| His hoary arms uplifted be, |
| And all the broad leaves over me |
| Clapped their little hands in glee |
| With one continuous sound. |
What an unpleasant mixture of images! Such never rose in a man’s mind, as he lay on the ground and looked up to the tree above him. The true poetry for this stanza would be to give us an image of what was in the writer’s mind as he lay there and looked up. But this idea of the leaves clapping their little hands with glee is taken out of some book; or, at any rate, is a book thought, and not one that came in the place, and jars entirely with what is said of the tree uplifting its hoary arms. Then take this other stanza from a man whose mind should have grown up in familiarity with the American genius loci.
| Therefore at Pentecost, which brings |
| The Spring clothed like a bride, |
| When nestling buds unfold their wings, |
| And bishop’s caps have golden rings, |
| Musing upon many things, |
| I sought the woodlands wide. |
Musing upon many things—ay! and upon many books too, or we should have nothing of Pentecost or bishop’s caps with their golden rings. For ourselves, we have not the least idea what bishop’s caps are;—are they flowers?—or what? Truly, the schoolmaster was abroad in the woodlands that day! As to the conceit of the wings of the buds, it is a false image, because one that cannot be carried out. Such will not be found in the poems of poets; with such the imagination is all compact, and their works are not dead mosaics, with substance inserted merely because pretty, but living growths, homogeneous and satisfactory throughout.
Such instances could be adduced every where throughout the poems, depriving us of any clear pleasure from any one piece, and placing his poems beside such as those of Bryant in the same
