At every step such
verses occur as,
And the monk's hymn and minstrel's song-
True as the steel of their tried blades-
For him the joy of her young years-
Where the Bard-peasant first drew breath-
And withered my life's leaf like thine-
in which the proper course of the rhythm would demand an accent upon
syllables too unimportant to sustain it. Not infrequently, too, we
meet with lines such as this,
Like torn branch from death's leafless tree,
in which the multiplicity of consonants renders the pronunciation of
the words at all, a matter of no inconsiderable difficulty.
But we must bring our notice to a close. It will be seen that
while we are willing to admire in many respects the poems before us,
we feel obliged to dissent materially from that public opinion
(perhaps not fairly ascertained) which would assign them a very
brilliant rank in the empire of Poesy. That we have among us poets
of the loftiest order we believe- but we do not believe that these
poets are Drake and Halleck.
BRYANT'S POEMS
MR. BRYANT'S poetical reputation, both at home and abroad, is
greater, we presume, than that of any other American. British
critics have frequently awarded him high praise, and here, the
public press have been unanimous in approbation.
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