not possess the resources of versatility, of wit, or of those attractive artifices of polished style, to the fascination of which many are sensible who disregard the more intrinsic germ of poetical excellence. But if the popularity of Mr. Bryant will not be extensive, it will, in its contracted sphere, be of a kind which is eminently creditable. He will have pampered no evil passionhe will have distorted no moral truth-he will have penned (as we conceive)" no line which dying he would wish to blot.”—He will have addressed himself with unambitious simplicity, and modest knowledge of his own powers, to the pure of heart, and will have earned, not perhaps a loud applause, but a just and heartfelt approbation. He will not be the founder of a stylehis manner is not sufficiently marked-nor has he those glaring peculiarities which will ensure his being either vehemently censured or vehemently applauded by any literary sect.

The turn of his mind is contemplative and pensive, disposed to serious themes, such as are associated with solemnity and awe. He is a Jaques without his moroseness. The mutability, the uncertainty of all around us, and even Death itself, are to him welcome themes. Yet he is not a gloomy poet. There is nothing misanthropic, nothing discontented, nothing desponding in his tone. On the contrary, there is in it a calm and philosophic spirit, which disposes rather to tranquil cheerfulness; and he treats subjects which in other hands might be food for melancholy, in the happy consciousness of being able to extract from them that germ of comfort which, if rightly considered, they are calculated to afford. We recommend to notice the short poem entitled "The Lapse of Time," not so much for its poetical merits, as for an example of that true philosophy which discovers the materials of happiness in circumstances on which many a dismal poetaster has strung only notes of the deepest anguish. More strongly still, for the same reason, do we commend a poem with a startling title, his "Hymn to Death;" a poem of no mean power, yet a power not shown in terrific exaggeration or heated enthusiasm, but in its philosophical calmness, its justness of thought, and, strange as it may seem, its cheerfulness. It is too long to be quoted entire, and we know not how to select any portion in preference to the rest. We will rather quote another poem called "Thanatopsis," similar in tone and subject, and little inferior in poetical merit.

"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 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 for ever 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 heaven,
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, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregan, 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 shalt fall
Unheeded by 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 favourite 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,
And the sweet 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 unfaultering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."-pp. 19-22.

There is much quiet beauty, much merit, both of a descriptive and moral kind-much justness and purity of thought and expression-much unforced felicity of association in the following little poem entitled "The Rivulet."

"This little rill, that from the springs
Of yonder grove its current brings,
Plays on the slope awhile, and then
Goes prattling into groves again,
Oft to its warbling waters drew
My little feet, when life was new.
When woods in early green were drest,
And from the chambers of the west
The warmer breezes, travelling out,
Breathed the new scent of flowers about,
My truant steps from home would stray,
Upon its grassy side to play,

List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn,
And crop the violet on its brim,
With blooming cheek and open brow,

As

young and gay, sweet rill, as thou.

And when the days of boyhood came, And I had grown in love with fame, Duly I sought thy banks, and tried My first rude numbers by thy side. Words cannot tell how bright and gay The scenes of life before me lay. Then glorious hopes, that now to speak Would bring the blood into my cheek, Passed o'er me; and I wrote on high A name I deemed should never die. Years change thee not. Upon yon hill The tall old maples, verdant still, Yet tell, in grandeur of decay, How swift the years have passed away, Since first, a child, and half afraid, I wandered in the forest shade. Thou, ever joyous rivulet, Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet; And sporting with the sands that pave The windings of thy silver wave, And dancing to thy own wild chime, Thou laughest at the lapse of time. The same sweet sounds are in my ear My early childhood loved to hear; As pure thy limpid waters run, As bright they sparkle to the sun : As fresh and thick the bending ranks Of herbs that line thy oozy banks; The violet there, in soft May dew, Comes up, as modest and as blue; As green, amid thy current's stress, Floats the scarce-rooted water cress; And the brown ground-bird in thy glen Still chirps as merrily as then.

Thou changest not-but I am changed, Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged; And the grave stranger, come to see The play-place of his infancy, Has scarce a single trace of him Who sported once upon thy brim. The visions of my youth are passedToo bright, too beautiful to last. I've tried the world—it wears no more The colouring of romance it wore. Yet well has Nature kept the truth She promised to my earliest youth; The radiant beauty shed abroad On all the glorious works of God, Shews freshly to my sobered eye Each charm it wore in days gone by.

A few brief years shall pass away,
And I all trembling, weak, and gray,
Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold
My ashes in the embracing mould,
(If haply the dark will of fate
Indulge my life so long a date,)
May come for the last time to look
Upon my childhood's favourite brook.
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam
The sparkle of thy dancing stream,
And faintly on my ear shall fall
Thy prattling current's merry call;
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright
As when thou metst my infant sight.

And I shall sleep-and on thy side,
As ages after ages glide,

Children their early sports shall try,
And pass to hoary age and die.

But thou, unchanged from year to year,
Gaily shalt play and glitter here;
Amid young flowers and tender grass
Thy endless infancy shall pass;

And, singing down thy narrow glen,
Shall mock the fading race of men.'

pp. 35—38.

The following is in a similar spirit, and will illustrate the assertion, that though he delights in solemn themes there is no gloom in this writer's mind.

"I gazed upon the glorious sky

And the green mountains round,
And thought, that when I came to lie
Within the silent ground,

"Twere pleasant, that in flowery June,
When brooks sent up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,

The rich, green, mountain-turf should break."-p. 151.

There, through the long, long summer hours,

The golden light should lie,

And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.

The oriole should build and tell

His love-tale close beside my cell;

The idle butterfly

Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife bee and humming bird.