to render it chaste, It is hunted down, The grandeur of the thought in the preceding stanzas ia, to our mind, impaired hy the extravagance of the metaphor in these verses. Nor is the metaphor, or simile, for it partakes of both, exactly clear. ‘The author bas only a general, and by no means a distinct idea, of his own meaning. Wo do not wander, however, that the verscs should please some. They have an air of originality, and the alliteration in them is very pretty. But they have neither grandeur, simplicity, nor any of the higher qualities of poctry.
One of the finest pocms in the volume 1s entitled “Excelsior.” ‘The merita of this poem are all of a high order. Its aymbolical meaning will be at once perceived. Under the guise of an Alpine travelier it represents the incentives, the struggles, the fate of genius.
“The shader of night were falling fst,
Aa through an Alpine village passed,
A youth, who bore, ‘mid snow and ice,
‘A banner with the strange device, Excelsior!
iis brow was sad:: his oye beneath,
Flashed like a fanlchion from ite sheath,
‘Aud like a silver clarion rung
‘The accents of that unknown tongne, Excelsior!
Tn happy homes he saw tho light OF household tires glean warn and bright ;
Above, the spectral slaciera shone, ‘And from his lips escaped a groan, Excelsive!
“Try not the Page! the old man anid;
‘Dark lowers the tempest overhea
The roacing torrent ia deep wud wide?
And lond that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!
«OQ stay,’ the maiden said, ‘and rest Thy weary head upon this breast!” A tear stood in his bright blue eye, But stil he cd, with a Excelsior!
“Beware the pine-tree's withered branch?
Reware the awfil avalanche?
‘This was the peasant’s last good-night,
A voice replied. far up the height, Excelsior!
‘At break of day, as heayenward
"Pho pions monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A vole cried throngh the startled air, Excelsior!
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Hi: ried in the snow was found,
Suill grasping in his hand of ice
‘Phar banner wit the strange device, Excelsior!
‘There in the twilizht cola and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
‘And from the sky, serene and far,
‘A voice fell, like a falling star, Excelsior!”
«Endyinion” is an exquisite litle poem, and may be read appropriately after the foregoing. We rank it
among the most benutiful of the productions of Mr. Longfellow.
“Tho rising moon han bid the stars;
Her lovely rays, like golden bara, Lie on thie landacape green, With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams, As if Diana, in her dreams, Had dropt her silver Bow Upon the meadows low.
2 night da this,
Sho woke Endysaion with a kis ‘When, slecping in the grove, . Te droumed not of her love.
Like Dian’s kiss, unask’d, ungonel ives itself, but is not bowel hor wound betraye Its deop, impassion'd gaze.
It comes—the beautiful, the free, ‘The crown of alk humaaity—
In silence an alone
"Fo seek the clected one.
Ic lifts the bonghs, whose shadows deep, Are Lifi’s oblivion, the soul's sleep, ‘And kisken the clos'd eyea Of him, who, slumbering, lies.
Oh, wenry hearts! oh, aimbering cyee!
Oh, droojing souts, whose destinies Are franght with fear Ye shail be loved agaii
No one is 80 accnrs'd by fate, No one co whally desolate, But vome heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own.
Responds—as if with unseen wings
An angel swept its quivering strings; And whispers, in its song, Where hast thou staid eo long?”
There is comething in the little piece entitled “God's Acre,” which reminds us of an old Saxon minster, rough, unhewn, aad masay, but full of ragged simplicity that is sometimes even sublime. ‘There ie a sturdy feel- ing, an honest manlineas about this little effusion which has, to us,many charms. Nor is the soothing hope held out in the third and fourth stanzas the least merit of the poem.
“1 like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calle "The burial ground ¢iod's-Acre! Ht is just;
It conseerates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the slevping dust.
God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts Comfort to those, who in the grave have xown
"Phe sced, that they had garnered in their hearte, ‘Their bread of iife, alas! uo more their ow,
Into its furrows shall we all Le cast, In the sure faith, that we shall tise again Atthe great harvest, when the arch-anzel'n blast Shall winnow, like a fan, the elif and grain,
Then shall the good atand in itamortal bloom, fo te: Cair gardens af that second birth ; And cach bright blossom, mingle its pertime
With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth
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