to it as to a shrine; and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the memory and the name of Washington shall shed an eternal glory on the spot.

Oration on the Character of Washington.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 1794-1878.

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?

The Ages. xxxiii.

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language.

Go forth under the open sky, and list

Thanatopsis.

The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves 1

To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed.
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

1 The edition of 1821 read, —

The innumerable caravan that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take.

Ibid.

Ibid

The groves were God's first temples.

The stormy March has come at last,

A Forest Hymn.

With winds and clouds and changing skies;

I hear the rushing of the blast

That through the snowy valley flies.

But 'neath yon crimson tree

March.

Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,

Her blush of maiden shame.

Autumn Woods.

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown The Death of the Flowers.

and sear.

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no

more.

Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.

The rose that lives its little hour

Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

Ibid.

A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson.

The victory of endurance born.

The Battle-Field.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.

Ibid.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 1795-1820.

When Freedom from her mountain-height
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,

And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hånds to valour given!
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

The American Flag

Endymion. Book 1.

JOHN KEATS. 1795-1821.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.

He ne'er is crown'd

With immortality, who fears to follow

Where airy voices lead.

To sorrow

I bade good-morrow,

And thought to leave her far away behind;

But cheerly, cheerly,

She loves me dearly;

Book ii.

She is so constant to me, and so kind.

Book iv.

So many, and so many, and such glee.

Ibid.

Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is Love, forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust.

Lamia. Part ii.

There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.

Ibid.

Music's golden tongue

Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor.

The Eve of St. Agnes Stanza 3.

The silver snarling trumpets 'gan to chide.

Asleep in lap of legends old.

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow.

A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing.

Stanza 4.

Stanza 15.

Stanza 16.

Stanza 18.

As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.

Stanza 27.

And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon.

Stanza 30.

He play'd an ancient ditty long since mute,
In Provence call'd "La belle dame sans mercy."

Stanza 33.

That large utterance of the early gods!

Hyperion. Book i.

Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.
The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled.

Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth!
Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth.

Ibid.

Book ii.

Ode to a Nightingale

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that ofttimes hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Ibid.

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time.

Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on,
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.

Thou, silent form, doth tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,

Ibid.

Ibid.

- that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

In a drear-nighted December,

Too happy, happy tree,

Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity.

Hear ye not the hum

Of mighty workings?

Ibid.

Stanzas.

Addressed to Haydon. Sonnet x.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

On first looking into Chapman's Homer

E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.

To One who has been long in City pent.