revival which brought into use the romance-words of Chaucer, Spenser, and the Elizabethan age. It was derived from the poorest, if the smoothest English period-that which began with Pope and ended with Cowper. The rich advantage of a modern equipment is visible in Tennyson, who had Keats and Shelly for his predecessors; not to consider Swinburne, who, above his supernatural gifts of rhythm and language, owes much to youthful explorations in classic and Continental tongues. No doubt Bryant's models confirmed his natural restrictions of speech. But even this narrow verbal range has made his poetry strong and pure; and now, when expression has been carried to its extreme, it is an occasional relief to recur to the clearness, to the exact appreciation of words, discoverable in every portion of his verse and prose. It is like a return from a florid renaissance to the antique; and indeed there was something Doric in Bryant's nature. XIX Edward Everett said of him, The beautiful, pathetic, and sublime, are always simple and natural, and marked by a certain serene unconsciousness of effort. This is the character of Mr. Bryant's poetry. Prof. Wilson wrote, The chief charm of Bryant's genius consists in tender pensiveness and moral melancholy breathing The Man Greater than his Work 319 through all his contemplations, dreams, and reveries, even such as in the main are glad, and giving assurance of a pure spirit, benevolent to all human creatures, and habitually pious in the felt omnipresence of the creator. His poetry overflows with natural religion-with what Wordsworth calls the religion of the woods". XX Unquestionably the man was greater than his work. For the celebration of his 70th birthday Whittier wrote: We praise not now the poet's art, The rounded beauty of his song; Who weighs him from his life apart His was a noble, self-contained, calm, virtuous life. In his habits he was a Spartan. To the end of his life he rose early in the morning, exercised with dumb bells, pole, and horizontal bar for an hour or more before breakfast, adhering to a spare diet, and walking rain or shine to and from his office, three miles away'. His fine face was the delight of painters and sculptors. At his funeral his poem "June" was recited. JUNE I gazed upon the glorious sky 'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, A cell within the frozen mould, While fierce the tempests beat- And be the damp mould gently pressed Into my narrow place of rest. 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. "June" And what if cheerful shouts at noon I would the lovely scene around I know that I no more should see Nor would its brightness shine for me, But if, around my place of sleep, Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom These to their softened hearts should bear Whose part, in all the pomp that fills Is that his grave is green; And deeply would their hearts rejoice 321 REFERENCES 1 R. H. Stoddard, introduction to Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant, Household Edition. New York, 1897. 2 R. H. Stoddard, in Appleton's Journal, vi. 477. 3 A Biography of William Cullen Bryant. With Extracts from his Correspondence. By Parke Godwin. 2 vols. New York, 1897. 4 Poems of William Cullen Bryant. zine, xi. 686. Blackwood's Maga 6 Death of William Cullen Bryant. Edmund Clarence Stedman, Atlantic Monthly, xlii. 747. 7 Supplement to Encyclopaedia Brittanica, ii. 19. 8 Poets of America. Edmund Clarence Stedman. New York, 1897. 9 William Cullen Bryant, M. A. DeWolfe Howe, in The Bookman for April, 1897. 10 Bryant's Permanent Contribution to Literature, Henry D. Sedgwick, Jr., in The Atlantic Monthly for April, 1897. |