Book 3 — NOTES.

American poetry before Bryant was considerable in amount, but, with few exceptions, it must be looked for by the curious student in the graveyard of old anthologies. Who now reads "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam in America," "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America," "The Day of Doom," "M'Fingal," or "The Columbiad?" Skipping a generation from Barlow's death, who reads with much seriousness any one of the group of poets of which Bryant in his earliest period was the centre: Halleck, Pierpont, Sprague, Drake, Dana, Percival, Allston, Brainard, Mrs. Osgood, and Miss Brooks? A few of them, to be sure, are remembered by an occasional lyric,—Halleck by "Marco Bozzaris," a spirited ode in the manner of Campbell; Pierpont by his ringing lines, "Warren's Address to the American Soldiers;" Drake by "The American Flag," conventional but not commonplace, and marked by one very imaginative line; and Allston by two rather excellent lyrics, "Rosalie" and "America to Great Britain." The first poet to accomplish work of high sustained excellence was Bryant. His poetry, though never impassioned, is uniformly elegant. It is often as chaste as Landor at his best. But it never surprises; it is not emotional, personal, suggestively imaginative. In fact, Bryant's muse is not lyrical. With the exception of Pinkney and Hoffman, whose "Sparkling and Bright," if technically defective, is a true song, we must wait for our lyric poet till we reach Edgar Allan Poe, the greatest—one inclines to say the only—master of musical quality in verse whom America has produced.

The Wild Honeysuckle.—Philip Freneau, born in 1752, was a soldier in the American Revolution. Though never rising quite into the highest class of poets, he is our first genuine singer. "The Indian Burying-ground" and "To a Honey-bee" are only less successful than the graceful lines quoted.

A Health.—Poe was an enthusiastic admirer of this poem. He pronounced it, in his essay entitled "The Poetic Principle," "full of brilliancy and spirit," and added: "It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing called The North American Review." This passage, very characteristic of Poe's criticisms, illustrates both his championship of favorites, and unmerciful scourging of foes.

Unseen Spirits.—The earnest sincerity, evident in every line of this poem, removes it at once from the company of those gay society verses sparkling with conceits which won for Willis the satiric comment of Lowell in "A Fable for Critics:"

Had Willis written more such lyrics as "Unseen Spirits," his fame could hardly have proved so ephemeral. Poe considered this poem Willis's best, and I see no ground for calling the critic's judgment in question.

To Helen.—This brief lyric, written in the poet's youth, is not only among the most exquisite from his pen, but it furnishes one of the most famous among current quotations:

On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake.—These manly lines have yielded another phrase to the world's memory. Hardly any quotation is more hackneyed than the last two verses of the first stanza. Drake was a young poet, the intimate friend and literary co-laborer of Halleck, who died September, 1820, in his twenty-fifth year.

To the Fringed Gentian.—This lyric well illustrates what Mr. Stedman has aptly termed Bryant's "Doric simplicity." Nothing of Wordsworth's is freer from ornament or from the least trace of affectation.

The Raven.—Though not belonging to the highest order of poetry, "The Raven" still maintains its position at the head of its class. No more astonishing tour de force can be found in English literature.

Nature.—Generally regarded, I think, the finest of Longfellow's, if not of American, sonnets.

Ichabod.—Occasioned by the defection and fall of Daniel Webster. It is worthy a place by the side of Browning's "Lost Leader." In later years, Whittier wrote a poem on the theme, which, while not a retraction of his former position, is penned in a tenderer, more tolerant mood, "The Lost Occasion" is its title, and it is only just to the poet to read this second lyric, hardly less successful, in connection with the first.

Old Ironsides.—"Old Ironsides" was the popular name for the frigate Constitution. Dr. Holmes's poem appeared in the Boston Advertiser "at the time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for service."

Bedouin Song.—One of the most spirited, most genuinely lyrical of American poems.

Skipper Ireson's Ride.—These lines have an easy, swinging quality that is quite inimitable. One inclines to agree with Mr. Stedman: "Of all our poets he (Whittier) is the most natural balladist."

The Village Blacksmith.—The directness and homely strength of "The Village Blacksmith" have made it deservedly popular. One questions whether the last stanza might not have been omitted with advantage both to the unity and force of the poem.

The Last Leaf.—This masterpiece of mingled humor and pathos was a favorite poem of Abraham Lincoln.

The Old Kentucky Home.—The sincere and tender sentiment of this song, no less than its popular melody, has made it for many years a favorite. Even better known is Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which is said to have had a larger sale than any other American song.

Carolina.—The concluding lines of this lyric have an imaginative vigor rare in American poetry. Four stanzas are omitted.

Dirge for a Soldier.—Boker's Dirge was written in memory of General Philip Kearney.

Battle-hymn of the Republic.—Written in December, 1861, while Mrs. Howe was on a visit to Washington. Soon after the writer's return to Boston the lines were accepted for publication in the Atlantic Monthly by James T. Fields, who suggested the title of the poem. The song did not at first receive much notice, but before the Civil War was over had become very popular.

My Maryland.—A poem of great strength and beauty, though of uneven merit. It is unfortunately marred by a few rather intemperate expressions. The sincerity of feeling is everywhere so evident, however, that these must be forgiven. The lines were written by a native of Baltimore, Prof. James Randall, and were first published in April, 1861. The author of the famous song was teaching in a Louisiana college when he read in a New Orleans paper the news of the attack on the Massachusetts troops as they passed through Baltimore. This newspaper account inspired the verses.

In the Hospital.—This poem, which has enjoyed at best a newspaper immortality, deserves to be more widely known. Its simplicity, directness, and truth of feeling are quite beyond praise. According to a story which one dislikes to believe apocryphal, these lines were found under the pillow of a wounded soldier near Port Royal, South Carolina, in 1864.

Days.—Regarded from the point of view of artistic form, perhaps nothing of Emerson's is quite so flawless as "Days," a poem which for conciseness and polish is worthy to be called classic.

A Death-bed.—This is a worthy companion-piece to that other miniature classic, Thomas Hood's song, beginning, "We watched her breathing through the night."

Telling the Bees.—"A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. The ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home." This poem of Whittier's is almost his highest achievement. Lowell said, in writing of the Quaker poet (Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, VI.): "Many of his poems (such for example as 'Telling the Bees'), in which description and sentiment mutually inspire each other, are as fine as any in the language." I often think, however, that Whittier will live longest by his hymns and poems of purely religious devotion. I know of nothing similar in English that surpasses "The Eternal Goodness," and perhaps half a dozen other poems.

Katie.—About one-third of Timrod's graceful poem which bears this title. This is one of the few cases where I have ventured to make omissions.

Thalatta.—Regarding this poem, Thomas Wentworth Higginson says, in "The New World and the New Book:" "Who knows but that, when all else of American literature has vanished in forgetfulness, some single little masterpiece like this may remain to show the high-water mark, not merely of a single poet, but of a nation and a generation?" The author of "Thalatta" was a Dartmouth graduate, a teacher, and a disciple of Emerson.

The Fall of the Leaf.—Thoreau's prose is known universally; his verse has not won as yet the recognition it deserves. It has little lyrical quality, but for unconventionality, charming turns of phrase, and the intimate knowledge of Nature it reveals, it is almost alone in American poetry.

The Rhodora.—"The Rhodora" has a conciseness and unity too rare in Emerson's poetry, which, beautiful in details, is strangely uneven. We sigh as we think what an unrivalled lyric poet Emerson would have been had he been sustained at the heights he was capable of reaching. No one surpasses Emerson at his best; he is almost a great poet.

The Chambered Nautilus.—Many think this Holmes's finest poem. It is taken from "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," 1858.

Thought.—Helen Jackson is, perhaps, the most gifted of American women poets. Emily Dickinson is more imaginative, but her utter scorn of form in composition makes her work, unique as it is, less satisfying. Mrs. Jackson was a favorite with Emerson, and he is said to have liked best among her poems this sonnet, "Thought."

On a Bust of Dante.—Parsons, one of the best of American poets, is one of the most neglected. Stedman is inclined to think "On a Bust of Dante" the finest of American lyrics (see "The Nature of Poetry," 254).

The Port of Skips.—In a recent review of American Literature in the London Athæneum occurs this sentence: "In point of power, workmanship, and feeling, among all poems written by Americans, we are inclined to give first place to the 'Port of Ships,' of Joaquin Miller."

Evening Song.—No poem of Lanier is more free from his characteristic faults. One regrets that so much of his work, highly imaginative as it is, is marred by over-elaboration and artificiality.

A Woman's Thought.—The striking reality and directness of this lyric, its immense emotional undercurrent, and its abrupt, almost gasping metre, admirably suited to the impassioned mood of the speaker,—these are a few of the qualities that combine to make "A Woman's Thought" one of the most remarkable poems in the book.

The White Jessamine.—One of the most charming of Father Tabb's lyrics. The verse of this poet is uneven in merit. He is too prone to merely fanciful conceits. But at his best Tabb is imaginative, as, for example, in the lines where he says of Angelo that he—

Always artistic, Tabb's verse usually suggests workmanship; it is more thoughtful than spontaneous. His religious poetry presents, in the main, a rather striking similarity to the work of George Herbert.

The Battle-field.—Miss Dickinson has much of the witchcraft and subtlety of William Blake. Many verses of the shy recluse, whom Mr. Higginson so happily has introduced to the world, are not only daring and unconventional, but recklessly defiant of form. But, as her editor has well said, "When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence." Emily Dickinson had more than a message, more than the charm of unexpectedness, more than the gift of phrase,—she had (and of how many Americans can this be said?) an intense imagination.

Fertility.—This selection appears in the collected poems of Maurice Thompson (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892), under the title of "A Prelude."

Sesostris.—Of this poem Mr. Stoddard has the high praise that in imaginative quality it is unequalled in nineteenth century literature, unless by Leigh Hunt's sonnet on the Nile. The same critic does not scruple to declare of Mr. Mifflin that he has a "glorious imagination," and to prophesy for him a distinguished future. Seldom indeed has a first book of verse won such instant and universal appreciation as Mr. Mifflin's volume of sonnets, just issued as the "American Treasury" goes to press.