The study of such an author by the young must beget noble and virtuous sentiments, and tend to purify the fountains of American literature.

SECTION III.

(1.) RICHARD H. DANA, of Massachusetts, has written poems that are justly pronounced to be characterized by high religious purpose, simple sentiment, profound philosophy, pure and vigorous diction. The Bucaneer is his principal poem. The wretchedness of a depraved heart, the growth and operation of those harassing emotions which prey sometimes in the bosom of the guilty, are portrayed in vivid colors and with strong effect. The "Changes of Home" is of an opposite character. It is a poem of great beauty. Says an admirable critic, G. B. Cheever, "We are disposed to rank Mr. Dana at the head of all the American poets, not excepting Bryant; and we think this is the judgment which posterity will pass upon his writings. Not because he is superior to all others in the eloquence of his language, and in the polished beauty and finish of his compositions; in these respects, Bryant has, in this country, no equal; and Mr. Dana is often careless in the dress of his thoughts. It will be long ere any one breathes forth the soul of poetry in a finer strain than that to the Evening Wind,' and Coleridge himself could hardly have written a nobler Thanatopsis.' But Mr. Dana has attempted and proved successful in a higher and more difficult range of poetry. He exhibits loftier powers, and his compositions agitate the soul with a deeper emotion. His language, without being so beautiful and finished, is yet more vivid, concise, and alive, and informed with meaning. His descriptions of natural objects may not pass before the mind with such sweet harmony, but they often present, in a single line, a whole picture before the imagination, with a vividness and power of compression which are astonishing. For instance:

'But when the light winds lie at rest,

And on the glassy, heaving sea

The black duck, with her glossy breast,
Sits swinging silently."

And again :

The ship works hard; the seas run high
Their white tops, flashing through the night
Give to the eager, straining eye

A wild and shifting light.'

Again, as a more general instance, and a more sublime one; speaking of the prospect of immortality:

"Tis in the gentle moonlight;

"Tis floating mid day's setting glories; Night,
Wrapp'd in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears.
Night, and the dawn, bright day and thoughtful eve,

All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,

As one vast mystic instrument, are touch'd
By an unseen living hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.'

In these respects-in the power of giving in one word, as it were, a whole picture; in his admirable skill in the perspective, and in the faculty of chaining down the vast and the infinite to the mind's observation, he reminds us both of Collins and of Milton. But, above all, we admire Mr. Dana, more than any other American poet, because he has aimed not merely to please the imagination, but to rouse up the soul to a solemn consideration of its future destinies."

(2.) JAMES A. HILLHOUSE, of Boston, born 1789, died 1841. His best poem is "Hadad," a sacred drama, breathing the lofty thoughts and the majestic style of the ancient Hebrew prophets, to the study of which he was ardently devoted. "As a poet," says Griswold, "he possessed qualities seldom found united: a masculine strength of mind and a most delicate perception of the beautiful. The grand characteristic of his writings is their classical beauty. Every passage is polished to the utmost; yet there is no exuberance, no sacrifice to false taste."

His style may be seen in the following extract from his poem, "The Judgment:"

'Nearer the mount stood MOSES; in his hand

The rod which blasted with strange plagues the realm
Of Misraim, and from its time-worn channels

Upturn'd the Arabian sea. Fair was his broad,
High front, and forth from his soul-piercing eye

Did legislation look; which full he fix'd
Upon the blazing panoply, undazzled.
No terrors had the scene for him, who oft,
Upon the thunder-shaken hill-top, veil'd

With smoke and lightnings, with Jehovah talk'd,
And from his fiery hand received the law.
Beyond the Jewish ruler, banded close, I saw
The twelve apostles stand. O, with what looks
Of ravishment and joy, what rapturous tears,
What hearts of ecstasy, they gazed again
On their beloved Master! What a tide

Of overwhelming thoughts press'd to their souls,
When now, as He so frequent promised, throned,
And circled by the hosts of heaven, they traced
The well-known lineaments of Him who shared
Their wants and sufferings here! Full many a day
Of fasting spent with Him, and night of prayer,
Rush'd on their swelling hearts.

Turn now,

where stood the spotless Virgin: sweet
Her azure eye, and fair her golden ringlets;
But changeful as the hues of infancy

Her face. As on her son, her GoD, she gazed,
Fix'd was her look-earnest and breathless; now
Suffused her glowing cheek; now, changed to pale;
First, round her lip a smile celestial play'd,

Then, fast, fast rain'd the tears. Who can interpret?
Perhaps some thought maternal cross'd her heart,
That mused on days long past, when on her breast
He helpless lay, and of His infant smile;

Or on those nights of terror, when, from worse
Than wolves, she hasted with her babe to Egypt."

SECTION IV.

(1.) CHARLES SPRAGUE, of Boston, has displayed exquisite taste in some of his poems. Read the following account of a death and burial at sea.

"Return! alas! he shall return no more,

To bless his own sweet home, his own proud shore.
Look once again-cold in his cabin now,
Death's finger-mark is on his pallid brow;
No wife stood by, her patient watch to keep,
To smile on him, then turn away to weep;
Kind woman's place rough mariners supplied,
And shared the wanderer's blessing when he died.
Wrapp'd in the raiment that it long must wear,
His body to the deck they slowly bear;
Even there the spirit that I sing is true;
The crew look on with sad, but curious view;

The setting sun flings round his farewell rays;
O'er the broad ocean not a ripple plays.
How eloquent, how awful in its power,
The silent lecture of death's sabbath hour!
One voice that silence breaks-the prayer is said,
And the last rite man pays to man is paid;
The plashing waters mark his resting-place,
And fold him round in one long, cold embrace;
Bright bubbles for a moment sparkle o'er,
Then break, to be, like him, beheld no more;
Down, countless fathoms down, he sinks to sleep,
With all the nameless shapes that haunt the deep."

None but a man of strong domestic and social affections could have written thus. Of these affections there may be seen delightful evidence in "The Brothers," and the " Family Meeting;" also in his " Centennial Ode," and " Lines to a Young Mother."

(2.) CARLOS WILCOX, of New-Hampshire, deserves honorable mention. G. B. Cheever, one of the best prose writers in this country, remarks that “Wilcox resembled Cowper in many respects; in the gentleness and tenderness of his sensibilities-in the modest and retiring disposition of his mind-in its fine culture and its original poetical cast, and not a little in the character of his poetry. It has been said with truth, that if he had given himself to poetry as his chief occupation, he might have been the Cowper of NewEngland.

SECTION V.

(1.) WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, of Massachusetts, born in 1794. At ten years of age he began to write poetry for the press. When fourteen years old he published a volume of poems, which was so well received as to attain a second edition in the following year. The North American Review furnishes what seems to be a just criticism upon Bryant as a poet, a part of which is here subjoined. "His poetry has truth, delicacy, and correctness, as well as uncommon vigor and richness; he is always faithful to nature; he selects his groups and images with judgment. Nothing is borrowed, nothing artificial; his pictures have

an air of freshness and originality which could come from the student of nature alone. He is less the poet of artificial life than of nature and the feelings. There is something for the heart as well as for the understanding and fancy, in all he writes; something which touches our sensibility, and awakens deep-toned, sacred reflections."

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Again, he charms us by his simplicity. His pictures are never overcharged. His strains, moreover, are exquisitely finished. Besides, no sentiment or expression ever drops from him which the most rigid moralist would wish to blot."

We

“Thanatopsis" has been already referred to. forbear to quote it, merely because it has been so often copied, and may, perhaps, be familiar. But we hesitate not to say that the language of poetry presents not a sweeter page than that which is occupied with Mr. Bryant's address to the "Evening Wind.”

TO THE EVENING WIND.

"SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,

Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray, And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee

To the scorch'd land, thou wanderer of the sea!"

"Nor I alone: a thousand bosoms round

Inhale thee in the fullness of delight;

And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
Lies the vast inland stretch'd beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth.”

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wide old wood from his majestic rest,
Summoning from the innumerable boughs

The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast;
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows

The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,

And 'twixt the o'ershadowing branches and the grass.*