occasion of erecting a statue to the Italian patriot Mazzini.

CRITICISM BY G. W. CURTIS.

His poetry is intensely and distinctively American. He was a man of scholarly accomplishment, familiar with other languages and literature. But there is no tone or taste of anything not peculiarly American n his poetry. It is as characteristic as the wine of the Catawba grape, and could have been written only in America by an American naturally sensitive to whatever is most distinctively American. Bryant's fame as a poet was made half a century before he died, and the additions to his earlier verse, while they did not lessen, did not materially increase, his reputation. But the mark so early made was never effaced, either by himself or others. Younger men grew by his side into great and just fame. But what Shelley says of love is as true

of renown:

"True love in this differs from gold and clay,

That to divide is not to take away."

The tone of Bryant remained, and remained distinct, individual, and unmistakable. Nature, as he said in Thanatopsis, speaks "a various language" to her lovers. But what she said to him was plainly spoken, and clearly heard and perfectly repeated. His art was exquisite.

THANATOPSIS.

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours

ANALYSIS.—1-3. Is the sentence periodic or loose? Rewrite in prose order. Point out the figure in the first line.

2. What is the meaning of visible forms?

3. A various language. Explain by the following lines. gajer hours. What figure?

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides.
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

O the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,—
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form is laid with many tears,

10

15

20

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

ANALYSIS.-7. healing sympathy. What is the meaning? 8. Their sharpness. What figure?

Parse ere and aware.

9. the last bitter hour. What figure? Parse like and blight.

11. stern agony. What figure? What figures on shroud and pall! 13. Parse sick.

14. Dispose of the word forth. Give a different form for list.

15. Give the construction of all and around.

16. Of what is this line explanatory? What figure in the line? 17. Parse the word days.

18. Give the meaning of more.

19. In his course. What figure? Why nor yet instead of neither? nor yet. With what is this correlative?

19-22. nor yet. image. Write in prose form.

....

20. Give the grammatical construction of Where. 22. What figure in the line?

23. Thy growth. What figure? to be resolved, etc. Explain.

24. Give the grammatical construction of lost and trace. surrender

ing up, etc. Criticise. Of what is the phrase an adjunct?

25

Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements-
To be a brother to the insensible rock,

And so the sluggish clod which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone,-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;

80

85

The venerable woods; rivers that move

40

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,

Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes

ANALYSIS.-25. What is the subject of shalt go!
27. a brother, etc. What figure?

28. What is the meaning of rude swain!

29 Explain poetic license on the use of share.

30 Point out the figures in the line.

32 Dispose of alone.

35. Scan the line and criticise

38. rock-ribbed. What figure?

44. Name the subjects of are. Parse but and all.

solemn decorations. What figure?

45. The golden sun. What figure?

47. Name the figure in this line.

49. What is the grammatical use of but? Give the meaning of

tribes

45

That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,—yet the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep: the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
Unheeded by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone; the solemn brood of care
Plod on; and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men—

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes

ANALYSIS.-50. Peint out the figure.

50, 51. Take.... pierce. Where is Barca?

What objections are

there to the readings sometimes given, "pierce the Barcan wilder. ness" and "traverse Barca's desert sands"?

53. Oregon. What is the present name of this river?

54. What figure in the line?

55-57. Point out the figures.

56. have laid them down. Give the grammatical construction.

58. What if, etc. Supply the ellipsis.

58, 59. Some readings give "withdraw in silence from;" others, 'if thou shalt fall unnoticed."

What are the objections to these?
Why that in preference to who?

60. Give the tense of Take.
62. solemn brood of care. What figure?
63. as before. Supply ellipsis. Parse before.

64. favorite phantom. What figure?

shall leave. Should the auxiliary be shall or will! 66. make their bed. Elucidate, and name the figure. 67. The poet originally wrote glide instead of g1 des. 68. green spring. Criticise.

68-71. Mention specifications of sons of men.

50

55

60

65

In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off-

Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,

70

By those who, in their turn, shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

ANALYSIS.-70, 71. This was originally written as follows: "And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man."

71. Give the grammatical construction of cut off.

72. Dispose of one by one.

74-79. Name the modifiers of live; the modifiers of go; the modifiers of summons; the modifiers of caravan.

76. where each, etc. What does the clause modify?

77. Name the figure in the line.

78. Give the mode of go. Parse like and quarry-slave. What does at night modify?

79. Scourged to his dungeon. What does the phrase modify?

sustained, etc. What does the phrase modify?

80. approach thy grave, etc. What does this clause modify? 81, 82. like one, etc. What do these lines modify?