Patroclus guarded well Each part, save only where the collar-bones Divide the shoulder from the neck, and there Appeared the throat, the spot where life is most In peril. Through that part the noble son Of Peleus drave his spear; it went quite through The tender neck, and yet the brazen blade Cleft not the windpipe, and the power to speak Remained. *
And then the crested Hector faintly said, "I pray thee by thy life, and by thy knees, And by thy parents, suffer not the dogs To tear me at the galleys of the Greeks. Accept abundant store of brass and gold, Which gladly will my father and the queen, My mother, give in ransom. Send to them My body, that the warriors and the dames Of Troy may light for me the funeral pile."
The swift Achilles answered with a frown,-- "Nay, by my knees entreat me not, thou cur, Nor by my parents. I could even wish My fury prompted me to cut thy flesh In fragments, and devouz it, such the wrong That I have had from thee. There will be none To drive away the dogs about thy head, Not though thy Trojan friends should bring to me Tenfold and twenty-fold the offered gifts, And promise others,-not though Priam, sprung From Dardanus, should send thy weight in gold.
Thy mother shall not lay thee on thy bier, To sorrow over thee whom she brought forth; But dogs and birds of prey shall mangle thee." And then the crested Hector, dying, said,— "I know thee, and too clearly I foresaw
I should not move thee, for thou hast a heart Of iron. Yet reflect that for my sake The anger of the gods may fall on thee, When Paris and Apollo strike thee down, Strong as thou art, before the Scaan gates." Thus Hector spake, and straightway o'er him closed
The light of death; the soul forsook his limbs, And flew to Hades, grieving for its fate,- So soon divorced from youth and youthful might.
THE BATTLE-FIELD.
Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands, Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, And fiery hearts and arméd hands Encountered in the battle cloud.
Ah! never shall the land forget
How gushed the life-blood of her braveGushed, warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save.
Now all is calm, and fresh, and still, Alone the chirp of flitting bird, And talk of children on the hill,
And bell of wandering kine are heard.
No solemn host goes trailing by
The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain; Men start not at the battle-cry,
Oh, be it never heard again!
Soon rested those who fought; but thou Who minglest in the harder strife For truths which men receive not now, Thy warfare only ends with life.
A friendless warfare! lingering long Through weary day and weary year, A wild and many-weaponed throng Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.
Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, And blench not at thy chosen lot: The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown-yet faint thou not.
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