been a great poetical artist—poems in which ease, truth- fulness and grace would have appeared to be spontaneous, although the result, like a speech of Demosthenes, of the most consummate art. In that case the public would have been charmed by @ simplicity which they thought noturat: now they sre delighted with a (ruthfulness which is really what it appears to be, In both cases we have the same result, but produced by very different means. Perhaps the honest portion of the publie will like Brainard alt the better because he has not deceived us; but the critic will be very apt to say that the poet, thad he acted less frankly, would have produced more fine poems. The genius of Brainard did much; but bis genius properly disciplined would have done far more.
There is a poem in tho volume before us which strikingly illustrates our view of the genius of Brainard —we allude to the one on page 104, entitled “ Extracts from New Year's Verses for 1825.” This pocm was no doubt written hurriediy, and with not the remotest idea of its being collected in volume, Tt was a fugi- tive piece, written for a fugitive occasion. Accordingly, ag 4 whole, it is very unequal, but yet it contains one thought which proves the author to be a man of geniue. Our readers will know, at once, that we refer to these verses.
“That silent, moonlight march to Bunker Hill, With spades, and ewords, bold hearts and ready hands, That Spartan step without their flutes’ Yet, in thia very pocm, a few verses before, occurs the following. ‘The author is speaking of the Yankees. « Adventurous, cunning, tough, and brave,
Shrewd and inquisitive they know their P's And Q's. They know to eara aud get and save—*
In the Maniac’s Song, a pocm which as a whole is not above medicerity, we meet with a thought that reveals the man of genius, aa it were, by a flash of lightning, We allude to the concluding lines of the following stanzas,
"Now I have lost my blooming health, ‘And joy, and hope, no more abide ;
And wildering fancies come by stealth, "Like moonlaght on a shifting tide.”
‘The poems of Brainard are full of such ilfustrations, but our limits preclude us from adducing other examples, Contenting ourselves with those two we pass on to shew by the quotation of » few of his poms in extenso, the grace, truthfulness, melancholy, nature, and other char racteristice of this poet. We. shall do this, at the risk of presenting poems which are already familiar, but some may have read them earcicasly and without stop- ping to analyze them, while others, who have studied their characteristics will easily forgive repetition of these fine poems, And first for the Epiuthelmium, which muy be taken asa apecimen of tho oxtreme grace and naturalness of Brainard.
THE LADY’S
“1 saw two clouds at morning, * ‘Tinged with the rising sun; Anul in the dawn they floated on, ‘And mingled into one: J thought that morning cloud was blest, It moved s0 sweetly to the west. .
T saw two eummer currents, Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course, with sileat force, In peace each other greetin
Calm was their course throngh banks of green,
While dimpling eddies played between,
Such be your gentle motion, ‘Till life's last pulse shall beat; Like oummer’s beam, and summer's stream, Float on, in joy, to meet A calmer sea, where storms shall cease— A purer sky, where ull js peace.”
The gentleness, the child-like simplicity of Brainard ia Gnely illustrated by little poem, entitled «The Nosegay,” supposed to be spoken by a young git. ‘We cannot restrain ourselves from quoting it,
“1/1 pull a bunch of bats and Mowers, And tie a ribbon round them, Te you'll but think in your lonely hours, Mf the sweet little girl that bound them,
11 cull the earliest that pnt forth, And those that Jast the longest;
‘And buda that hoast the fairest hirth Shall cling to the stem that's strongest,
I’ve run about the garden walks, ‘And gearched among the dew, wit;—
These fragrant flowers, these touder stalks, I've plucked them ail fur you, air,
So here's your hunch of buds and flowers, ‘And here's the ribbon round them;
And here to cheer your saddened hours, In the sweet little girl that bound them.
‘We cannot pass the following fine poem “to the dead.”
“How many now are dead to me ‘That live to others yet!
How many are alive to me
‘Who crumbie in their graves, nor see
‘That sick’ning, sinking ook which w ‘Till dead can ne'er forgot.
Beyond the blue seae, far away, “Moet wreichedly atone, ‘One died in prison—far away, ‘Where stone on stone shut out the day, And never hope, or comforts ray ‘In kis lone dongeou’slione:
Dead ta the world, alive to mes
‘Though months and years have passed, Ina long hour, his sich to me Comes like the lum of some wild bee, And then his form and face I see
‘As when I saw him last,
And one with a bright lip, and cheeks, And eye, is dead to me.
How pale the bloom of his smodth cheek
‘His lip wes cold—it would not apeak;
His hear was dead, for it did not break ‘And his eye, for it did not see,
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