tainty, and we have touches of both Along the dreary landscape gloom and brightness. His eyes went to and fro, The trees all clad in icicles, The streams that did not flow. What the poet's own feeling was as to winter is left uncertain; for the character of the human element in the poem accounts for the melancholy setting. To Bryant we would look for a much more definite expression. He had a profound affection for his native hills. in western Massachusetts, and there was a ruggedness in his personality that put him in sympathy with the rugged in nature. His view is sober, but not gloomy, in spite of the fact that the country he loved would impress most with a sense of vast loneliness, especially when the great heaving hills are The most vigorous and refreshing bit of winter in Longfellow is this from "January": I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow; I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen; My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men. In nearly all he wrote Longfellow is wholesome and inspiring, but his verse is not without touches of sadness and mild melancholy, and he often sings of nature in a minor key. It is no wonder, then, if we sometimes find him picturing winter in a rather somber aspect. He is especially dubious in these verses from "Afternoon in February": The day is ending, The night is descending; Through clouds like ashes The red sun flashes On village windows The snow recommences; The road o'er the plain; While through the meadows, Like fearful shadows, Slowly passes a funeral train. His description of "the long and dreary winter" in "Hiawatha" is no less depressing, but there winter is naturally sober hued because of the famine that stalks through the land. Again, in "The Wreck of the Hesperus," the subject of the poem makes it no surprise that winter should be presented as more a foe than a friend. With such a topic, however, as the "Woods in Winter," we would expect something radically different in tone, yet the poet delivers himself with considerable uncer tainty, and we have touches of both Along the dreary landscape gloom and brightness. His eyes went to and fro, The trees all clad in icicles, The streams that did not flow. What the poet's own feeling was as to winter is left uncertain; for the character of the human element in the poem accounts for the melancholy setting. To Bryant we would look for a much more definite expression. He had a profound affection for his native hills in western Massachusetts, and there was a ruggedness in his personality that put him in sympathy with the rugged in nature. His view is sober, but not gloomy, in spite of the fact that the country he loved would impress most with a sense of vast loneliness, especially when the great heaving hills are as covered with their mantle of snow. Bryant himself calls them "wild solitudes,' but adds "yet beautiful wild," and he tells how "when the ills of life had chafed his spirit," he would "wander forth and seek the woods." In his "A Winter Piece" he affirms that the cold months boast Splendors beyond what gorgeous summer knows, Or autumn with his many fruits, and woods All flushed with merry hues. Come when the rains Have glazed the snow and clothed the trees with ice, While the slant sun of February pours Into the bowers a flood of light. Ap proach! The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps, And the broad arching portals of the grove Welcome thy entering. Look! the mossy trunks Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray, Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven. In another poem which he calls simply, "Song," the opening lines are these: Dost thou idly ask to hear At what gentle seasons Nymphs relent, when lovers near Press the tenderest reasons? The next three verses in turn advise to "woo the fair one" in spring, in summer, in autumn; but the final verse says: Woo her when the north winds call Blaze the fagots brightly; This may not mean that wintry blasts and biting frosts and drifting snows are in themselves particularly |