The Fountain and other Poems. By William C. Bryant. One vol. 12mo. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1842.
It will give pleasure to the lovers of elegant literature to learn that Mr. Bryant has prepared a second volume of poems. Many, if not all of them, have before appeared in the magazines; but the book will not be welcomed the less warmly for that reason. Indeed, no one reads a poem by this author without desiring to possess it in the most agreeable and permanent form. His admirers will be gratified, therefore, that he has so far overcome his singular feeling of modesty as to make a collection of his scattered gems, and present them in a casket to the public.
So much has been said of the character of Bryant’s genius that we have no disposition to enter upon that subject now; his various and high excellencies have been pretty generally recognized; indeed, more universally than those of any other living poet; and he himself—even if his literary vanity is a thousand times as great as we believe it to be—and his most ardent admirers, must be satisfied with the feeling entertained by the public toward him. They must be satisfied, because that feeling is in the highest degree friendly. As to ourselves, we are conscious that our estimation of him has been constantly undergoing a change. We have been deepening and enlarging the grounds of our admiration. The more we have read, the more we have reflected upon his poems, the stronger have grown our convictions of his preëminent merit. Nor are we alone in this experience. We remember well the remark of a friend, in whose critical discernment we are accustomed to place considerable reliance, and who, being a foreigner, is not likely to have been led away by that fondness for over praise which is said to mark the literary criticisms of the Americans—“I have been,” said he, “again reading your poet; and must confess that, as deeply as I felt his excellence before, I have never until now formed an adequate idea of the extent of his genius. Although I thought I had exhausted his depth, I find that new views of the most exalted and touching thought are continually opening upon me. I know not when I shall have done admiring.” We replied, and the observation is worth repeating, that this only showed the perfection of the poet’s art; for true art, like nature—indeed, being nature itself—is inexhaustible, and the more it is studied the greater and the richer are the resources which it discovers. A creation, whether it be of a world, a poem, or a picture, is an infinite work, and can be profitably contemplated year after year—each look revealing some new and remarkable trait.
There could be no better proof of the singular merits of Mr. Bryant’s poetry than the fact that men of every school of art, and of every variety of taste, agree in the acknowledgment of its claims. The disciples of Pope and of Wordsworth—those who profess to find the excellence of the poetic art only in its external forms, and those who look into the body of its thought and meaning—the lover of graceful rhythm and expression, and the admirer of profound reflection or passion—alike concur in the sentiment of admiration and respect for Bryant. We do not mean that it shall be inferred from this that no one is a poet who does not awaken this unanimity of feeling, for some of the greatest poets of the last century—Shelley for instance—are not even yet appreciated; but we mean that when this unanimity does exist it is a most unquestionable proof of merit. It is true, it does not always demonstrate the highest merit; yet it shows, more conclusively perhaps than anything, that the beauties of the author are of that unequivocal, obvious kind, which the child and the savage, the illiterate man and the philosopher, are alike capable of recognizing. It is an easy task, then, to point out the characteristics which have given the poet his general celebrity. One of the most striking is the complete mastery of language that he every where displays. If there were not many higher traits to be discovered, we should think he spent his whole time in casting his thoughts in the most beautiful form of expression. Precision, compactness, purity, elegance, and force, mark every line in an almost equal degree. It is this nice perception of the proprieties of language that gives such exquisite finish to his versification. Its melody is perfect.[[1]] Line follows line in liquid and beautiful harmony—yet all is as simple as the utterance of a child. There is no where swelling pomp or straining for effect. The terms, no less than the style and manner arise naturally out of the thought. When the subject is grave and imposing, the movement is slow and solemn; but when the theme is lighter, the measure becomes airy, elastic, and playful. Compare, as a proof of this, the impressive tread of “The Ages,” or “Thanatopsis,” in which the long line of buried nations and men file before us in all their silent majesty, with the graceful motion of “The Gladness of Nature” or the wild dance of “The Song of the Stars.”
Two things, however, above all others, distinguish the poetry of Mr. Bryant. The first is the fidelity with which it paints natural scenery, and the second, the pensive and profound, yet Christian philosophy which pervades its spirit. As we have remarked in another place, no man ever lived whose sensibility was more susceptible than Mr. Bryant’s. Not only is his eye open to Nature, but every fibre of his being seems to be tremblingly alive to its presence. His nerves, like the Æolian harp, the faintest breath of wind can make vibrate musically. The shapes and hues of natural objects, in all their infinite diversity, seem to be the constant companions of his thoughts. Hardly a leaf or a flower exists with which he is not familiar. From the spire of grass by the wayside to the huge oak in the mountains, from the violet in its secluded bed to the bright and boundless firmament, from the shy bird brooding in his silent nooks to the stars that weave their everlasting web of motion through the sky, all things of nature claim his loving friendship and care. Streams, and woods, and meadows, and rocks, and lakes mingle in his musings, and are the very staple of his imagination. They are
“His haunt, and main region of his song.”
If we turn over his title-pages, we shall find that about two thirds of his subjects are drawn from the various aspects or phenomena of external nature; while, by consulting the poems themselves, we shall see that so delicate is his eye, so perfect his command of language, and so exquisite his taste, that his descriptions have all the effect of a faithful but warmly colored picture. We say warmly colored, for with all his minuteness and accuracy in the delineation of nature, he possesses a wonderful power of imagination.
But it is not so much the graces of language or style, or the appropriateness or beauty of imagery, as the pensive but deep and manly philosophy, that incites our admiration of Mr. Bryant’s genius. It must strike every one, upon the most slight and cursory perusal of his poems, that he is a man of the most unquestionable good sense. The silent meditation of nature, in her more genial and subduing aspects, seems to have imparted to him the gentleness, truth, simplicity, and calmness that ever await upon her teachings. In the spirit of his own “Forest Hymn,” he seems often to have returned to the solitudes, to reassure his virtue, and thus, while meditating in “God’s first temples,” His milder majesty,
“to the beautiful order of His works
Seemed to conform the action of his life.”