William Cullen Bryant.
Fitz-Greene Halleck.
Bryant, whose songs are thoughts that bless
The heart,—its teachers and its joy,—
As mothers blend with their caress
Lessons of truth and gentleness
And virtue for the listening boy.
Spring’s lovelier flowers for many a day
Have blossomed on his wandering way;
Beings of beauty and decay,
They slumber in their autumn tomb;
But those that graced his own Green River
And wreathed the lattice of his home,
Charmed by his song from mortal doom,
Bloom on, and will bloom on forever.
Bryant had a wonderful memory. His familiarity with the English poets was such that when at sea, where he was always too ill to read much, he would beguile the time by reciting page after page from favorite poems. He assured me that however long the voyage, he had never exhausted his resources. He was scarcely less familiar with the languages and literatures of Germany, France and Spain, Greece and Rome. He spoke all living languages except the Greek with facility and correctness.—John Bigelow.
The name of Bryant cannot be mentioned by any friend to American letters without respect as well as admiration. The hold that he has on the profoundest feelings of his countrymen is to be referred to the genuineness, delicacy, depth, and purity of his sentiment. He is so genuine that he testifies to nothing in scenery or human life of which he has not had a direct personal consciousness. He follows the primitive bias of his nature rather than the caprices of fancy. His compositions always leave the impression of having been born, not manufactured or made.—Edwin P. Whipple.
It is the glory of this man that his character outshone even his great talent and his large fame. Distinguished equally for his native gifts and his consummate culture, his poetic inspiration and his exquisite art, he is honored and loved to-day even more for his stainless purity of life, his unswerving rectitude of will, his devotion to the higher interests of his race, his unfeigned patriotism, and his broad humanity.—Rev. Henry W. Bellows.
When Cooper died, the restless city paused to hear Bryant’s words of praise and friendship. When Irving followed Cooper, all hearts turned to Bryant. Now Bryant has followed Cooper and Irving, the last of that early triumvirate of American literature. The broad and simple outline of his character and career had become universally familiar like a mountain or the sea. A patriarch of our literature, the oldest of our poets, he felt the magic of human sympathy, the impulse of his country, the political genius of his race, and was a public political leader.—George William Curtis.