"Criticism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

whose poems evince an ear finely attuned to the delicacies of
melody. We seldom meet with more inharmonious lines than those,
generally, of the author of Alnwick Castle. 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. We can call to mind
no dissenting voice. Yet the nature, and, most especially the
manner, of the expressed opinions in this case, should be considered
as somewhat equivocal, and but too frequently must have borne to the
mind of the poet doubts and dissatisfaction. The edition now before us
may be supposed to embrace all such of his poems as he deems not
unworthy his name. These (amounting to about one hundred) have been
"carefully revised." With the exception of some few, about which
nothing could well be said, we will speak briefly of them one by
one, but in such order as we may find convenient.
The Ages, a didactic piece of thirty-five Spenserian stanzas, is the
first and longest in the volume. It was originally printed in 1821,
With about half a dozen others now included in this collection. The
design of the author in this poem is "from a survey of the past ages
of the world, and of the successive advances of mankind in knowledge
and virtue, to justify and confirm the hopes of the philanthropist for
the future destinies of the human race." It is, indeed, an essay on
the perfectability of man, wherein, among other better arguments
some in the very teeth of analogy, are deduced from the eternal