ings of self-reproach--repinings after misspent time and neglected talent, together with intimations of domestic griefs. We know not what it may all mean, but certain are we that there is an air of sad reality about it-it is no fantastic wo-none of the old fashion of melancholy that may be traced from the days of Ben Jonson's "Master Stephen" down to the times of Lord Byron. It is not possible to suspect Hartley Coleridge of playing any such small game-of following the wornout device of enacting "Il Penseroso" for effect. His allusions to his poverty do him honour, and we cannot believe that one who has learned to depict nature with the delicacy and fidelity which mark this volume, has been idle, or unprofitably employed. At all events he has before him the time and the power of self-recovery. Throwing aside all distrust of the poetic power of the English tongue, let him not waver or be drawn down by any despondency. Let him call to mind "the labour and intense study," which Milton looked upon as his portion in life, when he conceived the thought of "a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame memory and her syren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases." Let him look to his favourite Wordsworth, and see what that career is which befits him who meditates the great achievements in verse -and we have no fear but that at some future day we shall behold him on higher ground than the beautiful effusions in the present volume. It has been our object to make our readers acquainted with a name that is well worth the knowing, and we have thus, we flatter ourselves, been helping Mr. Hartley Coleridge to gain some of his distant fame, a commodity that loses none of its value because it comes from far away. We take our leave of him for the present, by quoting a poem of exquisite finish and beauty, which we have reserved for a final impression : THE SABBATH-DAY'S CHILD. To Elizabeth, infant daughter of the Rev. Sir Richard Fleming, Bart. "Pure, precious drop of dear mortality, Untainted fount of life's meandering stream, Whose innocence is like the dewy beam Of morn, a visible reality, Holy and quiet as a hermit's dream: Unconscious witness to the promised birth Of perfect good, that may not grow on earth, And stated limits of morality, Fair type and pledge of full redemption given, Through Him that saith, 'Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.' T "Sweet infant, whom thy brooding parents love For what thou art, and what they hope to see thee, Unhallowed spirits and earth-born phantoms flee thee; Thy soft simplicity, a hovering dove, That still keeps watch, from blight and bane to free thee; With its weak wings, in peaceful care outspread, Fanning invisibly thy pillow'd head, Strikes evil powers with reverential dread Beyond the sulphurous bolts of fabled Jove, Or whatsoe'er of amulet or charm Fond Ignorance devised to save poor souls from harm. "To see thee sleeping on thy mother's breast, Who would believe that restless sin can be A bliss, my babe, how much unlike to thine, Mingled with earthly fears, yet cheer'd with hope divine. "Thou breathing image of the life of Nature! For the vicissitudes of vital breath, Are far unlike that slumber's perfect peace Or change of hue, proportion, shape, or feature ; "A star reflected in a dimpling rill That moves so slow it hardly moves at all, A sudden breeze that cools the cheek of noon, Of Fancy may suggest, cannot supply Fit semblance of the sleeping life of infancy. "Calm art thou as the blessed Sabbath eve, The blessed Sabbath eve when thou wast born; Fit music this a stranger to receive; And, lovely child, it rung to welcome thee, Announcing thy approach with gladsome minstrelsy. "So be thy life-a gentle Sabbath, pure From worthless strivings of the work-day earth: And thy worst wo a pensive Sabbath melancholy." ART. X.-Poems by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. New York: 1836. Mr. Bryant's poetical fame is established. He never published an epic, it is true, or even a "six canto quarto tale," but he has long ago inscribed his name as a feeling and tasteful poet upon the American Parnassus, and has even obtained some bays from the father-land on the other side of the ocean. But it is the misfortune of almost all our native bards, that their efforts are desultory and fugitive. Many write poetry-none write poems. Some of their scraps are very beautiful, opulent in imagery, and characterized by rich and even majestic thoughts; but they are still scraps-occasional, transitory, ephemeral verses, "born and dying With the blest tone that made them." They are sketches, not pictures-little gems that should, on the old poetic rule, be carefully bestowed, until the great effort shall place them where they shall crown the author's life with glory. We are very unwilling, not that such effusions shall be published, but that nothing else shall be published; that American poets of merit should seem afraid and ashamed to concentrate their energies upon some great theme-to study its capabilities, to shape its incidents, to group its characters, and to throw over it that silken veil of poesy which the true son of the muses fabricates through the mysteries of his imagination. It is comparatively an easy and a humble task to weave a silvery thread or two through twisted flowers, and the effort may fill a page with sweet and tender imagery; a throb or a tear may repay the small pains, the tenuis labor, of such an effort, but it will not preserve the bard in the memories of men, nor carry up his name to the seats of the gods. It hopes not for a high reward, as it emanates not from high deservings; it contemplates no duration of fame, nor does it gain it; it seeks a humble end, like the bee among the gardens, not a daring and lofty flight, like the bird above the clouds; it aims to soften the aspect of time, not to exist among the monuments of eternity. We fear that Mr. Bryant's ambition is of this order-that he affects the myrtle more than the laurel. The longest effort in the book before us, (which, by the way, is merely, or for the most part, a second edition,) is the poem called "The Ages," consisting of thirty-five Spenserean stanzas. Where would the name of Spenser have been, had he limited the Faery Queen to five-and-thirty stanzas? Yet this very little poem, though boasting no great originality of conception, has passages in it that show Mr. Bryant's power of sustaining a stronger flight with an unwearied wing. We are happy to quote such verses as the following: V. "Has nature, in her calm majestic march, Faltered with age at last? Does the bright sun Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, Less brightly? When the dew-lipped Spring comes on, With flowers less fair than when her reign begun? Does prodigal Autumn, to our age, deny The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober eye? VI. "Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep In his complacent arms the earth, the air, the deep." This, though a general and obvious, is a true and happy picture, in sound moral keeping and in healthy tone, worth all the misanthropy in Percival's Prometheus, of which the similarity of measure reminds us. What was to prevent Mr. Bryant from VOL. XX.-No. 40. 64 devoting his faculties to the sentiment he evidently had in his mind in this little poem, -"to vindicate Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to man," and to inculcate hope in the sustaining benevolence of the Divinity?—what was to prevent him, we say, from developing this grand there at large, and stamping his name upon a noble poem dedicated to the best interests and hopes of humanity? The attempt, we are sure, would not be below his ambition; that it is not above his powers, the melody and cadence of the following stanzas, as well as the high order of thought which pervades the poem as it is, can witness: XXI. "Oh, sweetly the returning muses' strain Swell'd over that famed stream, whose gentle tide Lend out wild hymns upon the scented air : So to the smiling Arno's classic side The emulous nations of the west repair, And kindle their quench'd urns, and drink fresh spirit there. XXVII. "Late from this western shore, that morning chased Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yelled near. XXVIII. "And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim, And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay And crowding nigh, or in the distance dim, Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring XXIX. "Then, all this youthful paradise around, And all the broad and boundless mainland, lay |