the success of the
first attempt to rival the London and Paris publishers in woodcut
embellishment and general beauty of execution.

That Mr. Goodrich possesses the poetical faculty in an eminent degree,
no one has doubted who has read his fine lines "To Lake Superior:"

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Father of Lakes! thy waters bend,
Beyond the eagle's utmost view,
When, throned in heaven, he sees thee send
Back to the sky its world of blue.

Boundless and deep the forests weave
Their twilight shade thy borders o'er,
And threatening cliffs, like giants, heave
Their rugged forms along thy shore.

Nor can the light canoes, that glide
Across thy breast like things of air,
Chase from thy lone and level tide,
The spell of stillness deepening there.

Yet round this waste of wood and wave,
Unheard, unseen, a spirit lives,
That, breathing o'er each rock and cave,
To all, a wild, strange aspect gives.

The thunder-riven oak, that flings
Its grisly arms athwart the sky,
A sudden, startling image brings
To the lone traveller's kindled eye.

The gnarled and braided boughs that show
Their dim forms in the forest shade,
Like wrestling serpents seem, and throw
Fantastic horrors through the glade.

The very echoes round this shore,
Have caught a strange and gibbering tone,
For they have told the war-whoop o'er,
Till the wild chorus is their own.

Wave of the wilderness, adieu--
Adieu, ye rocks, ye wilds, ye woods!
Roll on, thou Element of blue,
And fill these awful solitudes!

Thou hast no tale to tell of man.
God is thy theme. Ye sounding caves,
Whisper of Him, whose mighty plan,
Deems as a bubble all your waves!

The "Birth Night of the Humming Birds" has been declared by the London
_Athenaeum_ equal to Dr. Drake's "Culprit Fay," and it may be regarded as
in its way the best specimen of Mr. Goodrich's talents. It is too long
to be quoted in these paragraphs. In descriptions of nature he is
uniformly successful, presenting his picture with force and
distractness.

There are many examples of this in one of his longest poems, "The
Mississippi," in which the traditions that cluster around the Father of
Waters, and the advances of civility along his borders, are graphically
presented. The river is described as rising.

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"Far i