Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-12-15
A FEW THOUGHTS OF BRYANT.
BY CHARLOTTE f. BATES.

A gift of gentians has to-day made M
llnger afresh over his memory who wrot
of them with so much beauty. This au
tumn, in what an unwonted way doe
| the loveliness of both poem and flower:
meet us, since the poet is no longer here
Perhaps many do not remember sTht
Fringed Gentian;;" for their sake tn,
last three stanzas are given:
Thou waitest late, and contest alone
When woods are bare and birds have flown
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.
Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue-blue-as if the sky let fail
A flower from its cerulean wall.
l would that thus, when shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, poisoning within my heart,
Make look to HeaYen as depart.
Not only does the close of his hint of
Bryant's sweet faith in the other life, but
his poems abound in illusions to it, and
80 vigorous was his character as a man
that his belief as poet has all the greater
weight, and adds not little to the mass
of evidence that the ages have given u.s.
1t has seemed singular that the '.Tanatop-
sls'' should ever haye rested under the
doubtful eye of the most Christian critic.
because it does not refer to the bright
and immortal side of things. Those who
make such criticism seem to forget the
very meaning Of the; title; death viewed
solely as deash-and the poem pretends
to nothing more-could hardly be dealt
with IN a manner more at one with
human experience and poetic genius. It
is not religious hymn Watts and his
fellows can blend death with what is to
follow, if need be, for sacred or funeral
service, but the poet meant only to pre-
sent death in that form in which it daily
occurres to the sight and knowl-
edge of men; the poem takes
matters just as far as our certainty of
things can take them, and does not trench
On the domain Of faith, unless the "quiet
dreams" suggest that. An English critic
who edited Bryant's works years ago, said
in the preface: "What golden close it
had been to the poem (Thanatopsis) to
have described the uprising of the vast
congregation Of the dead!' etc. This
would have been far from natural, at all
events. When we are saddened at the
thought Of death and its Accomplishments
at the successive rise, progress, and fall of
generations, our reflections, unless we are
far on the way to sainthood, stop at the
turf, and the dim sense of rest i'm piled by
it. TO us in a mood like this, that rest
seems eternal IN our use of the word, and
we repeat the poem, word for WORD. in a
depth of sympathy. It is when we have
laid aside this purely natural and human
train of thought in vieao of death, that faith
comes in with its derived light, and its
promise ofimmortal activities.
1t is somewhat memorable that the
same poet should have written thing OF
equal, but necessarily different beauty
not 50 much as regards the tone. but the
rhythm on ''The Crowded Street," the
City OF the Dead aud the City of the
Living thus immortalized by the same
voice. The latter poem is rarely refer
red to in the list of masterpieces, but
some collectors have the discrimination
to place it where # rightly belongs,
among the poets first. For the benefit OF
such as have not the book at hand, lei a
few stanzas be quoted: