You forget the man wholly, you 're thankful to meet

With a preacher who smacks of the field and the street,

And to hear, you 're not over-particular whence,

Almost Taylor's profusion, quite Latimer's sense.

"There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified,

As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is ignified,

Save when by reflection 't is kindled o' nights

With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights.

He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation (There's no doubt that he stands in supreme ice-olation),

Your topmost Parnassus he may set his heel on,

But no warm applauses come, peal following peal on, He's too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on :

Unqualified merits, I'll grant, if choose, he has 'em,

you

But he lacks the one merit of kindling

enthusiasm ;

If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul,

Like being stirred up with the very North Pole.

"He is very nice reading in summer, but inter

Nos, we don't want extra freezing in

winter ;

Take him up in the depth of July, my advice is,

When you feel an Egyptian devotion to

ices.

But deduct all you can, there's enough that's right good in him, He has a true soul for field, river, and wood in him;

And his heart, in the midst of brick walls, or where'er it is, Glows, softens, and thrills with the tenderest charities

To you mortals that delve in this traderidden planet?

Who himself was so free he dared sing for the slave

When to look but a protest in silence was brave;

All honor and praise to the women and

men

Who spoke out for the dumb and the down-trodden then!

I need not to name them, already for each

I see History preparing the statue and niche;

They were harsh, but shall you be so shocked at hard words

Who have beaten your pruning-hooks up into swords,

Whose rewards and hurrahs men are surer to gain

By the reaping of men and of women than grain?

Why should you stand aghast at their fierce wordy war, if

You scalp one another for Bank or for Tariff?

Your calling them cut-throats and

knaves all day long

Don't prove that the use of hard language is wrong;

While the World's heart beats quicker to think of such men As signed Tyranny's doom with a bloody steel-pen,

While on Fourth-of-Julys beardless orators fright one

With hints at Harmodius and Aristogeiton,

You need not look shy at your sisters and brothers

Who stab with sharp words for the free

dom of others;

No, a wreath, twine a wreath for the loyal and true

Who, for sake of the many, dared stand with the few,

Not of blood-spattered laurel for enemies braved,

But of broad, peaceful oak-leaves for citizers saved!

"Here comes Dana, abstractedly loitering along,

Involved in a paulo-post future of song, Who'll be going to write what 'll never be written

Till the Muse, ere he thinks of it, gives him the mitten,

Who is so well aware of how things should be done,

That his own works displease him before they 're begun, Who so well all that makes up good poetry knows,

That the best of his poems is written in prose;

All saddled and bridled stood Pegasus waiting,

He was booted and spurred, but he loitered debating;

In a very grave question his soul was immersed,

Which foot in the stirrup he ought to put first;

And, while this point and that he judicially dwelt on,

He, somehow or other, had written Paul Felton,

Whose beauties or faults, whichsoever you see there,

You'll allow only genius could hit upon either.

That he once was the Idle Man none will deplore,

But I fear he will never be anything

more;

The ocean of song heaves and glitters before him,

The depth and the vastness and longing sweep o'er him,

He knows every breaker and shoal on the chart,

He has the Coast Pilot and so on by heart, Yet he spends his whole life, like the man in the fable,

In learning to swim on his librarytable.

"There swaggers John Neal, whe has wasted in Maine The sinews and chords of his pugilist brain,

Who might have been poet, but that, in its stead, he

Preferred to believe that he was so already;

Too hasty to wait till Art's ripe fruit should drop,

He must pelt down an unripe and colicky crop;

Who took to the law, and had this sterling plea for it,

It required him to quarrel, and paid him a fee for it;

A man who 's made less than he might have, because

He always has thought himself more than he was,

Who, with very good natural gifts as a bard,

Broke the strings of his lyre out by

striking too hard,

And cracked half the notes of a truly fine voice,

Because song drew less instant attention than noise.

Ah, men do not know how much strength is in poise,

That he goes the farthest who goes far enough,

And that all beyond that is just bother and stuff.

No vain man matures, he makes too much new wood;

His blooms are too thick for the fruit to be good;

'Tis the modest man ripens, 't is he that achieves,

Just what's needed of sunshine and shade he receives;

Grapes, to mellow, require the cool dark of their leaves; Neal wants balance; he throws his mind always too far, Whisking out flocks of comets, but

He picks out the staves, of their quali ties heedful,

Just hoops them together as tight as is needful,

And, if the best fortune should crown the attempt, he

Has made at the most something wooden and empty.

"Don't suppose I would underrate Cooper's abilities;

If I thought you'd do that, I should feel very ill at ease;

The men who have given to one character life

And objective existence are not very rife ;

You may number them all, both prosewriters and singers, Without overrunning the bounds of your fingers,

And Natty won't go to oblivion quicker Than Adams the parson or Primrose the vicar.

"There is one thing in Cooper I like, too, and that is

That on manners he lectures his countrymen gratis;

Not precisely so either, because, for a rarity,

He is paid for his tickets in unpopu larity.

Now he may overcharge his American pictures,

But you'll grant there's a good dea! of truth in his strictures; And I honor the man who is willing to sink

Half his present repute for the freedom to think,

And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,

Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak,

Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store,

Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower.

"There are truths you Americans need to be told,

And it never 'll refute them to swagge and scold;