Now this is indeed a line of "sonorous grandeur"- but it is rendered
so principally if not altogether by that very excess of metre (in
the word Damien) which the reviewer has condemned in Mr. Willis. The
lines which we quote below from Mr. Bryant's poem of The Ages will
suffice to show that the author we are now reviewing fully appreciates
the force of such occasional excess, and that he has only neglected it
through oversight in the verse which suggested these observations.
Peace to the just man's memory- let it grow
Greener with years, and blossom through the flight
Of ages- let the mimic canvass show
His calm benevolent features.
Does prodigal Autumn to our age deny
The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober eye?
Look on this beautiful world and read the truth
In her fair page.
Will then the merciful One who stamped our race
With his own image, and who gave them sway
O'er Earth and the glad dwellers on her face,
Now that our flourishing nations far away
Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the day,
Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed
His latest offspring?
He who has tamed the elements shall not live
The slave of his own passions.
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