2. All dim in haze the mountains lay,
With dimmer vales between;

And rivers glimmered on their way,
By forests faintly seen;

While ever rose a murmuring sound,
From brooks below and bees around.

3. He listened, till he seemed to hear
A strain, so soft and low
That whether in the mind or ear
The listener scarce might know;
With such a tone, so sweet, so mild,
The watching mother lulls her child.

4. "Thou weary huntsman," thus it said,
"Thou faint with toil and heat,

The pleasant land of rest is spread
Before thy very feet,

And those whom thou wouldst gladly see
Are waiting there to welcome thee."

5. He looked, and 'twixt the earth and sky Amid the noontide haze,

A shadowy region met his eye,
And grew beneath his gaze,

As if the vapors of the air

Had gathered into shapes so fair.

6. Groves freshened as he looked, and flowers Showed bright on rocky bank,

And fountains welled beneath the bowers, Where deer and pheasant drank.

He saw the glittering streams; he heard
The rustling bough and twittering bird.

7. And friends, the dead, in boyhood dear,
There lived and walked again;
And there was one who many a year
Within her grave had lain,

A fair young girl, the hamlet's pride-
His heart was breaking when she died.

8. Bounding, as was her wont,' she came
Right toward his resting place,

And stretched her hand and called his name,
With that sweet smiling face.
Forward with fixed and eager eyes,

The hunter leaned in act to rise:

9. Forward he leaned and headlong down
Plunged from that craggy wall;

He saw the rocks, steep, stern, and brown,
An instant, in his fall—

A frightful instant, and no mōre;

The dream and life at once were ō'er.

BRYANT.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, on the 3d day of November, 1794. He gave indications of superior genius at a very early age; and fortunately received the most careful and judicious instruction from his father, a learned and eminent physician. At ten years of age, he made very creditable translations from some of the Latin poets, which were printed in a newspaper at Northampton. At thirteen, he wrote "The Embargo," a political satire, which was never surpassed by any poet of that age. Bryant entered an advanced class of Williams College in the sixteenth year of his age, in which he soon became distinguished for his attainments generally, and especially for his proficiency in classical learning. He was admitted to the bar in 1815, and commenced the practice of his profession in the village of Great Barrington, where he was soon after married. He wrote "Thanatopsis" when but little more than eighteen years of age. In 1821 he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College his longest poem, "The Ages," which is in the stanza of Spencer, and in its versification is not inferior to "The Faerie Queene." "To a Waterfowl," "Inscription for an Entrance to a Wood," and several other pieces of nearly equal merit, were likewise written during his residence at Great Barrington. After passing ten years in successful practice in the courts, he determined. to abandon the uncongenial business of a lawyer, and devote his attention more exclusively to literature. With this view, he removed to the city of New York in 1825, and, with a friend, established "The New York Review and Athenæum Magazine," in which he published several of his finest poems. In 1826 he assumed the chief direction of the "Evening Post," one of the best gazettes in this country, with which he has ever since been connected. A splendid edition of his complete poetical works was published in 1846. His last volume entitled "Thirty Poems," appeared in 1864; and his "Translation of Homer's Iliad," probably the best English version, in 1870. He is a favorite with men of every variety of tastes. He has passages of profound reflection for the philosopher, and others of such simple beauty as to please the most illiterate. He has few equals in grace and power of expression. Every line has compactness, precision, and elegance, and flows with its fellows in exquisite harmony. Mr. Bryant is the poet of nature. He places before us, in pictures warmly colored by the hues of the imagination, the old and shadowy forests, the sea-like prairies, the lakes, rivers, and mountains of our own country. To the thoughtful critic every thing in his verse belongs to America, and is as different from what marks the poetry of England as it is from that which most distinguishes the poetry of France or Germany.

1 Wont (wunt), custom; habit; use.

II.

9. THE LOST HUNTER.

UMBED by the piercing, freezing air,
And burdened by his game,

NUMB

The hunter, struggling with despair,
Dragged on his shivering frame;
The rifle he had shouldered late
Was trailed ǎlong, a weary weight;
His pouch was void of food;

The hours were speeding in their flight,
And soon the long, keen, winter night
Would wrap the solitude.

2. Oft did he stoop a listening ear,
Sweep round an anxious eye-
No bark or ax-blow could he hear,
No human trace descry.

His sinuous' path,' by blazes,' wound
Among trunks grouped in myriads round;
Through naked boughs, between
Whose tangled architecture, fraught
With many a shape grotesquely wrought,
The hemlock's spire was seen.

3. An antlered dweller of the wild

Had met his eager gaze,

And far his wandering steps beguiled

Within an unknown maze;

Stream, rock, and run-way he had crossed,
Unheeding, till the marks were lost

By which he used to roam;

And now deep swamp and wild ravine*
And rugged mountain were between
The hunter and his home.

1 Sin' u oŭs, bending in and out; winding; crookèd.

2 Path (påth).

3 Blāz' eś, spots made on trees by chipping off pieces of bark, to mark roads or division lines.

* Grotesquely (grō těsk' li), in manner grotto-like, or wildly formed.

а

5 Ravine (rā vēn'), a deep and narrow hollow, usually worn by a stream or torrent of water.