Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tent,

His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
Where, as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue
That from the distance sparkle through
Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;
The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,
Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,

And I, secure in childish piety,

Listened as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he could bring

Fresh every day to my untainted ears

When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth nature seem,
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!

Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,

Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look

On all these living pages of God's book.

He could, too, write poems of patriotism in the dialect of the countryman, or in the classic idiom of the "Commemoration Ode." His Muse found inspiration in the

old-world lands, in the historical scenes or myths of long ago witness such poems as "Rhocus," "Columbus," "The Legend of Brittany," "The Vision of Sir Launfal," and "The Cathedral." Or he could voice the homely and domestic sorrows, as in "The Changeling," "A Requiem," "She Came and Went," and other favorites. Thinking of his work in all its range and variety, one feels that it is that of a writer with a genius for poetic expression, who might have done still more had he followed the Muse with absolute devotion, since she is a jealous mistress. Lowell never entirely mastered his material or the poetic medium; his rhythms are somewhat uncertain, he was careless as to polish, and some of his verse work could easily be bettered technically. He always felt that with fewer distractions he might have rendered a more perfect service to song. It is with this in mind that the lover of American poetry almost begrudges Lowell his brilliant accomplishments in other fields, since they took him from his poetry. But as it is, whatever the inequality of his verse, it has the earmarks of a truly called poet. His gift for expression at its best, for the idiomatic mastery of English speech emotionally surcharged by the imagination, was more original than that of Longfellow or Whittier ; there was more passion and power in his work. Longfellow and Lowell were the closest of friends in life; one was gentle, sweet, and urbane, the other impetuous, eager, and strong; the contrast in character, which perhaps drew them together, may be seen in their poetic work as well.

I have already referred to Lowell as our greatest critic. No man has given us literary criticism of such authority, distinction, and charm, so revelatory of a first-class, origi

nal mind, perfectly at home alike in its medium of language and in its chosen theme. The scholar is there, the traveler in the literature of all lands and times, but quite as much the man, the American, the lover of garden growths, and of New England's human oddities. Look at a typical volume like "My Study Windows," and notice how Lowell writes, now of Chaucer or Dryden, now of "My Garden Acquaintances," or "A Good Word for Winter." To the very last, he made whatever topic he touched vital with his own rich personality; in the posthumous work on Elizabethan dramatists he fairly bubbles over on every page with the most delightful humor, and deals with a subject likely to be dull enough in most keepings, with a startlingly unconventional felicity, that at the same time never transcends good taste, and is freighted with more than the wisdom of the schools. In the famous paper "On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners," the legitimate indignation of the American who resents the unfair treatment of those beyond our borders, has never been vented with such wit, satire, and eloquence; the satire is all the keener because of the fun of it and the perfect temper. It is critical of our defects, too, while apparently bent solely upon criticizing the foreigners. It has a flavor of the soil, a native smack which makes it relishable forever, an undying piece of American literature. And so with other essays not a few. And in the addresses and political deliverances, like the fine paper on Democracy, one is aware of a powerful mind at work upon large things, at once masculine and happy in its manner of presentation. As a critic, Lowell uses the more old-fashioned method of leisurely discursive handling of his subject, egoistic, desultory, and delightful, instead of coldly objective and scien

tific, according to the laboratory method of latter-day criticism. But the subjective method, the free giving of personality, when that personality is a Lowell or Holmes, a Charles Lamb or Stevenson, a Howells or Jules Lemaître, will always be loved by readers, and in the highest degree stimulative. When Lowell tells us about Pope or Dante or Marlowe, we know we are getting a first-hand impression, not the application of an impersonal rule; it is better to show a liking in a fascinating way than to exhibit no end of skill in waving an infallible metewand over literary products.

James Russell Lowell then, being a great personality, became the most distinctive critic the United States has yet produced, and an essayist of the rank which brings him into favorable comparison with the best in other lands. His reputation since his death has solidified. He is not likely to lose with the coming years. His part was an important one in those days when the Republic was shaken to its foundations, and reshaped to better things. In that remarkable circle of New England thinkers, scholars, and men of letters, he makes the impression as does no other of astonishingly diverse gifts and powers, and stands forth in his day and generation as America's most finished citizen and man of letters.

CHAPTER XII

WHITMAN

THE most unconventional personality in American literature is Walt Whitman, the good gray poet of Camden town. In many ways he is unique both as man and writer. The very fact that he is universally addressed as Walt (rather than as Walter, his full Christian name), is symbolic of the comradery suggested by his life and work, and carried out in his appearance: the slouch hat, the flannel shirt open at the neck, and general swagger of the man of the road, and spokesman for the Commonalty. His career, picturesque in itself, exhibits strange contrasts; for he has been in his time at once a literary cult, and the most despised and rejected of all makers of American literature; regarded by many as a fraud or a freak, yet hailed by those in authority both here and abroad as the master of a new message, the apostle of the creed of the commonplace, and still looked up to by a lusty band of disciples led by John Burroughs, as a literary god and a great original force in modern American life.

Any estimate of Whitman is upon a less solid basis than that of the leaders already studied; there is more room for difference of opinion. No one in his senses can question the place of Poe or Hawthorne or Emerson. But in the case of Whitman, his art or lack of art-offers fair prey for literary societies to discuss, pro and con, and his