Text: A. S. P., “Fugitive Poetry of America,” Southern Quarterly Review (Charleston, SC), vol. XIV, whole no: 27, July 1848, pp. 101-131

[page 101, continued:]

ART. IV. — FUGITIVE POETRY OF AMERICA.

WHEN our illustrious relative across the water, John Bull, has occasion to speak of us, he generally acts the part of a conscientious pedagogue, scrutinizing our manners and sharply reproving us for all deficiencies. His children are perpetually annoyed by our numerous barbarities, and do not hesitate to remind us of them at every possible opportunity. The most painful of our many enormities, as far as we can judge from such of the English works as it has been our lot to peruse, appear to be our mode of eating all things, (but more particularly, eggs,) and our style of writing poetry. The former barbarism [page 102:] never fails to call forth the bitter invective of travellers belonging to the Bull family, while the latter furnishes a perpetual escape-pipe for the spleen of transatlantic reviewers.

The latter gentry profess to be very much astonished at the utter absence of a national literature among us, and are undecided whether to lay the blame of this deficiency upon our mental imbecility or upon the unpropitious influence of our republican institutions. They take us to task for not forthwith setting about the construction of a system of literature which shall at least possess the merit of decided originality. They tell us that we have among us all the elements of inspiration. In place of the calm welling of the Pierian Spring, we have the thundering leap of the strong Niagara, one sea springing from its inland throne among the rocks to meet another which rolls between two hemispheres. For the hallowed majesty of double-peaked Parnassus, we have the icy brow of Mount Washington and the strong-ribbed grandeur of the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains. Instead of the gentle stream of Ilissus, we have the rushing torrent of Missouri. For the quiet vale of ‘Tempe, we have the imperial valley of the Mississippi, and for the sacred groves of Dodona, the everlasting forests of Oregon. Such variety and magnificence of scenery, they assure us, ought to inspire a majestic literature, such as earth has never known before; and because it has not yet produced that effect, they appear disposed to place us very low in the scale of intellectual advancement. But they tell us, great as these advantages are, they are not all. “You have,” they say, “a language strong, copious, elegant, polished to the highest degree of which a tongue is susceptible, made to your hand; capable of embodying the grandest thoughts that were ever ‘wreaked upon expression.’ You have before you the example of the greatest poems ever written; in short, you have every imaginable advantage, and yet you do nothing.”

Feeling the sting of these reproaches more acutely than occasion demands, some of our countrymen have set themselves zealously to work to remedy this deficiency, but with very erroneous ideas in their minds in reference to the true requisites for nationality. They have introduced backwoodsmen, riflemen and Indians with very long names and very poetic manners, and have made them speak and [page 103:] act in accordance with the author's preconceived notions of their characters. Many of these characters are altogether original, and are accurately delineated. Not a few writers, readers and critics have mistaken this for the germ of a genuine national literature, but we cannot coincide with their opinion. The mere introduction of a peculiar class of actors into a work of the imagination does not and cannot segregate it from the mass of books in the language, and constitute it the foundation of a distinct school in letters. Shakspeare did not convert the English into the classical drama by bringing upon the stage Timon, and Pericles, and Antony, and Cesar; nor did he bring it any nearer the Italian by his Romeo and Juliet, his Two Gentlemen of Verona, or his Moor of Venice. Whatever may be the number and variety of an author's creations, his habit of thinking, the tone of his mind, if we may be all. lowed such an expression, will remain the same. The peculiarities of his nation will be impressed upon them, unless he should attempt to get rid altogether of his natural manner and adopt the style of some other people, like Carlyle, for example, who thinks he has Germanized English, because he makes the language turn a perpetual series of somersets among his involved and inverted sentences Even this will not accomplish the result desired, for the original structure of the language, it matters not how it may be rent or torn, will still have some influence upon its parricidal son, and will modify his thoughts in spite of all his efforts to the contrary.

Others, again, have joined issue with the British Reviewers, and have endeavored to show that we really possess what these gentlemen so stoutly deny us. They cite in proof of their assertion Bryant, Halleck and Longfellow, poets of high pretensions and undeniable merit. They also bring forward Cooper, Brockden Brown, Irving, Edwards and others in prose; but one and the same objection lies against every argument. These writers, however excellent they may be, and we are not disposed to pluck one leaf from their well-earned laurels, have done little or nothing towards the production of a strictly national literature. Their genius owes its origin and strength to the same source which inspired the bards of the British Is. lands, and their productions do no more than add new links to the chain of British literature which they have brought across the Atlantic. [page 104:]

Waiving then, for the present, all discussion in reference to the existence of an American school of poetry or of prose, we shall proceed to consider the advantages which the reviewers assure us we possess, In reference to the grandeur, beauty, variety and peculiarity of our scenery, and its ennobling influence upon the mind, we presume there is but one opinion. None but a nation of freemen could inhabit such a country as ours, We have sometimes been tempted to think that the Almighty created it fora nursery of free thought and liberal political sentiments, and that the magnificence of our unrivalled lakes, rivers, and forests, was a sort of mute prophecy of the future greatness of our nation, and of the tremendous influence we are destined to wield over the moral nature of the world, What effect all this astonishing natural sublimity is to have upon our intellects and passions, is one of those problems which time alone can solve. Certain it is, that it cannot belittle our minds. But as to the assertion that the pos: session of a civilized language by our early settlers, is advantageous to us in the matter of forming a national literature, that we most positively deny, and appeal to the history of the human mind in all ages to sustain us in our position.

The earliest name in the history of imagination, and the dearest to the fancy of the scolar, is Greece, the nurse of art, the mother of immortal song. ‘The dawn of her literature, as well as of her political institutions is enveloped in clouds which the brilliant genius of her children has tinted with a thousand delicate and gorgeous hues, and which, even to us dwellers upon this dull prosaic earth, still assume forms alternately grotesque and beautiful, The lovely but mournful face of the childless Niobe is there; there too the awful brow of “the Cloud-compeller,” and there the stern, chaste majesty of the “ Goddess of the silver bow,” and the melting, bewitching, voluptuous loveliness of the Cyprian Queen. There Hercules reclines upon his knotty club and rests forever from his labors; there Theseus stands rejoicing in his victories over giants and monsters, and there Perseus and his Andremeda are forever united. Mingled among them we behold Thamyris renewing his doubtful contest with the Muses, and Amphion playing upon the harp to the music of which the walls of Thebes

There swims Arion upon the charmed Dolphin, there Orpheus sings those powerful verses which drew after him the listening trees, tamed the beasts,

It is thus that the history of the early efforts of the Grecian mind, if history it can be called, is mixed up with the fables of Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes. The names of their poets are inwoven with those of their warriors, and their genealogy mingles itself with that of the antique divinities of their nation. Allis fabulous, or, to speak more properly, all is legendary and poetic. As in the brilliant clouds that glorify the early dawn, sunlight and vapor are so intimately blended, that “each seems either,” so in these stories, fact and fancy are so mingled and harmonized that it is impossible to distinguish them apart. These remote ages, call them heroic, fabulous, poetic or what you will, were the formative period of Greek national character and literature, as well as the birth time of the Olympian Gods. It was then that those beautiful creations of imagination which have been embodied in ancient mythology had their origin. It is, we think, idle to consider Homer and Hesiod the inventors of this system of religion. ‘The very manner in which they speak of the Gods, shows that they are dealing with begs already in existence, so, if they have done any thing for mythology, it is only a systematizing of a previous &cents; reed. True as is the assertion

it is also true that there lived many poets before Homer, besides Linus and Musaeus, and others whose names have come down to us. During all these early ages, the Greeks were acquiring their nationality and forming their language, and as soon as both assumed a proper consistence and a suitable form, a great poet arose to sing the glorious deeds that were done by “mighty men of old,” and to make them “men of renown.” ‘The Iliad and Odyssey, those immortal poems which “the world will not willingly let die,” could never have originated in a second-hand nation. It needed a virgin soil of thought, feeling and language to bring forth such a magnificent growth. “ That soil was prepared by the forgotten ‘barbarians of the remote : age which produced the gods and heroes of Greece. It requires an [page 106:] original nation to produce an original poem. Suppose, for a moment, that Greece had imported her language, her arts and her civilization directly from Egypt, is there any one so wild as to imagine that Greek literature would have been what it is, that it would have possessed that freshness, that swell of the spring-time of mankind, that glitter of the morning of thought, now so manifest in the productions of that wonderful nation.

Does any one suppose that the Hebrew Bible would possess its remarkable characteristics of style, had it been produced by a nation differently situated? We desire to approach this subject with due reverence, and would have our readers to understand that we make these remarks exclusively upon the style of the sacred volume, without taking into consideration the majesty of the great truths which inspiration alone could enunciate. Much of the unrivalled grandeur of the Scriptures, is doubtless to be attributed to the eternal realities which they disclose to our view; but independently of this, we see in the very structure of the language and the mould of their thoughts, the marks of a most intense nationality. This is not so easily estimated by us, to whom the rushing torrents of Jordan, and the clouds and thunders of Sinai, and the placid flow of Kedron, and the vines of Sibmoh, and the cedars of Lebanon, and the sacred height of Zion, and the pillar of cloudy fire and fiery cloud, that rested upon the tabernacle, are familiar as “household words.” But when we divest ourselves of our early impressions, which mingle these books with the literature of our mother country, and look upon them with critical eyes, we can perceive their decided peculiarities of thought. It is not for us to say that these truths required an original language for their enunciation, but we can safely assert that they could not have appeared in their present dress, had they not been revealed to “a peculiar people.” Had Moses been thoroughly imbued with the character as well as the wisdom of the Egyptians, he would have expressed himself in a very different style from that which he has adopted. Had the children of Israel retained the language and manners of their former masters, their Scriptures would have contained the same great truths, adorned, it may be, with great powers of imagery and beauty of expression, but we would [page 107:] look in vain for that idiosyncrasy which now appears in their books.

The origin of Roman literature must also be sought in those rude, barbarous times when the sword and the spear were the great implements of the people. We need not, however, expect to look at them through the golden atmosphere of romance which envelops the early history of Greece. Stern, savage, warlike and unimaginative, their ancient annals are the records of unmitigated ‘ferocity. The foundations of their city, according to their own traditions, were stained with fratricide, and its newly-built walls were cemented with fraternal gore. ‘Those days resounded with the crash of falling cities and the perpetual clash of arms. No Orpheus was there to soothe their stormy passions, or, for a moment, to suspend the fury of their bloody hands. We know, indeed, that they used, from the earliest ages, a wild chant in some of their sacred rites; and it is quite probable, though at present no instance of such a thing occurs to our memory, that they had war-songs and rude lays of rejoicing for their victories. The Sibylline verses which belong to those ancient times, we are in doubt whether to class with Greek or Latin literature. All we know of them is, that like all oracles they were ambiguous, and that they were written in the style of acrostics. From the fact that the spurious Sibylline verses are Greek, we may infer that the genuine documents which were burnt in the time of Sylla, were written in the same language. We must look for the beginnings of Roman literature to Fescennia, a town of Etruria, where a rude comedy took its rise under the name of Fescennine verses. ‘These were irregular improvisations, carried on in dialogue, in which the actors ridiculed the failings and peculiarities of their adversaries. Livius Andronicus gave shape to these early efforts of the Roman muse, and reduced them to the form of a regular, though very imperfect drama, copying as well as he could, from the Greeks. ‘The meagre intellect of the Romans, however, was inadequate to that most difficult of all species of composition, so that they soon became content with mere copies and translations of second-rate Greek comedies and tragedies. A new and peculiar school of poetry sprang from this rude but sturdy stock; we allude to the Latin Satire, afterwards carried to such perfection under [page 108:] the Caesars. We must look upon Ennius as the author of this style of writing, though Lucilius did so much for it that he has been improperly regarded as its originator. Ennius was a genuine Roman, a soldier of undoubted courage, and a man of such decided genius that the Latins generally considered him the father of their poetry. He wrote comedies and satires, and was the first Roman who ever attempted heroic poetry. It was probably his nationality and his strong, but rugged genius that induced one of the emperors to prefer his poems to Virgil's. As the language improved, so did its literature, till the days of Augustus, when it reached its acme of glory.

If we seek for decided nationality in Latin composition, we shall not find it most strongly marked in either its Epie or its Dramatic poetry. Its drama, as I have before hinted, is miserably deficient in those qualities which should characterize such works. It lacks vitality. You look in vain for that discrimination of character, that searching of the secrets of the human heart, that life-like energy of passion, that close adherence to nature which is so strikingly apparent in the English plays, the most admirable specimens of this kind of composition (let the advocates of the unities say what they will,) that were ever given to the world. The Roman comedy does not even convey to our mind a clear idea of the manners and every-day life of the times which produced it. Much of the Latin epic is a mere servile imitation of the immortal poems of their Hellenic predecessors, and the same may be said of the greater portion of the pastoral and elegiac poetry of this military nation. The marked features of the national character, will be found in the satires and lyrical pieces, but especially in the former.*

Passing now to modern times, if we consider the history of the oldest living literature in Europe, that of Spain, we shall notice many very decided points of resemblance to that of ancient literature at which we have just glanced. The language of Spain is evidently a combination of a northern dialect with the Latin, which, on the inroad of the Goths, constituted the common language of the people. The circumstances of the people had no doubt a very considerable [page 109:] influence in promoting the majestic and stately music of the Castilian tongue. Driven, at an early period of their existence, by the infidels, into the mountain fastnesses of a narrow strip of land in the north, the whole life of more than twenty generations was a perpetual struggle to dislodge the invader from the beautiful plains and valleys of their native land. In addition to the lofty sentiments of patriotism and honor which urged them to this untiring hostility, they were animated by the still higher motive “of religion. Their enemies were infidels, while they professed to hold the faith of Christ. But their foes were also polished and elegant in their manners, generous and humane to their captives, and possessed of all those brilliant and attractive graces of character and deportment which take so strong a hold upon the affections of mankind. Hence this war of seven centuries and a half, which ebbed and flowed in various success among the hills of Spain, was characterized by very different feelings from those which too often attend such civil contests. It was not a mere succession of savage slaughters, of brutal massacres and bloody retaliations. The milder feelings of the heart modified the stern severity of battle. Such a mode of life could not fail to cherish the most exalted personal and political virtues. This will account for the high knightly bearing and indomitable spirit of the ancient Castilian, whose honor was dearer to him than life, and whose country and faith mingled in all his dreams of glory. This character was, as a matter of course, transferred to the literature of the times. ‘The old ballads of this chivalric age abound with the loftiest sentiments, and are imbued with a manly melancholy mingled with a fervid devotion, an unyielding valor, and a pure patriotism. In later days, these traits of character were exaggerated to that generous insanity which Cervantes has so keenly ridiculed in his inimitable novel.

It is hardly necessary to multiply examples. We have said enough to show that the natural progress of mental efforts is very much the same in all ages and nations. Literature and national character are nursed together upon the lap of barbarism. In barbarous people, the imagination possesses a vividness and power disproportioned to the other faculties of the mind. ‘The Greek beheld, as with his eyes, the revels of the fauns and the wood-nymphs; he [page 110:] heard the cry of the hamadryad, as the last blow of the cruel axe drove her from her green shrine, and caught glimpses of the white limbs of naiads, through the cool, translucent wave, and of their golden hair streaming like sunlight over the water, as he stood musing upon the banks of some secluded stream. The Gael saw the spirits of his fathers riding on the stormy clouds of night; he heard their feeble voices “swooning drearily” over the bleak moor, or whispering hoarsely among the reedy banks of Lugo, and prepared to surrender his soul into their shadowy arms. ‘The Scandinavian looked up into the deep blue ether from his dying pillow on the red battle field, and saw the warriors revelling with Odin in the echoing Valhalla, and heard the far murmur of their boisterous mirth. The fiery Clovis listened to the eloquence of St. Remigius, until, seeing before him the mangled body of the Saviour of the world, and hearing the exulting shouts of the murderous multitude that thronged the sides of Calvary, he could endure it no longer, but, springing from his seat and brandishing his spear, he expressed his regret that he had not been there with his gallant Franks, that he might have terribly avenged that Just One's death.

To such men, the “airy nothings” of the imagination assume all the clearness and precision of distinct realities. They seem to see with their bodily eyes, and to hear with their material ears, all the sights and sounds which fancy suggests to them. Accordingly, these are the times and people among which most of the grotesque and beautiful creations of superstition have their origin. Then, white ladies begin to hover over springs, and merry fairies to trip their airy dance upon the smooth sward, and goblins grim to beleaguer the perplexed path of the nightly wanderer, and th: wild huntsman to startle the still air and solemn clouds of midnight with the furious clatter of his infernal chase. The poetic spirit, in its utmost intensity, is among the people. ‘Their ideas are rude, but their imaginations are powerful, and many an unuttered poem has gone down to the dust with these barbarian dreamers. Yet they are not poets, for the rude and unformed language of the times is incapable of conveying such ideas. As well might they attempt to hammer unsmelted ore into a sword, as to beat out their wild jargon to the fashion of their inner thoughts. For this reason the wild Runes of these early [page 111:] days are taken up with such things as the language is capable of expressing. ‘The deeds of warriors, and the piracies of the Vikinger, these are the burden of their songs — for these they can at least speak of, though not very intelligibly. Meanwhile, the true poetry of the day is unwritten and unsung, but is handed down from father to son, perpetually struggling with the inflexible language to make itself heard, and we talk of it as tradition and superstition. But, for all that, it is true poetry too young to be recognized.

These people, then, labor upon their language and improve it, until it arrives at that point of perfection at which it becomes capable of expressing a great idea. At that very period, a great poet arises and produces a deathless work. The times are suited to such an event — for the manly vigor of barbaric thought has just wedded the young freshness of civilized speech. Such are the days which produced the Italian Dante and the English Chaucer, — poets characterized by wonderful force and sweetness of thought and imagery. As language becomes more finished, the poetry of a nation advances with it, and grows more and more beautiful until it reaches its perfection. In England, after the age of Chaucer, though the English tongue slowly, but steadily, improved, no great writers arose, till a cessation of the desolating civil wars gave men time to think and write. The authors of Henry VIII's reign, and the earlier years of Elizabeth's, did little more than polish their mother tongue and improve versification by the introduction and combination of various measures borrowed from the musical language of Italy. At the conclusion of their labors, the strong imagination of a barbarous age had not died out nor sickened, while, at the same time, the language had been brought to its perfection as a poetic tongue. The consequence was an astonishing brilliancy of literature. These were the days of Shakspeare, Spencer, and Bacon, and at that time England presented an array of great names, unequalled by any other nation at any period of the world.

The restoration of the Stuarts introduced a modification into the language and literature of the nation, which became more strongly marked in subsequent reigns. The English tongue became critical and exact, and the literature declined with it. We are far from indulging in those extacies over the reign of Queen Anne, which have been [page 112:] for a long time so fashionable — for, though brilliant, we consider its productions as far inferior to those of the Elizabethan age, as Otway was below Shakspeare, or Gay behind Spenser. Thought was carefully trimmed with the pruning-knife of fantastic criticism till it lost the form and freshness of nature. Poems were like the studiously distorted trees of the time, which were forced into mathematical exactness of shape, and presented the perfection of spheres and pyramids, instead of the beautiful and graceful luxurianee of nature. The great thoughts of the olden bards were modernized to suit the self-styled correct taste of the age. Milton's majestic verse was rude, according to the notions of some of their critics, because it rolled and swelled like the ocean, instead of rippling and chiming forever the same insignificant song, as did the regular poems of the day. Chaucer, with his rugged, honest simplicity, and sturdy Saxon strength, like another Sampson, was put in gyves by these literary Philistines, and his free, bold muse was forced, unwillingly enough, to keep time to the “clock-work tintinnabulum” of their rhyme. ‘This looks to us like polishing the limbs of the Farnese Hercules to the brilliancy of a mirror, making indeed a most glittering affair of it — but by the very glitter utterly obscuring the strength and beauty of the statue. In those days there was abundance of satire, wit, and fancy, but of true poetry very little. As science became more and more cultivated, and as her domain extended, she required a modification of language, which must be made methodical, accurate, mathematical. ‘To this condition is English now reduced, and it is almost as impossible to force it into its old grandeur and majesty, as it would be to wrench Euclid's Elements into an epic.

How different was the infancy of our people from that of any of the nations whose names we have mentioned. It is but little more than two hundred years since the first permanent English settlements were made upon our soil, and not three-fourths of a century have yet passed since we became an independent people. In so short a time, it matters not what may have been the genius or poetical feelings of our countrymen, it would be utterly impossible to have produced any thing like a national literature. Besides we have been too much occupied with more important business than this. In that comparatively brief space of time, we [page 113:] have cleared wildernesses, peopled untrodden solitudes, brought under cultivation hundreds of thousands of square miles, acquired a most imperial territory by conquest and by purchase, subjected savage tribes, driven off civilized oppressors, built hundreds of cities and established an empire ranking among the most powerful nations in the world in mere physical force, and, in moral influence, unrivalled by any government that now exists or ever has existed upon the face of the earth. Such things are rather above the manufacture of epics. Our people are practical not visionary, actors not dreamers, builders of rail-roads rather than of rhymes, makers of empires rather than of epics. We have inherited this practical character from our fathers. ‘They fled to this country to escape political and ecclesiastical tyranny, to find a spot where a freeman might worship God and govern his actions as he pleased, responsible to no one but to Him who gave them their honest hearts and their stout right hands. Dufficulties [[Difficulties]] and dangers environed them, disease hovered over them, hard toil was their inevitable lot, but all these things moved them not, ‘Their swords and their guns, and their plonghshares were their own, and they used them cheerfully for the defence and support of those whom they held dear. These voluntary exiles murmured not for the flesh-pots of their land of bondage, but set themselves diligently te work to establish themselves and their posterity upon the soil which they had chosen for their habitation. ‘They had no time for the lighter labors of the pen, being perpetually occupied with this heavier toil. Of course, nothing but a practical character could result from such circumstances.

We maintain, however, that were our fathers freed from these physical embarrassments, other circumstances still would have prevented any striking originality in their mental efforts. ‘They had no childhood of barbarism which should establish a nursery of indigenous thought, nor did they possess any distinctive character, save a love of freedom and an indomitable resolution to preserve it at all hazards; hence they were utterly without the true basis on which to build an original literature. But besides this, they were deprived of the advantages of a national language. Nothing about their character, ideas, or language, belonged to the soil — all were exotics — brought from an old nation across the Atlantic. Had the English tongue been in a rude [page 114:] state when they crossed over hither, it would have better answered the purposes of the species of composition we are now speaking of. Then they might have exerted a plastic power upon it, moulding and adapting it to the growing national character. Such opportunities were denied them. They established themselves here at a period when the white cliffs of their father-land were still echoing with the songs of Shakspeare and his cotemporaries, when English was at its acme of perfection. Had they then possessed the leisure requisite for the labors of the pen, it is very evident that they must have modelled their thoughts and expression after transatlantic originals. Such a thing asa national distinctive literature where all its elements must be imported is an absurdity. As well might you transplant pears from England with the expectation that they would become figs in America. Had our ancestors adopted one of the Indian dialects, amalgamating themselves with the red men and putting on their strikingly original character, and then civilizing the tribe and polishing their wild jargon at the same time, we might now be listening to the songs of some American Chaucer, and be speaking a language perpetually improving instead of deteriorating in picturesqueness. As it is, we must be content to be considered as mere continuators of English literature, and, as such, we do not shrink from an examination of merits, side by side with those of our transatlantic cotemporaries. We are not afraid to compare Longfellow and Bryant with Tennyson and Cunningham, nor need Mrs. Sigourney and Mrs. Osgood dread a comparison with Mrs. Norton or Eliza Cook. Longfellow's Midnight Mass for the dying year is as far superior to Tennyson's Death of the Old Year, as one piece of poetry can surpass another of the same class.

From the very nature of our pursuits, the busy, driving, restless character of our people, it necessarily happens that much of our literature partakes of a light, transient, and ephemeral character. Magazines and newspapers absorb the greater part of the production of American pens. With us literature is an amusement and a relaxation rather than a business. Bryant edits a political paper; Halleck is, or was till very lately, a clerk; Longfellow is engaged in ‘the laborious duties of instruction, and so of nearly all our literary men. Of necessity, therefore, we have much light and fugitive literature, such as the merchant overwearied with [page 115:] the duties of the day, or the professional man dragged down with perpetual mental effort, may spend a leisure hour over and refresh himself after the fatigue of his calling. The public as well as the necessities of writers has given this character to the effusions of our native talent. These brief productions, particularly those of the poetical kind, possess a merit quite equal in the main to those which appear in the British periodicals. It is a rare circumstance to pick up a literary magazine without meeting with some of the delicate children of fancy, which deserve more than “faint praise.” Every where in our social publications do we meet with them. They cover the more elaborate parterres of the monthlies, and wave their frail but touching beauty over the rough, rude, umpromising soil of the political daily, Among them there are indeed multitudes of worthless weeds, but there are also flowers springing from true celestial seed. ‘To a brief survey of some of these, we have thought proper to call the attention of our readers, for they deserve to be redeemed from the general neglect into which such fugitive pieces too commonly fall. As we intend to devote our time exclusively to the consideration of those poets whose names are chiefly conspicuous for their fugitive productions, our readers will not expect any notice of Willis, Bryant, Halleck, Longfellow, or others who have published volumes of verses, and become known as much through them as the lighter efforts of the muse. Neither shall we take up time or space with those whose names and poems are on every body's lips, as Morris, Hoffman, Wilde and such as they. As we said before, we wish to present to our readers the names of others, who, whether on account of youth or the pressing cares of life, have devoted their talents chiefly to the adornment of our current literature.

Among these, one of the most conspicuous is Edgar A, Poe. ‘This gentleman was long since known as the writer of wild and startling tales, which produced no small sensation among “the reading public.” Of late, however, he has assumed the character of a poct. His reputation chiefly rests upon a very singular poem entiled [[entitled]] “The Raven,” which is exceedingly well calculated to attract and fix public attention. He himself seems fully to acquiesce in the general opinion which makes this production the cornerstone of his poetical reputation, for in a recent publication of his poetry, under his editorial care, he has selected as a [page 116:] title “The Raven and other poems.” ‘’To the examination then, of the claims of this poem, we propose to devote a few lines.

The first thing that strikes the reader is the novel and peculiar structure of the verse. It is exceedingly musical, There is a “stately stepping” about it which of itself has an extraordinary effect upon the mind. It reminds us of a wild and mournful funeral march, as full of sadness as melody, Mr. Poe deserves much credit for the produetion of so remarkable a metrical novelty. Much of its peculiarity depeuds upon the artistical arrangement of its rhymes, which, being moveable, and made to fall upon different syllables in different verses, give a pleasing variety to what would otherwise be too monotonous, Then the judicious management of alliteration adds an additional charm to the harmony of the poem, This is the trick of such lines as

Add to this the frequent repetition of similar sounds, such as “on the pallid bust of Pallas” and you have pretty well anatomized the charm of this uncommonly mellodious versification.

Let us now proceed to consider the matter of the poem itself, and endeavor to form an estimate of its naked ideas. The author represents himself alone at midnight, “in the dark December,” sitting at his lonely fireside, with books of “forgotten lore” before him. ‘The scene is a striking one, and deserves to be a prelude to some grave and lofty tragedy. In describing his occupation, however, the poet is guilty of what appears to us several contradictions, or, at least, discrepancies. He figures himself overwhelmed with grief for his “lost Lenore,” to alleviate which he has had recourse to these books, but without avail, and is at once pondering and nodding over them, when his attention is attracted by a tapping apparently at his chamber door, He is in a state of great trepidation, every thing alarms him, even, says he,

We would call the attention of our readers to the admirable adaptation of sound to sense in the line we have italicized, We can hear the soft silken rustle, as if the curtain [page 117:] were swayed by the wind. We wish we could say as much for all the lines, but there are, unfortunately, too many in which we have all sound and no sense, e. g.

But, to return to our narrative. Such a state of mind as this was of course increased and rendered unbearable by the rapping, so that our author was obliged to mutter to himself, “It is only some visiter,” in order to recover his presence of mind. At last, suddenly mustering his courage, he threw the door wide open, but there was no one there.

Without saying any thing at present upon the metaphysical caricature in the above verse, we would call the attention of our readers to the physical absurdity of making any thing like a house constructed in the ordinary manner of dwelling houses, echo a whisper. Our author returns to his chamber, and, the rapping still continuing, he opens his lattice to see if there might not be some one there.

What an excessively rude and ill-bred raven, to be sure, to have the audacity to enter a gentleman's apartment without even so much as a bow; it is manifest that he never studied the laws of etiquette. But the subsequent conversation between the bard and the bird rises so very high that it loses sight entirely of the plodding dull realities of common sense, and cannot be estimated by any fixed standard of comparison, which we ordinary mortals, who are neither inspired nor raven mad, possess. It would seem that the raven is only a turkey-buzzard, after all. [page 118:]

This is what the logicians would call a non sequitur. Having now discovered the name of this very sociable bird, the author congratulates himself upon so important and extraordinary a visiter, and seems a little disposed to triumph over those of his friends who are not so highly favored. He soon becomes quite attached to the bird, if we may form any opinion from the expression :

We are not disposed to be unreasonably censorious, and will therefore call the attention of our readers to one touching and natural thought amidst this absurd and unnatural stuff. ‘The poet wheels his chair in front of “ bird and bust and door,” and sits speculating, with his head

We give the concluding stanzas entire.

Without catechizing the author as to the position of the lamp which could throw the shadow of an object above the door upon the floor of the room, we would call attention to the “fatal step beyond the sublime” which the author has taken in the last two lines! Shades of Pope and Addison, is this English poetry?

The psychology of the poem is deformed by the same error which characterizes some of this writer's prose productions, a wild and unbridled extravagance. Scenery and incidents of themselves insignificant are made to produce a most powerful effect upon the mind of the dramatis personæ. A tumble-down house and a neglected barnyard depress the spirit with a supernatural gloom, a picture or a song fills it with as much horror as the apparition of a spectre, and a beautiful portrait sucks the life out of the original. In this poem we find astonishment, extreme terror and other violent mental emotions produced by utterly inadequate causes. A rap at the door and a flutter of the curtain exert as powerful an influence over a man, as they would over a child who had been frightened to the verge of idiocy by terrible ghost stories. It seems as if the author wrote under the influence of opium, or attempted to describe the fastastic terrors which afflict a sufferer from delirium tremens. A sound mind is incapable of such vagaries, and finds it very difficult to sympathize with them. We should not have spent so much time over this production, were it not for its great popularity. For this it depends chiefly upon its metrical harmony and its novelty, for real poetical merit it has none. There is a great difference between the preternatural and the unnatural, and to the latter does the poem in question belong. It has mistaken the new for the original, the unintelligible for the profound, and the ridiculous for the sublime. [page 120:]

JOHN G. C. BRAINARD — alas, the grave has closed upon him! — met with the common fate of most poets whose reputation is established during their lifetime; he was extravagantly lauded by his friends, and absolutely condemn ed by his enemies as possessing not a spark of original genius. His “Niagara” has been by one party esteemed the very essence of sublimity, an epigrammatic Iliad, Helicon in a pint cup. Another school of critics has pronounced it to be a mere heap of words inartistically arranged, a congeries of ill-asserted metaphors which only belittle the scene they attempt to describe, a positive poetical failure. Now, however, that the author is still and cold, these partizan feelings have died with him, and the public can judge of the real merits of this poem which is in everybody's hands. For ourselves we are disposed to believe that, to a certain extent, Brainard

Certainly the following poem, which we have taken from an old magazine, is a composition of no ordinary merit, and of itself entitles the author to have his name enrolled among the successful votaries of the Muses. The mere fact that the measure has been borrowed from Campbell (one of the objections urged against the verses) is of no importance; the metre of Paradise Lost and Hamlet is not original with their authors. The piece has merits of a kind far superior to any mere trick of verse-craft. It has touching thoughts sweetly expressed, and its music is the soft low melody of a dirge.

MIDSHIPMAN MERRY'S LAMENT FOR LONG TOM COFFIN.

The name of WILLIAM WALLACE is not unfamiliar to the habitual readers of American magazines. His poems are full of bold, original thoughts, clothed in high-sounding and musical language, and are marked by a certain vigor and rush of style which belong only to an active poetical temperament. He evidently feels strongly what he attempts to express; his poetry exhibits the traces of a genuine incola Pythius, no feigned divinity inspiring fictitious raptures, but a strong god who hurries him along in spite of himself. Like most writers of this stamp, he is sometimes deficient in judgment, and allows himself occasionally to mistake grandiloquence for majesty of thought, and in striving after Pindar's sublimity to attain only his abruptness and disconnectedness. But we will submit to our readers a few extracts from a poem of his entitled “The Statuary,” and suffer them to form their own opinions. The opening lines are, we think, remarkably fine, but, to enjoy them fully, our readers should be apprized that they were written-in New-York.

We presume that none of our readers will dissent from our opinion, that the following lines are full of the true spirit of poetry, and deserve something more than the temporary popularity which attends a magazine article.

Then he would picture his native land with those gorgeous hues, and “fill her mountains, vales and capes,” with beautiful legends and shapes. But he declines every thing of the kind, and prefers statuary as a means of immortalizing his thoughts and enriching his city, something which should be

The picture of an intended statue of MIRIAM, is a very noble conception, containing several highly suggestive images,

We regret to do injustice to this fine poem by scattered extracts. The whole piece is so full of admirable thoughts and beautiful turns of expression and these so dependent upon each other, that it is impossible to convey an accurate idea of it even by copious selections, and it is too long to insert entire. Those of our readers who may be disposed to know more of it, will find it in the American Review for September, 1845. We cannot, however, refrain from making one more quotation, referring to Washington.

Any one who is acquainted with the character of our people will not be surprised at meeting with many female names among the list of contributors to the different magazines and newspapers in this country. The men are all deeply absorbed in the active duties of life. Every one is eagerly striving in the race for wealth or popularity. Our [page 124:] boys no sooner leave school than they take their places behind the shop-board or commence their studies for a learned profession. Such a thing as gaining a livelihood by their mental efforts, except on the beaten and dusty thoroughfares of law, physic, or theology, rarely enters the heads of our eminently practical young men. As for turning their attention to pure literature, as a means of making a subsistence, that is looked upon as one of the wildest of all Utopian dreams. Should any youth have a hankering after literature this he cannot control, his prudent guardians secure for him the position of reporter to a daily paper, or assistant editor in some political establishment of newspaperdom, or, it may be, set him up in a school, or make some such disposal of him, that his literary tastes shall not do him any injury. A class of literary men, like the literary men of older countries, is almost unknown among us. Our women are, however, in a very different position. Cherished with a respectful affection unknown to any other portion of the world, guarded with the most sedulous care, experiencing daily the kindest attention, and generally removed from want, they have abundant leisure to bestow upon the lighter labors of the pen. Naturally enough, then, their productions are found in great numbers in the columns of our periodicals. Some of the most popular writers of the day are ladies, and we think the presence of their productions has a humanizing and softening influence upon our literature, as a personal association with them polishes our rougher manners. heir style of writing, the tendency of their thoughts, the texture of their minds, if we may be allowed such an expression, are all different from ours. We shall not pretend to draw a comparison between their mental efforts and those of our own sex, because they differ in their very ‘ground-work. We would as soon think of discussing the question whether the Apollo Belvidere were more beautiful than the Medicean Venus.

Mrs. FRANCES S. OSGOOD has written many poems of considerable merit. There is in her best pieces a freshness, a sprightliness, a healthiness of sentiment, that betoken a right-thinking head and a right-feeling heart. They are all essentially feminine. None but a woman could have written them, and no woman's library should be without them. Though they make no pretensions to great poetical merit, they are generally tender and full of feeling. The [page 125:] following scrap is given, not as the best selection from her works, but because we think it a very fair sample of her usual style:

THE MISSING GIFTS.

A new poetess has risen in the latitude of Baltimore, who, if she devote herself faithfully to the service of the muses, will be no mean ornament to our current literature. She writes under the very unpretending nom de plume of GRETTA, and has been but a short time before the public. In that short time, however, she has produced some really beautiful poems. Her forte is the tender and pathetic, and in this walk she exceeds many of her more practised cotemporaries. ‘There is a touching pathos about some of her Scottish poems particularly, which reminds us of Motherwell, The following extracts from “Gie me thy blessing, mither,” will give a tolerable idea of the general character of her writings. A son is supposed to ask his mother's blessing, as he is about leaving her cottage on his wedding morning, to bring home his bride. He is “the only son of [page 126:] his mother, and she is a widow,” and the request naturally recalls to her mind long-buried joys.

We owe an apology to the young writer for garbling her beautiful lines in this manner, but should this article ever meet her eye, she must attribute it to stern necessity, and not to a Vandalic disposition to mutilate works of art.

Of strictly annonymous [[anonymous]] writers we have abundance. Many who compose under various impulses, without being actuated by the desire of establishing a reputation, throw off, at times when the mind and heart are both glowing with truest poetry, stanzas of rare beauty. Their productions are published, admired, run “the rounds of the press,” as the phrase goes, and are forgotten — the authors still remaining in their voluntary obscurity. A few of these warblings of bards who sang thus “darkling — with their breasts against a thorn,” we now subjoin. The first reminds us of some of Hood's sweet scraps of pathetic song. It is a simple, musical and beautiful dirge worthy to be chanted over the grave of one of those rare spirits, who, while youth was yet shining on their hearts,

ISABEL.

The next and last poem we shall submit to our readers is somewhat of the same plaintive and subdued character as that above — but its melancholy is not so touchingly simple. [page 128:] The former is like the sadness of an intelligent and innocent child called from his sports among the flowers and suddenly awed into a reverent and mournful stillness by the sight of the corpse of some loved companion; the latter is the reverie of a berieved man, who, in his loneliness and desolation endeavors to soothe his grief for the loss of his beloved one by a recourse to the consolations of religion. Both are beautiful, but we prefer “Isabel.”

TO HELEN, IN HEAVEN.

We hope that none of the contributors to our current literature will consider themselves slighted by their names not appearing in this article. We do not profess to give a full account, or even an extended review of the countless poems which are issued by the thousands of periodicals scattered over our wide-extended country. The name of our fugitive writers is Legion, and it would require a ponderous volume to do them any thing like justice. Many names which we had originally intended to introduce we found ourselves compelled to omit in order to bring our lucubrations within a reasonable and readable compass. Some whom we would have gladly spoken of, we were obliged to pass over, on account of our not being able conveniently to obtain favorable specimens of their works. In short, we have merely endeavored to call the attention of our readers to a portion of our literature generally too much neglected by those among us who make pretensions to a more refined taste and a severer judgment. This contemptuous indifference is neither in good taste or good feeling, for very many [page 129:] of these self-constituted censors profess a high regard and great admiration for the corresponding class of transatlantic writings which are certainly, as a general thing, in no way superior to our own. We are not at all afraid to subject the poetry which appears among our magazines and newspapers to a comparison with that which is published in similar periodicals in the British Islands. Let any one, for example, take up the September “Feast of the Poets” in Tait, and place beside it an equal quantity of fugitive poetry selected from American journals, and our word for it, he will have no reason to blush for his country. We mention this as a single example. The much vaunted Blackwood itself would be compelled to look closely to its laurels, were a jury of impartial literary men to try the comparative excellence of its poetry with much that could be culled from the periodicals of these United States. We do not pretend to deny that there is an incalculable quantity of utterly insignificant trash published in our magazines and papers. No one who knows any thing about the matter will hesitate to acknowledge that this is equally true of the journals over the water, so that in this respect, we stand upon precisely the same footing with them. It would not be easy to find any where in America flatter stuff than is often published in the People's Journal, some of it too, from the pen of Mary Howitt. We have there read things (we cannot call them poems) which would not be admitted into the columns of our literary newspapers.

The neglect we speak of appears to us particularly unpardonable, because we believe that the germ of a genuine nationality is to be found in our periodical literature. We use this term in its broadest sense, and intend to include in it not only the light articles of the magazines, the poetry, and the tales, but also the more direct and practical eloquence of our political editorials. There are many who will doubtless smile at the somewhat startling sentiment we have advanced, but let them first hear the grounds of our opinion, and then they are at liberty to smile or laugh if they see proper. Like our political speeches, these productions come directly from the people and go directly to them. If then there is any class of writings which ought to embody the views and feelings of the people it is this. Indeed they owe al! the reputation they may acquire to the fidelity [page 130:] with which they express popular sentiments, and to the force with which they appeal to the popular mind. While it is very true that they are read by many whose tastes are Gallicized, or Germanized, or Anglicized, it is nonetheless true that the majority who peruse them and who are influenced by them have never had an opportunity of forming any particular foreign taste, and are therefore as nearly national in this respect as so new a people can be. To please this class of readers it is manifestly necessary that literature should be addressed to them, and based upon known peculiarities of theirs. A stump orator might deliver an able and elegant harangue which would do honor to Burke himself, and yet be thoroughly overpowered by a rude but vigorous speaker who understood the character of the people he was addressing. Literature must take the same course. ‘To be national, it must embody national sentiments and address national prejudices, and this, those who write only for the “audience, few but fitting,” rarely accomplish. The most eminently national writers are usually those who depend directly upon the people for their support. Hence, of all species of composition in former days, the drama, the novel and the ballad generally bear the most decided impress of a people's character. What so eminently Spanish as the old ballads of the Cid, and the modern romance of Don Quijote? What so absolutely English as the Chevy Chase, the dramas of Shakspeare and his cotemporaries, and the novels of Richardson, Fielding, Smollet and Dickens? In this country, however, the drama is not sufficiently popular to be looked upon as the nurse of our literature, and the facility of reproducing English and French novels takes away popular attention from native efforts in that direction and denationalizes public taste, so that there seems to be left for us principally the arena of political discussion and the field of magazine literature. It is from these then, and ria our orators, that, in our opinion, we are to expect nationality, if it is to come from any source.

With these views we have written this article, and, in conclusion, we can only hope that our humble efforts may excite some one to attempt the elevation of this kind of writing among us. Who knows but what after ages may look back to the magazines and papers of our day as we look back to the uncouth old ballads of the days of the Edwards, [page 131:] Richards, and Henries, and search zealously among them for the germs of national literature which are buried up among so much French, German and English rubbish?

A. S. P.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 108:]

* We wish our readers to understand us. We are speaking now of the poetry of the Romans. Their prose is eminently national.