66 Thanatopsis," a Forest Hymn " may be read in further illustration of this phase of his work; it contains lines often to be met with in quotation. "The Flood of Years" also belongs to this class and is one of the most admired of his longer pieces. They display Bryant's tendency to large, grandiose effects, treating them with a kind of Olympian sweep which is in consonance with the mighty things he hymns. Yet his triumphs, on the whole, are to be found in the simpler and shorter lyrics. He is essentially a reflective lyric poet; his was not the dramatic power of scene-painting and situation nor the constructive gift for narrative. Very early he found his métier and wisely he kept to it. Love-the more passionate love between the sexes does not enter his song to give it a warmer color, a vernal glamour and thrill. When, as occasionally happens, he essays the patriotic, he produces in a poem like "America," something that is adequate and dignified but not compelling. The leap and fervor which Whittier or Lowell would have given us are absent. "The Battlefield" is far finer (the ninth stanza, often reproduced, is notable) and may be read as a favorable example of this mood of his Muse. It will be well, perhaps, in leaving Bryant, to have lingering in our ears for musical and happy memory, such a lyric as "Robert of Lincoln": ROBERT OF LINCOLN Merrily swinging on brier and weed, Over the mountain-side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Snug and safe is that nest of ours, Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, Wearing a bright black wedding coat; Spink, spank, spink; Look, what a nice new coat is mine, Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, Passing at home a patient life, Broods in the grass while her husband sings: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Brood, kind creature; you need not fear Thieves and robbers while I am here. Chee, chee, chee. Modest and shy as a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note. Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Never was I afraid of man; Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can. Chee, chee, chee. Six white eggs on a bed of hay, Flecked with purple, a pretty sight! There as the mother sits all day, Robert is singing with all his might: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Nice good wife, that never goes out, Soon as the little ones chip the shell Spink, spank, spink; This new life is likely to be Hard for a gay young fellow like me. Robert of Lincoln at length is made Sober with work, and silent with care; Off is his holiday garment laid, Half forgotten that merry air, Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Nobody knows but my mate and I Where our nest and our nestlings lie. Summer wanes; the children are grown; Fun and frolic no more he knows; Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone; Off he flies, and we sing as he goes: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; When you can pipe that merry old strain, Robert of Lincoln, come back again. Chee, chee, chee. William Cullen Bryant is justly called the Patriarch American Poetry. He is in time the first of our major poets. His "Thanatopsis," written when Poe was an infant, was the first fruit of the rich harvesting of the nineteenth century. In quality and kind he is the American. Wordsworth, though by no means the peer of the great English singer of nature. He sits apart, and, with a voice serene, calm, high, and of a silvery sweetness, still calls upon all Americans who are sensitive to the spiritual meaning in the external universe and who are willing to listen to wise meditations upon life and death and the Great Beyond. He is a poet more likely to please, to console, and to uplift the mature who have lived and suffered and gained depth through living, than the young who are carried away by passion and leaping music and the stormy felicities of new life. To be thus a consoler of the later years is a mission, and worthily does Bryant fulfill it. CHAPTER VIII LONGFELLOW ONE of the distinctions of Longfellow among the American poets is that, while he was a poet of culture a man of scholarly habits who had widely assimilated continental literature and often drew upon his culture for his themes -yet he was quite as truly a popular poet. His song went home to the general heart, his poems became a household possession. As more and more of critical attention has been directed to the American singers of an earlier generation, the estimate of Longfellow has come to be somewhat different from that which existed at the time of his death and which encouraged him during his life-work. Transatlantic criticism, where it does not deny to Poe and Emerson and Hawthorne the right to a place with the more permanent literary forces, inclines to relegate Longfellow to a less significant position. He is named as a pleasing poet without real or much originality and distinction. Some critics even go so far as to refer to him half contemptuously as a sort of sounding-board of foreign tones. At home, while his popularity is still firmly fixed, it cannot be denied that the critical regard of him has somewhat altered. I shall wish to show, however, in the following pages that there is ample reason for placing him with the major American poets. |