the night of Papal darkness; the dawn of the Reformation; and the early barbarism of the New World, contrasted with its present aspect. These, however, are glanced at in Mr. Bryant's sketch of "The Ages;" and in some passages, we think, with equal felicity and boldness. The following is a fine apostrophe to the continually renewed youth and freshness of nature, in those outward and visible forms which in successive ages seem "though ever changing, still the same."

Has Nature, in her calm majestic march,

Falter'd with age at last? Does the bright sun
Grow dim in heaven? Or, in their far blue arch,
Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done,
Less brightly? When the dew-lipp'd spring comes on,
Breathes she with airs less soft, or scents the sky
With flowers less fair than when her reign begun?
Does prodigal Autumn, to our age, deny

The plenty that once swell'd beneath his sober eye?
Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth
In her fair page; see, every season brings
New change to her, of everlasting youth;

Still the green soil, with joyous living things
Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings,
And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep
Of Ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings

The restless surge. Eternal love doth keep
In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep.
Will then the merciful One, who stamp'd our race
With his own image, and who gave them sway
O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face,
Now that our flourishing nations far away

Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day,
Forget the ancient care that taught and nurs'd
His latest offspring? Will he quench the ray
Infus'd by his own forming smile at first,

And leave a work so fair all blighted and accurs'd?

O no! a thousand cheerful omens give

Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh;
He, who has tamed the elements, shall not live
The slave of his own passions; he whose eye
Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky,

And in the abyss of brightness dares to span
The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high,

In God's magnificent works his will shall scan;

And love and peace shall make their paradise with man.

The Grecian and Roman empires are thus briefly and spiritedly

adverted

adverted to; and the corruptions of the Romish church touched upon with equal skill.

O Greece! thy flourishing cities were a spoil
Unto each other; thy hard hand oppress'd
And crush'd the helpless; thou didst make thy soil
Drunk with the blood of those that lov'd thee best;
And thou didst drive, from thy unnatural breast,
Thy just and brave to die in distant climes ;
Earth shuddered at thy deeds, and sigh'd for rest
From thine abominations; aftertimes

That yet shall read thy tale, will tremble at thy crimes.

Yet there was that within thee which has sav'd

Thy glory, and redeem'd thy blotted name;
The story of thy better deeds, engrav'd

On fame's unmouldering pillar, puts to shame

Our chiller virtue; the high art to tame

The whirlwind of the passions was thine own;

And the pure ray, that from thy bosom came,

Far over many a land and age has shone,

And mingles with the light that beams from God's own throne.

And Rome, thy sterner, younger sister, she

Who awed the world with her imperial frown,

Drew the deep spirit of her race from thee,
The rival of thy shame and thy renown.
Yet her degenerate children sold the crown

Of earth's wide kingdoms to a line of slaves;

Guilt reign'd, and woe with guilt, and plagues came down,
Till the north broke its flood-gates, and the waves

Whelm'd the degraded race, and welter'd o'er their graves.

Vainly that ray of brightness from above,

That shone around the Galilean lake,
The light of hope, the leading star of love,
Struggled, the darkness of that day to break;
Even its own faithless guardians strove to slake,
In fogs of earth, the pure immortal flame;
And priestly hands, for Jesus' blessed sake,
Were red with blood, and charity became
In that stern war of forms, a mockery and a name.
They triumph'd, and less bloody rites were kept
Within the quiet of the convent cell;
The well-fed inmates patter'd prayer, and slept,

And sinn'd, and liked their easy penance well.
Where pleasant was the spot for men to dwell,
Amid its fair broad lands the Abbey lay,
Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell;

And cowl'd and barefoot beggars swarm'd the way,
All in their convent weeds, of black, and white, and grey,

The triumphs of the Reformation are thus vigorously and compendiously celebrated.

At last the earthquake came-the shock, that hurl'd
To earth, in many fragments dash'd and strown,
That throne, whose roots were in another world,
And whose far stretching shadow aw'd our own.
From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown,
Fear-struck, the hooded inmates rush'd and fled;
The web, that for a thousand years had grown
O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread,
Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread.

The Spirit of that day is still awake,

And spreads himself, and shall not sleep again;
But through the idle mesh of power shall break,
Like billows o'er the Asian monarch's chain,
Till men are fill'd with him, and feel how vain,
Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands,
Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain
The smile of heaven;-till a new age expands

Its white and holy wings, above the peaceful lands.

We must, however unconscionable our extracts may appear, make room for three stanzas more, delineating what America

was.

Late, from this western shore, that morning chas'd
The deep and ancient night, that threw its shroud,
O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste,
Nurse of full streams, and lifter up of proud
Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud.
Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness rear,
Trees wav'd, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud
Amid the forest; and the bounding deer

Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yell'd near.

And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay
Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim,

And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay

Young group of grassy islands born of him,

And, crowding nigh, or in the distance dim,

Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring

The commerce of the world;-with tawny limb
And belt and beads in sun-light glistening,

The Savage urg'd his skiff like wild bird on the wing.

Then all this youthful paradise around,

And all the broad and boundless mainland, lay
Cool'd by the interminable wood, that frown'd

O'er mound and vale, where never summer ray

Glanced,

Glanced, till the strong tornado broke his way
Through the grey giants of the sylvan wild;
Yet many a shelter'd glade, with blossoms gay,
Beneath the showery sky and sunshine mild,

Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest smil'd.

The following delightful little piece, in metre and sentiment, is alike creditable to its author's taste and feeling.

TO A WATER-FOWL.

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.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or maze of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chaf'd 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 shelter'd nest.

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallow'd 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.

We had marked several more extracts for quotation from Mr. Bryant; but our limits compel us to refer to the volume itself. On one piece we believe we must offer a comment or two; as the editor has challenged for it a degree of admiration, not merely for its

poetical

poetical excellence, but for its "pure and high philosophy," which we cannot conscientiously assent to. As a piece of splendid diction, of magnificent imagery, and sonorous declamation, we are willing to allow the Thanatopsis all due merit; but, we candidly confess, its philosophy, however pure and high, has been sadly thrown away upon us. But, in spite of our declared intention of giving no more extracts, we believe we must let it speak for itself, more especially as we believe we have not yet given a specimen of American blank verse, and this we think is a very fine one.

THANATOPSIS.

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 gentle 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 nourish'd thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolv'd to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrend'ring up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix for ever with the elements,

To be a brother to th' 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 could'st 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-ribb'd