MR. BRYANT'S "THIRTY POEMS"
The second of the forms above-named is that blank verse of which Mr. Bryant's handling is always recognized. Setting aside the abuse of this noble English metre, exemplified in Young, Thompson, and a host of didactic writers, it is found in four distinct and luminous types. First, the Miltonic, in which Latin words and sonorous pauses and inversions predominate. This no one has satisfactorily written since the inventor whose name it bears. Second, the pure Heroic, modelled somewhat after the Greek, and largely indebted to Saxon words for its antique and epic vigor. Tennyson is a living master, and his "Morte d' Arthur" and "Idyls of the King" are leading examples, of this form. Third, the Shakespearean-Dramatic; and, lastly, the Reflective, of which Wordsworth had such high control. In the latter form, adapted to the poet's serenest and profoundest moods, Mr. Bryant has not been excelled. His imprint stamps every line which he has thus written. The "Thanatopsis" and "Forest Hymn" are embalmed in literature. Nor has his hand lost its cunning. In his new volume, "A Rain Dream," "The Night Journey of a River," and "The Constellations," are poems which none but Bryant could have written, and in his loftiest method. They are compact of high imaginings. Take, from the first, an impersonation of
—the wind of night:
A lonely wanderer between earth and cloud,
In the black shadow and the chilly mist,
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