May their bloom, in beauty vying, Where thine earthly part is lying, Florence Vane ! THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH 1819-1902 THE life of Dr. English was unusually active and varied. He practiced both law and medicine at different times; for a number of years he was active in journalism in New York, when he was associated with Willis and Poe; he wrote a novel, made a collection of ballads and fairy stories, and from 1891 to 1895 served as a member of Congress, during which time he published a volume of poems. Dr. English was born in Philadelphia, and was a graduate of the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. His last years were spent in blindness at Newark, New Jersey, where he died. Throughout his long career he was a man of vigor and of striking personality. BEN BOLT DON'T you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt, – Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile, In the old church yard in the valley, Ben Bolt, They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray, Under the hickory tree, Ben Bolt, Which stood at the foot of the hill, Together we've lain in the noonday shade, 15 The mill wheel has fallen to pieces, Ben Bolt, The rafters have tumbled in, And a quiet which crawls round the walls as you gaze Do you mind of the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt, And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs, The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt, The tree you would seek for in vain ; And where once the lords of the forest waved And don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt, And the shaded nook in the running brook Where the children went to swim? Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt, The spring of the brook is dry, And of all the boys who were schoolmates then There is change in the things I loved, Ben Bolt, They have changed from the old to the new ; But I feel in the deeps of my spirit the truth, There never was change in you. Twelvemonths twenty have past, Ben Bolt, Since first we were friends yet I hail Your presence a blessing, your friendship a truth, Ben Bolt of the salt-sea gale. 5 10 15 20 25 MIDDLE PERIOD I Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Poe, Holmes, and Lowell WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 1794-1878 THE life of Bryant falls into two rather distinct parts — his work as a poet, and his career as a journalist and citizen. Much of his best poetry was written while he was a resident of Massachusetts, where he practiced law with doubtful success, but during the last fifty years of his life he edited the New York Evening Post, through which he rendered distinguished service to both literature and politics. In his later years the venerable poet and publicist was often spoken of as the first citizen of the Republic. The outward facts of Bryant's life may be set down briefly. He was born at Cummington, in the western part of Massachusetts. His father was a physician, who named his son for the once famous Scotch professor of medicine, William Cullen. On his mother's side the poet was descended from John and Priscilla Alden. Young Bryant was precocious. His first poem was published in a newspaper when he was thirteen years of age. A year later he published The Embargo, a satire Indeed, care In 1810 he on President Jefferson, which caused much comment in Boston, where it first appeared. The sentiment of this poem appealed to the prejudices of the violent Federalists of that time, but the most notable thing about it was its unusual correctness of rhyme and meter. ful workmanship always marked Bryant's prose and verse. entered Williams College as a sophomore. At the end of one year he left with an honorable dismissal, intending to enter Yale. Lack of money, however, put a stop to his college career. About this time, 56 when only seventeen years of age, he wrote Thanatopsis, his bestknown poem, and during his long career he never produced anything better. When it was published in the North American Review, it won him instant recognition as a poet. A few months later his justly popular lines To a Waterfowl appeared in the same magazine. In 1821 he read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard a poem called The Ages. It was in this year that he was happily married to Miss Frances Fairchild at Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He now determined to give up the law and to devote his life to letters. In 1825 he was persuaded by friends to move to New York, where for a time he helped to edit an unsuccessful magazine. Then came his connection with the Evening Post, which marked a sharp turn in his life. The second important period of Bryant's life had now begun. In his hands the Evening Post became a pattern of the purest and most virile English, a literary critic of power and discrimination, and a fearless, independent, and high-minded upholder of all that is best in the civic affairs of the Republic. Bryant wrote poetry during these fifty years of toil as an editor, but it confirmed rather than increased his reputation as a poet. Either his springs had run dry or his energies had been diverted into another channel. As the years went by he was thought of less as a poet and more as a commanding personality in public affairs. To those who saw him in his daily round he seemed a dignified, venerable, and almost majestic figure. Secure in fame and fortune, steadfastly devoted to the greatest good to the greatest number, patiently and modestly laborious, gravely gentle in all the relations of life, he walked among men as the noblest embodiment of democratic citizenship. His last public act was in keeping with his character and career. He delivered the oration in 1878 at the unveiling of a statue in Central Park to Mazzini, the Italian patriot, and suffered a sunstroke which proved fatal. 66 Happily," says George William Curtis, "we may believe that he was sensible of no decay. . . . He was hale, erect, and strong to the last. All his life a lover of nature and an advocate of liberty, he stood under the trees in the beautiful park on a bright June day, and paid an eloquent tribute to a devoted servant of liberty in another land. And while his words yet lingered in the ears of those who heard him, he passed from human sight." As a poet, Bryant holds a place in American letters which is high and secure. He has correctness of form, restraint, delicacy, simplicity, luminousness, and he rises at times almost to majesty. What he lacked was the heat which kindles the emotions and fires the imagination. The reason for this lay in the man himself. "He was reserved, and in no sense magnetic or responsive," says one who knew him well. "There was something in his manner of the New England hills among which he was born, a little stern and bleak and dry, although suffused with the tender and scentless splendor of the white laurel." THANATOPSIS To him who in the love of Nature holds When thoughts Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 5 10 15 20 |