Bryant at threescore and ten is as
sensitive to the touch of beauty as at twenty.

The poetry of Bryant is not great in amount, but it represents a great
deal of work, as few men are more finished artists than he, or more
patient in shaping and polishing their productions. No piece of verse
ever leaves his hands till it has received the last touch demanded by
the most correct judgment and the most fastidious taste. Thus the style
of his poetry is always admirable. Nowhere can one find in what he has
written a careless or slovenly expression, an awkward phrase, or an
ill-chosen word. He never puts in an epithet to fill out a line, and
never uses one which could be improved by substituting another. The
range within which he moves is not wide. He has not written narrative or
dramatic poems: he has not painted poetical portraits: he has not
aspired to the honors of satire, of wit, or of humor: he has made no
contributions to the poetry of passion. His poems may be divided into
two great classes,--those which express the moral aspects of humanity,
and those which interpret the language of Nature; though it may be added
that in not a few of his productions these two elements are combined.
Those of the former class are not so remarkable for originality of
treatment as for the beauty and truth with which they express the
reflections of the general mind and the emotions of the general heart.
In these poems we see our own experience returned to us, touched with
the lights and colored with the hues of the most exquisite poetry. Their
tone is grave and high, but not gloomy or morbid: the edges of the cloud
of life are turned to gold by faith and hope. Of the poems of this
class, "Thanatopsis," of which we have already spoken, is one of the
best known. Others are the "Hymn to Death," "The Old Man's Funeral," "A
Forest Hymn," "The Lapse of Time," "An Evening Reverie," "The Old Man's
Counsel," and "The Past." This last is one of the noblest of his
productions, full of solemn beauty and melancholy music, and we cannot
deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting a few of its stanzas.

"Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

"Far in thy realm withdrawn,
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

"Childhood, with all its mirth,