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Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth, As springs the flame above a burning

pile,

lids

In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps, And thou must watch and combat till the

day

Since many poems by Bryant and other authors discussed in this and following chapters are lyrics, it will be well for you to keep in mind some of the characteristics of this form of poetry. The lyric is a short poem of song-like quality, expressing a single emotion, or mood. It differs from the ballad, which is also a song, in that it does not tell a story; whatever narrative elements are introduced are subordinate to the expression of emotion, such as joy, sorrow, indignation, love, or reflections on some of the mysteries or experiences of life. The lyric often embodies a bit of Nature description, together with the poet's reflections upon the scene that he describes. Sometimes it is filled with serious thought; at other times it is a trifle light as air. Its perfection depends upon its singing quality and on its form. It must sing itself, or suggest

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song. It must also be carefully written. Since it is a song, it is commonly written in stanzas, not in blank verse; these stanzas are of the greatest variety. Study Bryant's poems, first, to determine which are lyrics, and, second, to observe in his lyrics illustrations of the qualities named above. Thus you will be prepared to compare him with other writers of lyric poetry such as Poe and Lanier, later in the story.

Autumn Woods. 1. The stanza should be studied. How many stresses, or accents, do you find in each line? What is the effect of the long lines in the middle of the stanza as compared with the first and fourth lines?

2. What does the poet observe as he walks through the autumn woods? Which stanzas describe what he sees, and which express his mood? What is the value of the last stanza? State the theme of the entire poem in a sentence.

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. Note that this poem is written in blank verse; is it a lyric in form? In substance? In what ways does it remind you of "Autumn Woods"?

Green River. Observe that this poem, like many others that Bryant wrote, is made up of a description of some rural or woodland scene followed by an expression of his feeling about life. To what does the last stanza of this poem refer?

June. Compare this poem with the description of a June day in Lowell's "The Vision of Sir Launfal." What two moods alternate in Bryant's poem? What, seemingly, does he most regret when he thinks of his death? Is he right in supposing that his only part in the beauty and joy of Nature "Is that his grave is green"? What other share has he in our appreciation of this beauty and joy?

A Forest Hymn. What is the verse-form? What is the theme, where is it stated, and how does it dominate the first part of the poem? Find the parts of the poem that tell of the temple; the signs of the presence of God; the effect of the temple and of this presence on the poet; the varying signs of the power of God as shown in Nature.

The Antiquity of Freedom. Notice that in "Autumn Woods" and elsewhere Bryant speaks of the calm and beauty of Nature as contrasted with the confusion of the city; in "June" he thinks of the continuance of the seasons and of human life after his own death; in "A Forest Hymn" he looks on Nature as a revelation of God and of the woods as temples. In this poem what new theme is introduced? Why should

Theme Topics. 1. How Bryant has increased my enjoyment of life. 2. A discussion of some present-day Nature poem read recently. 3. Prepare arguments to support you in the following statement: "Bryant would (or would not) have made a good naturalist."

Previously Read. In Literature and Life, Book One, "Thanatopsis"; and "Ulysses Among the Phæacians," from Bryant's translation of the Odyssey.

Library Reading. Increase your knowledge of Bryant's work by reading in the library the following poems. Even if you have already read some of them, you will find it interesting to reread them in the light of your present study of Bryant's place among the American poets. Be prepared to make a report on the poem or poems you liked best in the list: "The Yellow Violet,' "The Death of the Flowers," "A Winter Piece," "Hymn to Death," "The Evening Wind,” “Our Country's Call," "My Autumn Walk,” “The Death of Lincoln,” “March," "The Gladness of Nature," "The Green Mountain Boys," "The Tides," "The Return of the Birds."

By 1840 the population of the United States had grown to seventeen millions; ten years later it was twenty-three millions. Immigrants were pouring into the country (for example, 114,000 in 1845; 235,000 in 1847) to assist in the enormous industrial enterprises of the great cities, in the building of railroads and canals for better communication, and in the conquest of the vast agricultural regions of the West. Railroads multiplied. Wealth increased fourfold in twenty years. After 1837, largely through the work of Horace Mann, free public education became as characteristic of the American idea as the form of the government itself. Lyceums, with declamations and debates among their own members and with lecture courses that secured the services of men like Emerson, stimulated thought and discussion even in remote villages. Country boys worked on farms in summer, taught short terms of school in winter, and "boarded round," in order to save money to pay for four years' training in some little college. The marvelous material prosperity of America increased no whit faster than this intellectual hunger which penetrated the remotest western hamlets.

Emerson's "The American Scholar" of 1837, therefore, was no merely academic address. It found instant echo not only in the hearts and minds of the Harvard assembly which first heard it, but throughout the country. It was an interpretation of the finer ideals that were expressive of an awakened intellectual life. "Free should the scholar be," he declared, "free and grave." From the mind of the past, from the world of Nature, in the midst of action, he was to get his food. Books and libraries, the new public schools and the innumerable small colleges, lyceums and lecture courses, these supplied the contact

with the mind of the past. Horace Mann was a missionary of educational gospel. "Be ashamed to die," he said to an eager class of graduates, "until you have won some victory for humanity." Like Mann, Garfield was president of a little midwestern college, his life there a romance, his pupils followers of the Grail of learning. The boy Lincoln trudged for miles to borrow a book. These are cases exceptional only because of the renown won in after years by the men in whose lives they were incidents. They could be duplicated, they were duplicated, a thousand times.

Thus we approach a new period, that of interpretation. Politically, as you know, it was a question of interpreting the relation between the central government and the states. Ethically, it was an interpretation of the meaning of slavery, of whether the nation could continue to exist part slave and part free. Great orators like Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison; great constitutional lawyers like Calhoun, Clay, Webster; statesmen like Lincoln, all had a share in this interpretation of the nation, but they were only the visible representatives of a powerful leaven of thought that was at work. Before some of these questions of interpretation could be settled, a great and terrible war had to be fought. In an address at Gettysburg delivered during the course of that war, Lincoln interpreted anew the meaning of the nation. His address was a new chapter in what might be called the American Charter of Liberties, and it should follow the chapters in which are found first the Mayflower Compact, second, the Declaration of Independence, and third, the Constitution.

All this, once more, is but the background, the setting, for our story. The province of literature is to interpret. It

is the record of the thoughts and ideals of men. It is the expression of the human spirit as it looks forth on all the varying scenes of life. This life is at one time the toil of the pioneer; at another the struggle on the battlefield; at another the eager quest for wealth, for building of industries, for reducing vast prairies to cultivation, for exploring the recesses of the earth. If a great people become divided on some of the fundamental issues of government, literature contributes its interpretation. If men are on fire with the passion for learning, literature answers to their need.

So in this time of testing, of material growth, of intellectual expansion, poets and thinkers and tellers of tales were born. A great creative impulse, strongest at first in New England, later in the South, still later in the West, spread throughout the land. Books, poems, tales, penetrated from one section to another. The elder writers, Irving, Cooper, Bryant, were still writing when Emerson's "The American Scholar" was written. They represented the region in and near New York. In the South, Poe was educated and spent part of his short life, the creator of pure art in rhythmical language, the forerunner of a small but brilliant group in which Lanier was to achieve a place second only

to that of Poe. The West was still in the pioneer stage; it found no authentic voice until about 1870. The center of the new creative activity was in New England, where a group of writers, of whom Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell were the leaders, gave, year after year, proofs that at last a national literature was born.

These men were interpreters of the nation. What each contributed you are now to learn. Following them, the chapter will include an account of a group of historians and a group of orators and statesmen who helped in this interpretation. The contribution of the South will follow, carrying the story from Poe, early in the century, to Lanier and his fellows who belong to the period immediately following the war. And out of all the conflict of aims and purposes, the interpretations of various phases of American thought about literature and life, there comes, at the end of the era and as the prophet of the new frontiers that were to open before a reunited nation, a poet who sees all the masses of democracy, the "torrents of men," who hears America singing a song of occupations, and who conceives of America as a step in a great process of evolution, with victories yet to be

won.

In a sense, Emerson continued into the nineteenth century certain elements in American thought that had been expressed in the writings of colonial divines and especially in those of Jonathan Edwards. Like these ancestors of his, he was continually meditating on the relation of the soul to God. He differed from them, it is true, in that he was impatient of formal creed or manner of worship. He tried the ministry, but gave it up because he was not happy in it. The first thing to

remember about his work is his doctrine that through meditation the soul may come into the presence of the divine and can seize upon truth through intuition, not through reason, and not through memorizing what previous generations have held to be truth.

This aspect of Emerson's thought is called "transcendental." The word is a hard one, and its full meaning cannot be grasped at once. But you can get the essential idea contained in it if you re