Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults, These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride Report not. No fantastic carvings show The boast of our vain race to change the form Of thy fair works. But Thou art here— Thou fill'st 41 The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds That run along the summit of these trees In music; Thou art in the cooler breath That from the inmost darkness of the place Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground, The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with Thee. Here is continual worship; - Nature, here, In the tranquillity that Thou dost love, Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, From perch to perch, the solitary bird Passes; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs, Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots 50 Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale Are here to speak of Thee. This mighty oak By whose immovable stem I stand and seem Almost annihilated - - not a prince, In all that proud old world beyond the deep, E'er wore his crown as loftily as he Wears the green coronal of leaves with which 60 Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower, With scented breath and look so like a smile, Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, My heart is awed within me when I 70 Of the great miracle that still goes on, From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. 1 These are lines of whose great rhythmical beauty it is scarcely possible to speak too highly.' (POE.) 2 Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one which he entitles June.' The rhythmical flow, here, is even voluptuous -nothing could be more melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the soul while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty. (POE.) AY, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath! When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a good old age released from care, Journeying, in long serenity, away. In such a bright, late quiet, would that I 3 Bryant died in the month of June (1878), and was buried in the beautiful village cemetery at Roslyn, Long Island. bare and birds are flown, Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 1 Compare with this poem Wordsworth's 'To the Small Celandine,' and others. Notice that Bryant addresses his verses to a distinctively American flower; as later he chooses an American bird, the bobolink, for the subject of a poem which is to be contrasted with Wordsworth's To the Skylark, To the Green Linnet,' etc. Bryant gives the reason for this choice in a letter to his brother John, February 19, 1832: I saw some lines by you to the skylark. Did you ever see such a bird? Let me counsel you to draw your images, in describing Nature, from what you observe around you, unless you are professedly composing a description of some foreign country, when, of course, you will learn what you can from books. The skylark is an English bird, and an American who has never visited Europe has no right to be in raptures about it.' |